"I don't like it," said Victor. But he said it in such a way that she did not feel rebuked or even judged.
"Nor do I," said she. "I'd rather lead the life I wish to lead—say the things I believe—do the things I believe in—all openly. But I can't. And all I can do is to spend the income of my money my mother left me—spend it as I please." With a quick embarrassed gesture she took an envelope from a small bag in which she was carrying it. "There's some of it," she said. "I want to give that to your campaign fund. You are free to use it in any way you please—any way, for everything you are and do is your cause."
Victor was lying motionless, his eyes closed.
"Don't refuse," she begged. "You've no right to refuse."
A long silence, she watching him uneasily. At last he said, "No—I've no right to refuse. If I did, it would be from a personal motive. You understand that when you give the League this money you are doing what your father would regard as an act of personal treachery to him?"
"You don't think so, do you?" cried she.
"Yes, I do," said he deliberately.
Her face became deathly pale, then crimson. She thrust the envelope into the bag, closed it hastily. "Then I can't give it," she murmured. "Oh—but you are hard!"
"If you broke with your father and came with us—and it killed him, as it probably would," Victor Dorn went on, "I should respect you—should regard you as a wonderful, terrible woman. I should envy you having a heart strong enough to do a thing so supremely right and so supremely relentless. And I should be glad you were not of my blood—should think you hardly human. Yet that is what you ought to do."
"I am not up to it," said Jane.