“Oh, I know. You’ve done all you could do for my child.”
“No; not all.” Delia rose, and stood before her cousin with a kind of solemnity. “But now I’m going to.” It was as if she had pronounced a vow.
Charlotte Lovell looked up at her with a glitter of apprehension in her hunted eyes.
“If you mean that you’re going to use your influence with the Halseys—I’m very grateful to you; I shall always be grateful. But I don’t want a compulsory marriage for my child.”
Delia flushed at the other’s incomprehension. It seemed to her that her tremendous purpose must be written on her face. “I’m going to adopt Tina—give her my name,” she announced.
Charlotte Lovell stared at her stonily. “Adopt her—adopt her?”
“Don’t you see, dear, the difference it will make? There’s my mother’s money—the Lovell money; it’s not much, to be sure; but Jim always wanted it to go back to the Lovells. And my Delia and her brother are so handsomely provided for. There’s no reason why my little fortune shouldn’t go to Tina. And why she shouldn’t be known as Tina Ralston.” Delia paused. “I believe—I think I know—that Jim would have approved of that too.”
“Approved?”
“Yes. Can’t you see that when he let me take the child he must have foreseen and accepted whatever—whatever might eventually come of it?”
Charlotte stood up also. “Thank you, Delia. But nothing more must come of it, except our leaving you; our leaving you now. I’m sure that’s what Jim would have approved.”