“What reason did he give?” I asked, for I could conceive no reason whatsoever.
Aurora and Walter were silent. Walter looked as if he wished he had not launched his torpedo at James.
“What reason, Aurora?” I insisted.
She flushed and stammered: “He said he—he didn’t want to be hated by mother and the rest of us. He said we’d have the right to hate him, and couldn’t help it if he should be low enough to profit by your—your——”
“My—what?”
“Your heartlessness.”
“And do you think my plan was heartless?” I asked.
“No,” said Aurora, but I saw that she thought “Yes.”
“You’ve a right to do as you wish with your own,” said Walter. “We know you’ll do what is for the best interest of us all. Even if you should leave us nothing, we’d still be in your debt. You owe us nothing, father. We owe you everything.”
Although this was simply a statement of a truth which I hold to be fundamental, it irritated me to hear him say it. I know too well what havoc self-interest works in the sense of right and wrong, and Walter would be the first of my children to insult my memory if he were to get less by a penny than any other of the family. Had I been concerning myself about what my wife and my children would think of me after I was gone, I should never have entertained the idea of founding a family. But men of large view and large wealth and large ambition do not heed these minor matters. When it comes to human beings, they deal in generals, not in particulars.