"A notion! I should think it was a notion, and a very foolish one, on her part; I am really half inclined to cure her of her folly by setting her free, and letting her try her freedom on, to see how it fits. Nothing but experience will teach ignorant creatures like herself."
"I've noticed, in the course of my practice, a good many such instances of folly as hers."
"They are, the best of them, a set of the dullest and most ungrateful——. Now, I want to know if there are not hundreds of white women who would jump at such a situation as Phædra's?"
"Quite likely."
"Why, where could the fool be better off, or freer, if that's her whim? She is mistress of the house—absolutely to all intents and purposes, mistress of the house. All the money for domestic expenses passes through her hands; she carries the keys, governs the maids, and arranges everything to suit herself."
"And her master, too, let us hope, sir."
"Yes, yes; I do not complain of her good management or her fidelity. In fact, I should be very unjust to do so, for she is everything that I could desire in these respects. And to render exact justice in this tribute, I may say that it would be difficult, and, more than that, it would be impossible, to replace her. It is these considerations, you see, that vex me so, when I hear of her hankering after her freedom. Freedom from what, I should like to know? In what respect does her position now differ from that of any respectable white woman, filling the situation of housekeeper?"
"Really, I wish the conversation had not arisen. Certainly, Phædra's absurd notions were not of sufficient importance to occupy so much of our attention. Now, then, to business."
And the lawyer and the heir were soon deep in the papers and accounts, which they found in such hopeless confusion as promised many weeks, if not months, and perhaps years, of legal and financial diplomacy to settle.
Phædra, when she had left the room in such a state of strange excitement, had hurried off in search of her son.