“You ought to have told me. I have money.”
“I guess he wouldn’t take it. He’s had pretty hard lines all round; he wanted terribly bad to go straight to Ferdie, as soon as he heard he was shot. But Mrs. Morrison—she had come here, you know; and he had all Ferdie’s expenses to think of too, so that kept him grinding along. But he wanted awfully to go; he thought the world and all of Ferdie.”
“I know he did,” said Eve. And now her face was like a tragic mask—deadly white, with a frown, the eyes under her straight brows looking at him fixedly.
“Oh, eheu!” thought Hollis distressfully, disgustedly. “You screw yourself up to tell her all these things about him, because you think it will please her; and this is the way she takes ’em!”
He looked at her again; she gave no sign. Feeling painfully insignificant and helpless, he turned and left the room.
A few minutes later Paul came in. “You have sold your Clay County iron!” said Eve.
“I have always intended to sell it.”
“Not at a sacrifice.”
“One does as one can—a business transaction.”
“How much money have you sent to your brother all these years?”