"Since the day what he died every hour I've lived for the time when, with my children provided for, I could spend the rest of my days building to a man what deserved it such a monument as he should have. A Home for the Old and Poor with a park all around, where they can sit all day in the sun. All ready I got the plans in my room to send them down by Goldfinger this afternoon he should go right ahead and—"
"Mamma, mamma, please listen—"
But the voice of Mrs. Meyerburg rose like a gale and her face was slashed with tears. "If my last cent it takes and on the streets I go to beg, up such a Memorial goes. All you children with your feet up on his shoulders can turn away from his memory now he's gone, but up it goes if on the day what I die I got to dig dirt with my finger-nails to pay yet for my coffin."
"Listen, ma; just be calm a minute—just a minute. I don't mean that.
Didn't I just say he was the grandest father in the world and—"
"You said—"
"'Sh-h-h, mamma! Quiet, quiet! There isn't one of the boys wouldn't agree with me if they knew. We aren't big enough, I tell you, to sink a million in an out-of-town charity like that. In any charity, for that matter, no matter how big it shows up. You say yourself a million and a half will cripple you. Well, your first duty is to us living and not to him dead—To us living! It means my whole life, my whole life!" And she beat the pillow with hard fists.
"Ja, but—"
"With that money you can buy my happiness living, and he don't want it or need it dead."
Within the quick vise of her two hands Mrs. Meyerburg clasped her face, all quivering and racked with sobs. "I can't hear it. It's like she was sticking knifes into me."
"The marquis has the kind of blood we need to give this family a boost. We can be big, ma. Big, I tell you. I can have a crest embroidered in two colors in my linens. That inside clique that looks down on us now can do some looking up then. The boys don't need to know about that million, ma. Just let me have the marquis here to-morrow to meet his new brothers, ma, like there was nothing unusual. I'll pay it back to you in a million ways. The Memorial will come in time. Everything will come in time. Make me the happiest girl in the world, ma. He'll ask me to-night if I let him. Get the Memorial plans out of your head for a while, anyway! Just for a while!"