"Do you mind my sitting with you, father?"
He did not answer. She went to him, touched him. He was dead.
As a rule death is not without mitigations, consolations even. Where it is preceded by a long and troublesome illness, disrupting the routine of the family and keeping everybody from doing the things he or she wishes, it comes as a relief. In this particular case not only was the death a relief, but also the estate of the dead man provided all the chief mourners with instant and absorbing occupation. If he had left a will, the acrimony of the heirs would have been caused by dissatisfaction with his way of distributing the property. Leaving no will, he plunged the three heirs—or, rather, the five heirs, for the husband of Martha and the wife of the son were most important factors—he plunged the five heirs into a ferment of furious dispute as to who was to have what. Martha and her husband and the daughter-in-law were people of exceedingly small mind. Trifles, therefore, agitated them to the exclusion of larger matters. The three fell to quarreling violently over the division of silverware, jewelry and furniture. Jane was so enraged by the "disgusting spectacle" that she proceeded to take part in it and to demand everything which she thought it would irritate Martha Galland or Irene Hastings to have to give up.
The three women and Hugo—for Hugo loved petty wrangling—spent day after day in the bitterest quarrels. Each morning Jane, ashamed overnight, would issue from her room resolved to have no part in the vulgar rowdyism. Before an hour had passed she would be the angriest of the disputants. Except her own unquestioned belongings there wasn't a thing in the house or stables about which she cared in the least. But there was a principle at stake—and for principle she would fight in the last ditch.
None of them wished to call in arbitrators or executors; why go to that expense? So, the bickering and wrangling, the insults and tears and sneers went on from day to day. At last they settled the whole matter by lot—and by a series of easily arranged exchanges where the results of the drawings were unsatisfactory. Peace was restored, but not liking. Each of the three groups—Hugo and Martha, Will and Irene, Jane in a group by herself—detested the other two. They felt that they had found each other out. As Martha said to Hugo, "It takes a thing of this kind to show people up in their true colors." Or, as Jane said to Doctor Charlton, "What beasts human beings are!"
Said he: "What beasts circumstance makes of some of them sometimes."
"You are charitable," said Jane.
"I am scientific," replied he. "It's very intelligent to go about distributing praise and blame. To do that is to obey a slightly higher development of the instinct that leads one to scowl at and curse the stone he stumps his toe on. The sensible thing to do is to look at the causes of things—of brutishness in human beings, for example—and to remove those causes."
"It was wonderful, the way you dragged father back to life and almost saved him. That reminds me. Wait a second, please."
She went up to her room and got the envelope addressed to Charlton which she had found in the drawer, as her father directed. Charlton opened it, took out five bank notes each of a thousand dollars. She glanced at the money, then at his face. It did not express the emotion she was expecting. On the contrary, its look was of pleased curiosity.