“Can't be did!” repeated Mrs. Pottinger, rising in her turn and fixing upon the unfortunate Prosper a pair of murky piratical eyes that had once quelled the sea-roving Pottinger. “Do you, my adopted son, dare to tell me that I can't have my own flesh and blood beneath my roof?”
“Yes! I'd rather tell the whole story—I'd rather tell the boys I fooled them—than go on again!” burst out the excited Prosper.
But Mrs. Pottinger only set her lips implacably together. “Very well, tell them then,” she said rigidly; “tell them how you lured me from my humble dependence in San Francisco with the prospect of a home with you; tell them how you compelled me to deceive their trusting hearts with your wicked falsehoods; tell them how you—a foundling—borrowed me for your mother, my poor dead husband for your father, and made me invent falsehood upon falsehood to tell them while you sat still and listened!”
Prosper gasped.
“Tell them,” she went on deliberately, “that when I wanted to bring my helpless child to her only home—THEN, only then—you determined to break your word to me, either because you meanly begrudged her that share of your house, or to keep your misdeeds from her knowledge! Tell them that, Prossy, dear, and see what they'll say!”
Prosper sank back in his chair aghast. In his sudden instinct of revolt he had forgotten the camp! He knew, alas, too well what they would say! He knew that, added to their indignation at having been duped, their chivalry and absurd sentiment would rise in arms against the abandonment of two helpless women!
“P'r'aps ye're right, ma'am,” he stammered. “I was only thinkin',” he added feebly, “how SHE'D take it.”
“She'll take it as I wish her to take it,” said Mrs. Pottinger firmly.
“Supposin', ez the camp don't know her, and I ain't bin talkin' o' havin' any SISTER, you ran her in here as my COUSIN? See? You bein' her aunt?”
Mrs. Pottinger regarded him with compressed lips for some time. Then she said, slowly and half meditatively: “Yes, it might be done! She will probably be willing to sacrifice her nearer relationship to save herself from passing as your sister. It would be less galling to her pride, and she wouldn't have to treat you so familiarly.”