Elizabeth was ready for the storm, and met it without flurry. She looked at her husband quietly, steadily, sorrowfully.
“I shall sign no mortgages, if that is what you are in doubt about,” she said. “I had not intended to ask for a legal division of the property, but since you demand the right to make loans, I shall not cripple your plans with what is your own. I will have my part set aside; you can farm it in any way you choose, but you can only mortgage what is yours. I would have told you so if you had played fair and discussed this thing with me instead of leaving the house or blustering. You can tell me what you mean to do where I am concerned—you would if I were a man—or you can take just what you did to-day. You try to put me where I can’t help myself before strangers when you want me to do a thing you know I don’t think I ought to do; and you can’t handle me that way any longer.”
John Hunter had been working himself into a passion as he listened and burst out:
“And You’ll work for the best interests of this farm, that’s what You’ll do! Every time I ask you to sign a paper you make a little more fuss. Because I got in pretty deep before is no sign I’m going to do it again, and when I tell you to sign anything You’ll do it.”
His feet were very wide apart, and he thrust his face forward at her, his eyes glaring into hers with every trick which instinct prompted him to use in compelling her obedience.
Elizabeth barely glanced at him, and then looked down at the floor, quietly considering in what way she should reply to such an attack.
John was disconcerted; his little stage play had fallen flat.
After a moment’s pause, Elizabeth began very quietly:
“I will not interfere with anything you do about the land which has been left to me, except that I will not have one cent of mortgage on it. If you will keep out of debt, you can manage it any way you choose, but I will have every step of the business explained to me which involves the safety of my home, and it will be explained to me beforehand—or the same thing will happen that has just happened. I will not be deceived, even in little things.”
The girl looked him squarely and kindly in the face, but her look was as firm as if he had not blustered.