``For it looks as though we were going to be wretchedly poor.And poverty is so repulsive.''
``Do you think,'' said Mildred, ``that giving me the idea that I must marry right away will make it easier for me to marry? Everyone who knows us knows our circumstances.'' She looked significantly at Frank's wife, who had been wailing through Hanging Rock the woeful plight of her dead father-in-law's family.
The young Mrs.Gower blushed and glanced away.
``And,'' Mildred went on, ``everyone is saying that Imust marry at once--that there's nothing else for me to do.'' She smiled bitterly.``When I go into the street again I shall see nothing but flying men.And no man would come to call unless he brought a chaperon and a witness with him.''
``How can you be so frivolous?'' reproached her mother.
Mildred was used to being misunderstood by her mother, who had long since been made hopelessly dull by the suffocating life she led and by pain from her feet, which never left her at ease for a moment except when she had them soaking in cold water.Mrs.Gower had been born with ordinary feet, neither ugly nor pretty and entirely fit for the uses for which nature intended feet.She had spoiled them by wearing shoes to make them look smaller and slimmer than they were.
In steady weather she was plaintive; in changeable weather she varied between irritable and violent.
Said Mildred to her brother: ``How much--JUST how much is there?''
``I can't say exactly,'' replied her brother, who had not yet solved to his satisfaction the moral problem of how much of the estate he ought to allow his mother and sister and how much he ought to claim for himself --in such a way that the claim could not be disputed.
Mildred looked fixedly at him.He showed his uneasiness not by glancing away, but by the appearance of a certain hard defiance in his eyes.Said she:
``What is the very most we can hope for?''
A silence.Her mother broke it.``Mildred, how CAN you talk of those things--already?''
``I don't know,'' replied Mildred.``Perhaps because it's got to be done.''
This seemed to them all--and to herself--a lame excuse for such apparent hardness of heart.Her father had always been SENDER-HEARTED--HAD NEVERSPOKEN OF MONEY, OR ENCOURAGED HIS FAMILY IN SPEAKING OF IT.
A LONG AND PAINFUL SILENCE.THEN, THE WIDOWABRUPTLY:
``YOU'RE SURE, Frank, there's NO insurance?''
``Father always said that you disliked the idea,''
replied her son; ``that you thought insurance looked like your calculating on his death.''
Under her husband's adroit prompting Mrs.Gower had discovered such a view of insurance in her brain.
She now recalled expressing it--and regretted.But she was silenced.She tried to take her mind of the sub-ject of money.But, like Mildred, she could not.The thought of imminent poverty was nagging at them like toothache.``There'll be enough for a year or so?''
she said, timidly interrogative.
``I hope so,'' said Frank.
Mildred was eying him fixedly again.Said she:
``Have you found anything at all?''
``He had about eight thousand dollars in bank,''
said Frank.``But most of it will go for the pressing debts.''
``But how did HE expect to live?'' urged Mildred.
``Yes, there must have been SOMETHING,'' said her mother.
``Of course, there's his share of the unsettled and unfinished business of the firm,'' admitted Frank.
``How much will that be?'' persisted Mildred.
``I can't tell, offhand,'' said Frank, with virtuous reproach.``My mind's been on--other things.''
Henry Gower's widow was not without her share of instinctive shrewdness.Neither had she, unobservant though she was, been within sight of her son's character for twenty-eight years without having unconfessed, unformed misgivings concerning it.
``You mustn't bother about these things now, Frank dear,'' said she.``I'll get my brother to look into it.''
``That won't be necessary,'' hastily said Frank.``Idon't want any rival lawyer peeping into our firm's affairs.''
``My brother Wharton is the soul of honor,'' said Mrs.Gower, the elder, with dignity.``You are too young to take all the responsibility of settling the estate.Yes, I'll send for Wharton to-morrow.''
``It'll look as though you didn't trust me,'' said Frank sourly.
``We mustn't do anything to start the gossips in this town,'' said his wife, assisting.
``Then send for him yourself, Frank,'' said Mildred, ``and give him charge of the whole matter.''
Frank eyed her furiously.``How ashamed father would be!'' exclaimed he.
But this solemn invoking of the dead man's spirit was uneffectual.The specter of poverty was too insistent, too terrible.Said the widow:
``I'm sure, in the circumstances, my dear dead husband would want me to get help from someone older and more experienced.''
And Frank, guilty of conscience and an expert in the ways of conventional and highly moral rascality, ceased to resist.His wife, scenting danger to their getting the share that ``rightfully belongs to the son, especially when he has been the brains of the firm for several years,'' made angry and indiscreet battle for no outside interference.The longer she talked the firmer the widow and the daughter became, not only because she clarified suspicions that had been too hazy to take form, but also because they disliked her intensely.
The following day Wharton Conover became unofficial administrator.He had no difficulty in baffling Frank Gower's half-hearted and clumsy efforts to hide two large fees due the dead man's estate.He discovered clear assets amounting in all to sixty-three thousand dollars, most of it available within a few months.
``As you have the good-will of the firm and as your mother and sister have only what can be realized in cash,'' said he to Frank, ``no doubt you won't insist on your third.''
``I've got to consider my wife,'' said Frank.``Ican't do as I'd like.''
``You are going to insist on your third?'' said Conover, with an accent that made Frank quiver.
``I can't do otherwise,'' said he in a dogged, shamed way.
