He turned upon her, goaded to frenzy.
“Your sister!” he cried—“she is your sister? And she values it, does she? Will you, I wonder, when I tell you that she procured from me by fraud the money with which to pay for it?”
“I told you,” said the woman, cold and passionless, “that personally I didn’t hold by them. This one, I know, was beyond our means.”
“Do you know what story she invented to augment those means?”
“No, sir, I don’t; nor do I intend to ask. I take it that you were her victim in some way. She is a woman of the most resourceful imagination.”
“You look upon it in that light? Then I presume, of course, that you are her partner and abettor in the other fraud?”
“What fraud?”
“Why, this,” said Gilead, with a comprehensive, disdainful gesture—“all the fruits, I am to conclude, of begging at street corners?”
“Why is that a fraud?” said the woman. “Not merit but natural qualifications are the key to all success. It is the taking, not the good person, who gets on in the world. If the public likes to pay toll to a lovely face, a sweet voice, why should we disappoint it and starve? We have no other alternative, believe me?”
“The child,” said Gilead, still sternly—“is that hers?”