“But what right had you to treat me so? Do you think me a beggar, that I should accept a gift of money? Why did you do it?”
The girl was standing now and confronting him, in manifest anger.
Curiously enough, he did not seem to mind the anger. He had completely mastered himself, and knew perfectly what he was to say. He answered:—
“I did this because I love you, Evelyn, and because I cannot provide for your future in any ordinary way.”
Seeing that she was about to make some reply, he quickly forestalled it, saying:—
“Please let me continue. Please do not speak yet. Let me explain.”
The girl was still standing, but the look of anger in her face had given way to another expression—one more complex and less easily interpreted. There was some pleasure in it, and some apprehension, together with great astonishment.
“Go on,” she said.
“Only on even terms,” he answered, rising and standing in front of her. “What I have to say to you must be said with my eyes looking into yours. Now listen. By reason of a quite absurd convention, a young woman may not receive gifts of value, and especially of money, from a young man not her husband; yet she may freely take such gifts if they come to her by his will, after he is dead.
“There are circumstances which render it impossible for me to leave my possessions to you by will. Any will that I might make to that effect would be contested and broken by those for whom I care so little that I would rather sink everything I have in the world in the Atlantic Ocean than let them inherit a dollar of it.