"To pry into what I am doing! Let him be careful, or it will be the worse for him!"
"Jeremiah!"
"Don't 'Jeremiah' me! I won't stand it! What do I care for that—that image? Do you think I will have him come spying into my affairs? Let him look to himself—that's all I've got to say."
"At any rate," said Mrs. Pamflett, whose face had grown as white as her son's, "he can't leave Parksides."
"You take care that he doesn't—that's what you've got to see to. If he gets any better, make it impossible for him to leave."
"Jere—!" But a warning look from her son prevented her from getting farther with his name. Then she wrung her hands, and cried, "Oh! what are you doing—what are you doing?"
From fever-heat he went down to zero. "What do you think I am doing?"
"I don't know what to think, Jeremiah. You frighten me!"
He did not speak for a moment or two, and in her agony of impatience she cried, "Why don't you answer me?"
"I am puzzling my head to find out," he said, frigidly, "why I have frightened you." He suddenly changed his tone, and spoke with warmth. "Just you mind what I say, mother. What I choose to tell you, I'll tell you; what I choose to keep to myself, I'll keep to myself. I'm on the road to a great fortune—a glorious fortune; and I'm not going to miss it. I've made a discovery, and if I'm idiot enough to blurt it out, everything will be spoiled. Besides, you wouldn't understand it. Can't you be satisfied? I'm working for you as well as for myself. Do you want to go on slaving here all your life, instead of being mistress of a fine house of your own, with servants and horses and carriages, and the best people in the country bowing down to you? Take your choice. But mind, if anything's got to be done to bring this all about—I don't care whether it is you or I who's got to do it—done it must be. If I'm lucky, you shall share my luck. If I'm unlucky—Well, now, what have you got to say to that?"