Part 60 (1/2)
She shook her head. ”I will not tell you that, David. Only he and I are to know.”
”And you are to send him money from time to time?”
”No, I am not to send him a penny.”
”He goes to-night--positively?”
”He goes to-night, positively.”
”And he refuses to see Christine?”
”Why should he see her?”
”Well, I don't know,” said he dubiously. ”It seems rather hard, don't you think?”
”Yes. He wors.h.i.+ps her, David. Yes, it is hard. He is going in this way because it makes it easier--for both of them, he says. You see, David, he is doing it for her sake, not for his own. If he were to do things just now for his own sake, he would kill Grand instead of running away from him.”
”He's a good deal of a man, after all, Mrs. Braddock.”
”A good deal of a man,” she repeated.
”He wishes Christine to be my wife. He told you so, but she won't consent until you tell her that it is all right. It's silly of her. I'm never going to give her up, and she knows it.”
She faced him suddenly. ”You ask me why the marriage cannot take place to-morrow, David. Would you be just as eager to have it take place if her father decided to change his mind and remain here, with all the consequences such an act might create?”
”Certainly,” he replied promptly.
”You do not forget what he is, what he has been, what he may yet become?”
”That has nothing to do with it. I love Christine.”
”Would you be willing to stand at his side, the husband of his daughter, and say, 'I am content to be called your son'--would you?”
David stared hard at the floor for a moment. ”I think that is rather an unfair question, Mrs. Braddock, when we stop to recall the fact that both you and Christine have denied him for years. I will call myself his son when you call him husband and Christine speaks of him as father--to the world. You can hardly expect me to be proud of what you are ashamed to own.”
She bowed her head in sudden humility. ”I was wrong,” she said. ”I deserve the rebuke.”
”I have hurt you. Forgive me.”
She placed her hand on his. He observed that it was as cold as ice.
”While it is true that we have denied him, my dear David, nevertheless we do belong to him. She is his daughter. That is what I am trying to make plain to you.”
”If she chooses to call herself his daughter, I am perfectly content to call myself his son.”
”I wanted to hear you say that, David. You must take her as Thomas Braddock's daughter, quite as much as you do as Albert Portman's granddaughter.”
”I am not deceiving myself,” he said with a smile.
”Then I am ready to give my consent to an immediate marriage,” she said. For the first time since their interview began she spoke hurriedly. A feverish light came into her eyes, burning bright and dry.