“Armine will walk through life like Allen,” scornfully said Janet; “besides he is but fourteen. Now, mother, why should not I be worthy?”
“My dear Janet, it is not a question of worthiness; it is not a thing a woman could work out.”
“I do not ask you to give it to me now, nor even to promise it to me,” said Janet, with a light in those dark wells, her eyes; “but only to let me have the hope, that when in three years’ time I am qualified, and have passed the examinations, if Bobus does not take it up, you will let me claim that best inheritance my father left, but which his sons do not heed.”
“My child, you do not know what you ask. Remember, I know more about it than only what you picked up on that morning. It is a matter he could not have made sure of without a succession of experiments very hard even for him, and certainly quite impossible for any woman. The exceeding difficulty and danger of the proof was one reason of his guarding it so much, and desiring it should only be told to one good as well as clever—clever as well as good.”
“Can you give me no hint of the kind of thing,” said Janet, wistfully.
“That would be a betrayal of his trust.”
Janet looked terribly disappointed.
“Mother,” said she, “let me put it to you. Is it fair to shut up a discovery that might benefit so many people.”
“It is not his fault, Janet, that it is shut up. He talked of it to several of the most able men he was connected with, and they thought it a chimera. He could not carry it on far enough to convince them. I do not know what he would have done if his illness had been longer, or he could have talked it out with any one, but I know the proof could only be made out by a course of experiments which he could not commit to any one not highly qualified, or whom he could not entirely trust. It is not a thing to be set forth broadcast, while it might yet prove a fallacy.”
“Is it to be lost for ever, then?”