"I"d give her some."
"No," Diane said, quickly, with a renewed touch of indignation, "but that you"d help me to do it."
He looked at her with an odd, upward glance under his s.h.a.ggy, overhanging brows, while the protruding lower lip went a shade further out.
"Help you to do it? How?"
"By letting her have mine."
Again he looked at her, almost suspiciously.
"You"ve got plenty to give away, I suppose?"
"On the contrary, I"ve pitifully little; but such as it is, I want her to have it all. She could live on it--with economy; or at least she says I could."
"And can"t you?"
"I don"t want to. As there isn"t enough for two, I wish to settle it on her. Isn"t that the word?--settle?"
"It"ll do as well as another. And what do you propose to do yourself?"
"Work."
Diane forced the word in a little gasp of humiliation, but she got it out.
"And what"ll you work at?"
"I don"t know yet, exactly. I shall have to see. My mother-in-law is going to America; and when she does I"ll join her."
"Humph! My good woman, you wouldn"t do more than just keep ahead of starvation."
"Oh, I shouldn"t expect to do more. If I succeeded in that--I should live."
"How much money have you got?"
"It"s all here," she answered, picking up the black satchel and opening it. "These are my securities, and I"m told they"re very good."
"And do you take them round with you every time you go shopping?"
"No," Diane smiled, somewhat wanly. "They"ve been in the hands of the Messrs. Hargous for a good many years past. They are entirely at my own disposal--not in trust, they said; so that I had a right to take them away. I thought I would just bring them to you."
"What for?"
"To keep them for my mother-in-law and pay her the interest, or whatever it is."
"Why didn"t you leave them with Hargous?"
"I was afraid, from some things he said, he would object to what I wanted to do."
"And what made you think I wouldn"t object to it, too?"
"Two or three reasons. First, Monsieur Hargous is not an American, and you are; and I"d been told that Americans always like to help one another--"
"I don"t know who could have put that notion into your head."
"And, then, from the few glimpses I"ve had of you--I _will_ say it!--I thought you looked kind."
"Well, now that you"ve had a better look, you see I don"t. How much money have you got? You haven"t told me that yet."
"Here"s the memorandum. They said they were mostly bonds, and very good ones."
[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG THE BANKER TOOK A LONGER TIME THAN WAS NECESSARY TO SCAN THE POOR LITTLE LIST]
With the slip of paper in his hand the banker leaned back in the chair, and took a longer time than was necessary to scan the poor little list.
In reality he was turning over in his mind the unexpected features of the case, venturing a peep at Diane as she sat meekly awaiting the end of his perusal.
"Hasn"t it occurred to you," he asked, at last, "that you could leave your affairs in Hargous" hands, and still turn over to your mother-in-law whatever sums he paid you?"
"Yes; but she wouldn"t take the money unless she thought it was her very own."
"But it isn"t her very own. It"s yours."
"I want to make it hers. I want to transfer it to her absolutely--so that no one else, not even I, shall have a claim upon it. There must be ways of doing that."
"There are ways of doing that, but as far as she"s concerned it comes to the same thing. If she won"t touch the income, she will refuse to accept the princ.i.p.al."
"I"ve thought of that, too; and it"s among the reasons why I"ve come to you. I hoped you"d help me--"
"To tell a lie about it."
"I should think it might be done without that. My mother-in-law is a very simple woman in business affairs. She has been used all her life to having money paid into her account, when she had only the vaguest idea as to where it came from. If you should write to her now and say that some small funds in her name were in your hands, and that you would pay her the income at stated intervals, nothing would seem more natural to her. She would probably attribute it to some act of foresight on her son"s part, and never think I had anything to do with it at all."
For three or four minutes he sat in meditation, still glancing at her furtively under his s.h.a.ggy brows, while she waited for his decision.
"I don"t approve of it at all," he said, at last.
"Don"t say that," she pleaded. "I"ve hoped so much that you"d--"
"At the same time I won"t say that the thing isn"t feasible. I"ll just verify these bonds and certificates, and--"
He took them, one by one, from the bag, and, having compared them with the list, replaced them.
"And," he continued, "you can come and see me again at this time to-morrow."
"Oh, thank you!"
"You can thank me when I"ve done something--not before. Very likely I sha"n"t do anything at all. But in the mean while you may leave your satchel here, and not run the risk of being robbed in the street. If I refuse you to-morrow--as is probable I shall--I"ll send a man with you to see you and your money safely back to Hargous."