“I’ll buy a half interest if you’ll let me, but I’ll be doggoned if I’ll marry a stepmother for Phoebe, not for the whole shebang!”
“Stepmother!” she repeated, shrilly. “I don’t intend to be a stepmother!”
“Maybe I meant grandmother,” he stammered in confusion. “I’m so rattled.”
“Nellie has got Phoebe. She’s not yours any longer. How can I be her stepmother? Answer that.” 220
“You can’t,” said he, much too promptly.
“Well, promise me one thing, Harvey dear,” she pleaded; “promise me you’ll take a month or two to think it over. We couldn’t be married for a year, in any event, so what’s the sense of being in such a hurry to settle the matter definitely?”
Harvey reflected. He found himself in a very peculiar predicament. He had gone to her house with the avowed intention of offering her three thousand dollars and the studio in exchange for a half interest in the drug store. Now his long cherished dream seemed to be turning into a nightmare.
“I will think it over,” he said, at last, in secret desperation. “But can’t you give me a year’s option?”
“On me?”
“On the store.”