“Have you known Miranda longer than any of us and have not yet learned that she would give the breath out of her body to make other people happy? Would she complain or choose otherwise if she thought your desire was set upon this one thing, this machine that you call a life work, but that any one else would call a pleasant fad, a plaything that would never succeed?”
“If my recollection is correct,” Mr. Reynolds said, “she used to make some sacrifices for you, when you lived with us, that you might be happy.”
His chance shot seemed to strike at some more vivid memory than he knew. The other was silent for a minute, but then burst forth again, more sharply and bitterly than before.
“Is that any reason why I should stand by now, and see her robbed and cheated as you are cheating her? You are willing to spend your life following a dream, but you have no right to spend hers. You say that she is willing, but do you really know it? Do you notice how worn and tired and anxious she begins to look?”
Elizabeth would have broken in upon him, checking his words with a wild tumult of indignant protest, but David laid a hand upon her arm. This was a matter for their elders alone, his look seemed to say, and must not be interrupted.
“Suppose, Donald,” Mr. Reynolds was beginning gently, “suppose this affair were to turn out less of a dream than you think? We have followed dreams before, we and our forbears in this family, and they have led to success and—what appeals to you far more—to fortune. Miranda is, I know, looking worn and troubled; I think it is her home that she is grieving for. It is my belief that in a very little time she may have it back again.”
“People like you are always hopeful,” returned Donald, “always declaring that with a little more time and a great deal more money, success will come. Can you not stop deceiving yourself, can you not give up and admit that you have failed? You have a handful of screws and wires and a few turning wheels here—” he waved his hand to include the whole workshop in the scorn of a person who knows nothing of mechanics—“but what do they signify? What do they count for compared to ten years of your life, or of Miranda’s?”
He leaned his elbows on the table, brought his face closer yet to his unhappy uncle’s and spoke with even fiercer accusation.
“You say that you will be able to give back to Miranda the house she loves, when all that you have ever done is to destroy it for her. Have you ever looked over the ruins, as I have, noticed that the blaze was hottest at the south end, and hottest of all where your workshop stood? That was where the fire began, there can be no doubt of it. Miranda says it was lightning that set the house on fire, but—” he lowered his voice—“I know better. A spark from one of your wires, a blaze in some oily packing, that is what brought about the tragedy. You mechanical geniuses are too much in the clouds to safeguard those you pretend to love. The burning of the house was due to your own heedlessness!”
“No, no, Donald,” cried the old man, driven out of his calmness at last, and with his voice betraying cruel pain. “I can’t—I won’t believe that it was my doing!”