“Murad,” and Mrs. Ault spoke as if she were not thinking of the change for herself, “there is one thing I wish you would do for me, dear.”
“What is that?”
“Go to Mr. Mavick, or to Mrs. Mavick, or the assignees or whoever, and have the daughter—yes, and her mother—free to take away anything they want, anything dear to them by long association. Will you?”
“I don't see how. Mavick wouldn't do it for us, and I guess he is too proud to accept anything from me. I don't owe him anything. And then the property is in the assignment. Whatever is there I bought with the house.”
“I should be so much happier if you could do something about it.”
“Well, it don't matter much. I guess the assignees can make Mrs. Mavick believe easy enough that certain things belong to her. But I would not do it for any other living being but you.”
“By-the-way,” he added, “there is another bit of property that I didn't take, the Newport palace.”
“I should have dreaded that more than the other.”
“So I thought. And I have another plan. It's long been in my mind, and we will carry it out next summer. There is a little plateau on the side of the East Mountain in Rivervale, where there used to stand a shack of a cabin, with a wild sort of garden-patch about it, a tumble-down root fence, all in the midst of brush and briers. Lord, what a habitation it was! But such a view—rivers, mountains, meadows, and orchards in the distance! That is where I lived with my mother. What a life! I hated everything, everybody but her.”
Mr. Ault paused, his strong, dark face working with passion, as the memory of his outlawed boyhood revived. Is it possible that this pirate of the Street had a bit of sentiment at the bottom of his heart? After a moment he continued: