How reconcile such a look with the theory of her childlike innocence? But then how reconcile any two of the many varied personalities he had seen in her? He said: "Yes—it has been done. But not by me. I shall take from you only what you gladly give."
"You will get nothing else," said she with quiet strength.
"That being settled—" he went on, holding up a small package of papers bound together by an elastic—"Here are the proposed articles of incorporation of the Chemical Research Company. How do you like the name?"
"What is it?"
"The company that is to back your father. Capital stock, twenty-five thousand dollars, one half paid up. Your father to be employed as director of the laboratories at five thousand a year, with a fund of ten thousand to draw upon. You to be employed as secretary and treasurer at fifteen hundred a year. I will take the paid-up stock, and your father and you will have the privilege of buying it back at par within five years. Do you follow me?"
"I think I understand," was her unexpected reply. Her replies were usually unexpected, like the expressions of her face and figure; she was continually comprehending where one would have said she would not, and not comprehending where it seemed absurd that she should not. "Yes, I understand. . . . What else?"
"Nothing else."
She looked intently at him, and her eyes seemed to be reading his soul to the bottom.
"Nothing else," he repeated.
"No obligation—for money—or—for anything?"