"Yes," said Valerie, after a slight pause, in which she did not raise her eyes from the paper where her pen now drew a few neat lines. "Yes. But he has left very little for Eddy, very little for you; it was that I was thinking of."
At this Imogen's face from gentle grew very grave.
"Mama dear, I don't think that you and papa would have agreed about the upbringing of a man. You have the European standpoint; we don't hold with that over here. We believe in equipping the man, giving him power for independence, and we expect him to make his own way. Papa would rather have had Eddy work on the roads for his bread than turn him into a fainéant."
Valerie drew her lines into a square before saying, "I, you know, with Mr. Haliwell, am one of your trustees. He tells me that your father gave you a great deal."
"Whatever I asked. He had perfect trust in me. Our aims were the same."
"And how did you spend it? Don't imagine that I'm finding fault."
"Oh, I know that you couldn't well do that!" said Imogen with a smile a little bitter. "I spent very little on myself." And she continued, with somewhat the manner of humoring an exacting child: "You see, I helped a great many people; I sent two girls to college; I sent a boy—such a dear, fine boy—for three years' art-study in Paris; he is getting on so well. There is my girls' club on the East side, my girls' club in Vermont; there is the Crippled Children's Home,—quite numberless charities I'm interested in. It's been one thing after another, money has not lacked,—but time has, to answer all the claims upon me. And then," here Imogen smiled again, "I believe in the claims of the self, too, when they are disciplined and harmonized into a larger experience. There has been music to keep up; friends to see and to make things nice for; flowers to send to sick friends; concerts to send poor friends to; dinners and lunches to give so that friends may meet—all the thousand and one little things that a large, rich life demands of one."
"Yes, yes," said Valerie, who had nodded at intervals during the list. "I quite see all that. You are a dear, generous child and love to give pleasure; and your father refused you nothing. It's my fault, too. My more mercenary mind should have been near to keep watch. Because, as a, result, there's very little, dear, very, very little."
"Oh, your being here would not have changed our ideas as to the right way to spend money, mama. Don't blame yourself for that. We should have bled you, too!"
"Oh, no, you wouldn't," Valerie said quickly. "I've too much of the instinctive, selfish mother-thing in me to have allowed myself to be bled for cripples and clubs and artistic boys. I don't care about them a bit compared to you and Eddy. But this is all beside the mark. The question now is, What are we to do? Because that generous, expensive life of yours has come to an end, for the present at all events."