``Um,'' said Conover.``Then, on behalf of my sister and her daughter I'll have to insist on a more detailed accounting than you have been willing to give --and on the production of that small book bound in red leather which disappeared from my brother-in-law's desk the afternoon of his death.''
A wave of rage and fear surged up within Frank Gower and crashed against the seat of his life.For days thereafter he was from time to time seized with violent spasms of trembling; years afterward he was attributing premature weaknesses of old age to the effects of that moment of horror.His uncle's words came as a sudden, high shot climax to weeks of exasperating peeping and prying and questioning, of sneer and insinuation.Conover had been only moderately successful at the law, had lost clients to Frank's father, had been beaten when they were on opposite sides.He hated the father with the secret, hypocritical hatred of the highly moral and religious man.He de-spised the son.It is not often that a Christian gentleman has such an opportunity to combine justice and revenge, to feed to bursting an ancient grudge, the while conscious that he is but doing his duty.
Said Frank, when he was able to speak: ``You have been listening to the lies of some treacherous clerk here.''
``Don't destroy that little book,'' proceeded Conover tranquilly.``We can prove that you took it.''
Young Gower rose.``I must decline to have anything further to say to you, sir,'' said he.``You will leave this office, and you will not be admitted here again unless you come with proper papers as administrator.''
Conover smiled with cold satisfaction and departed.
There followed a series of quarrels--between Frank and his sister, between Frank and his mother, between Frank's wife and his mother, between Mildred and her mother, between the mother and Conover.Mrs.Gower was suspicious of her son; but she knew her brother for a pinchpenny, exacting the last drop of what he regarded as his own.And she discovered that, if she authorized him to act as administrator for her, he could --and beyond question would--take a large share of the estate.The upshot was that Frank paid over to his mother and sister forty-seven thousand dollars, and his mother and her brother stopped speaking to each other.
``I see that you have turned over all your money to mother,'' said Frank to Mildred a few days after the settlement.
``Of course,'' said Mildred.She was in a mood of high scorn for sordidness--a mood induced by the spectacle of the shameful manners of Conover, Frank, and his wife.
``Do you think that's wise?'' suggested Frank.
``I think it's decent,'' said Mildred.
``Well, I hope you'll not live to regret it,'' said her brother.
Neither Mrs.Gower nor her daughter had ever had any experience in the care of money.To both forty-seven thousand dollars seemed a fortune--forty-seven thousand dollars in cash in the bank, ready to issue forth and do their bidding at the mere writing of a few figures and a signature on a piece of paper.In a sense they knew that for many years the family's annual expenses had ranged between forty and fifty thousand, but in the sense of actuality they knew nothing about it--a state of affairs common enough in families where the man is in absolute control and spends all he makes.Money always had been forthcomcoming;{sic}
therefore money always would be forthcoming.
The mourning and the loss of the person who had filled and employed their lives caused the widow and the daughter to live very quietly during the succeeding year.They spent only half of their capital.For reasons of selfish and far-sighted prudence which need no detailing Frank moved away to New York within six months of his father's death and reduced communication between himself and wife and his mother and sister to a frigid and rapidly congealing minimum.
He calculated that by the time their capital was con-sumed they would have left no feeling of claim upon him or he feeling of duty toward them.
It was not until eighteen months after her father's death, when the total capital was sunk to less than fifteen thousand dollars, that Mildred awakened to the truth of their plight.A few months at most, and they would have to give up that beautiful house which had been her home all her life.She tried to grasp the meaning of the facts as her intelligence presented them to her, but she could not.She had no practical training whatever.She had been brought up as a rich man's child, to be married to a rich man, and never to know anything of the material details of life beyond what was necessary in managing servants after the indifferent fashion of the usual American woman of the comfortable classes.She had always had a maid; she could not even dress herself properly without the maid's assistance.Life without a maid was inconceivable;life without servants was impossible.
She wandered through the house, through the grounds.She said to herself again and again: ``We have got to give up all this, and be miserably poor--with not a servant, with less than the tenement people have.'' But the words conveyed no meaning to her.
She said to herself again and again: ``I must rouse myself.I must do something.I must--must--must!'' But she did not rouse, because there was nothing to rouse.So far as practical life was concerned she was as devoid of ideas as a new-born baby.
There was but the one hope--marriage, a rich marriage.It is the habit of men who can take care of themselves and of women who are securely well taken care of to scorn the woman or the helpless-bred man who marries for money or even entertains that idea.
