“Ah, you don’t like to say it,” he broke in as she hesitated and ceased speaking. “But I know what you mean—how he profited by it. For the money that would have been divided upon the education of both of you if you had been well and strong was all spent upon him. And he took it and kept silent.”
Again she stared at him in surprise. “How frankly Felix must have talked with you!” she exclaimed. “He never would have confessed all this if he hadn’t felt remorseful and repentant!”
“But he isn’t!” Gordon blurted out with an irritated start. “He’s come to think it a part of his good fortune. If he had been, or, even, if he were now—well, things might have turned out differently—that’s all I can say.”
“But we’re getting away from mother. Don’t you see, Mr. Gordon, that it would be cruel? And what good would it do? Felix is what he is, and he’ll stay so to the end of the chapter. You can’t change him and you would only spoil mother’s happiness in him. Promise me, Mr. Gordon, that you won’t tell her anything about it, that you won’t say anything to her about Felix that would make her unhappy!”
Gordon rose abruptly and walked across the little enclosure and back again, his black brows drawn together, before he replied.
“It is hard to refuse you anything, Penelope,” he said finally, standing in front of her chair. “You have had so little, and you deserve so much. I know you are right about this, and I shrink from hurting her as much as you do. But when I think of Felix and the course he has deliberately followed, it angers me so that I forget everything except the retribution he so richly deserves. But you are right and I give you your promise.”
He smiled upon her and gently patted the hand that lay, thin and feeble-looking, on the arm of her chair. But the smile quickly faded from his face as he met the mingled wonder and displeasure of her look.
“I thank you for your promise,” she said, “but I am surprised to hear you speak so bitterly of my brother, when you seem to be so friendly with him and he has given you such intimate confidence.”
Again Gordon walked up and down in the narrow space, his countenance somber with the intentness of his thought.