“Well, sue!” she cried. “What do I care? You can’t get anything on a forgery. I guess I know that much.”
“It will make a scandal,” said the money-lender insinuatingly.
“Let it,” she retorted angrily.
They were again making points for Murray, each showing the weakness of the other’s position, so Murray merely watched and waited.
“If there is another woman in the case,” persisted the money-lender, who had been quick to grasp the significance of the previous remarks, “the shame and disgrace—”
“What do I care?” she interrupted. “The disgrace is for her.”
“And for him,” said the money-lender. “I can make him out a forger.”
“It won’t give you the money,” she argued.
“It will make you the widow of a criminal,” he threatened. “How would you like the disgrace of that? And the other things! If I have to go to court the whole scandal will be revealed and the very name you bear will be a shame! The widow of a forger! A woman who could not hold her husband! An object of pitying contempt, so small that she would not pay an honest debt to protect the name that is hers!” In his anxiety not to lose, the money-lender became almost eloquent in picturing possible conditions. No other sentiment or emotion could have given him this power. And he saw that the effect was not lost upon the woman, for no one knew better than she the harm the exploitation of the whole miserable story would do. Even a blameless woman can not entirely escape the obloquy that attaches to the name she bears, and there had been enough already to make it difficult for Mrs. Vincent to retain a position on the fringe of society. “Of course,” he went on, “if you’d rather stand this than pay, there is nothing for me to do but leave and put the matter in the hands of a lawyer.”
“Wait a minute, Shylock,” interrupted Murray. “Mrs. Vincent is going to pay—something.”