From the Housetops

by George Barr McCutcheon

"Sit down?" shouted Braden, stopping before the old man in the chair, his hands clinched and his teeth showing. "I'll never sit down in your house again! What do you think I am? A snivelling, cringing dog that has to lick your hand for—"

"Now, now!" admonished the old man, without anger. "If you will not sit down, at least be kind enough to stand still. I can't understand half you say while you are stamping around like that. This isn't a china shop. Control yourself. Now, let's have it in so many words and not so many gesticulations. So Anne declined to see you, eh?"

"I don't believe Anne had a voice in the matter. Mrs. Tresslyn is at the back of all this. She is the one who has roped you in,—duped you, or whatever you choose to call it without resorting to profanity. She's forcing Anne into this damnable marriage, and she is making a perfect fool of you. Can't you see it? Can't you see—but, my God, how can I ask that question of you? When a man gets to be as old as you, he—" He broke off abruptly, on the point of uttering the unforgivable.

"Go on, my boy," said Templeton Thorpe quietly. "Say it. I shan't mind."

"Oh, what's the use?" groaned the miserable lover. "I cannot say anything more to you, sir, than I said early this afternoon. I told you then just what I think of your treachery. There isn't anything more for me to say, but I'd like you to know that Anne despises you. Her mother acknowledges that much at least,—and, curse her, without shame!"

"I am quite well aware of the fact, Braden," said the old man. "You couldn't expect her to love me, could you?"

"Then, why in God's name are you marrying her? Why are you spoiling my life? Why are you—"

"Is it spoiling your life to have the girl you love turn to and marry an old wreck such as I am, just because I happen to be willing to pay her two million dollars,—in advance, you might say? Is that spoiling your life or saving it?"

Mr. Thorpe had dropped the cynical, half-amused air, and was now speaking with great intensity. Braden, struck by the change, turned suddenly to regard the old man with a new and puzzled light in his lowering eyes.

"See here, my lad, you've had your chance. I knew what I was about when I sent you to see her. I knew precisely what would happen. She wants to marry you, but she prefers to marry me. That isn't as ambiguous as it sounds. Just think it over,—later on, not now, for I have something else to say to you. Do me the honour to be seated. Thank you. Now, you've got quite a good-sized, respectable nose upon your face. I submit that the situation is quite as plain as that nose, if you look at it in the broad light of understanding. If you think that I am marrying Anne because I love her, or because I am in my dotage and afflicted with senility, you are very much mistaken. If you think I am giving her two million dollars as a wedding gift because I expect it to purchase her love and esteem, you do my intelligence an injustice. If you think that I relish the prospect of having that girl in my house from now till the day I die, worrying the soul out of me, you are too simple for words. I am marrying her, not because I love her, my lad, but—but because I love you. God forbid that I should ever sink so low as to steal from my own flesh and blood. Stealing is one thing, bartering another. I expect to convince you that I have not taken anything from you that is of value, hence I am not a malefactor."