“But it is impossible, Max!” cried Laura, at length.
“Perhaps you’ll leave me to judge about that, and think only of your own part!” he said coolly. “Is my advice—are my offers—worth accepting?”
“O yes, Max, yes!” cried Laura excitedly; “I’d do anything!”
“I don’t want you to do anything,” said Max, smiling with triumph; “only what I advise. Help me, and I will help you with all my heart. But I always knew that you would. You say that you don’t like my choice. Well and good; I might say that I don’t like yours. Perhaps my affair will come to nothing; but, anyhow, you are the gainer. I won’t say anything about hating, but let you have your selection. Now let me have mine. But if you have anything better to propose, I am ready to listen.”
“But I have no plans, Max. I only thought of her being sent away; I’m half broken-hearted and worn-out with disappointment!”
“Yes, just so. I expected as much, and I was waiting here to see you,” said Max. “I’m not blind, Laury, nor deaf either. I heard you two shouting across the hall. So you’ve been telling the old lady that some one shall go, have you?”
“Yes, I have!” exclaimed Laura, ignoring the past conversation; “and she shall go too! Mamma did promise me.”
“Ya-a-as, I know,” said Max, relapsing into his drawl; “but that was before she promised me. The second will counts before the first made. But, as I said before, and we understand now, she’s not going—so there’s an end of it.”
“O, of course!” cried Laura passionately. “Everything must be as mamma’s dear boy wishes! He shall have everything he likes, and do as he likes, and say what he likes, and every one else is to give way to him!”
“Bai Jove, now, don’t be an idiot!” exclaimed Max. “What’s the good—now that I’m working on your side, and we have got to understand one another—of running back like this? I’m obliged to speak plain, and to tell you that you are only a stupid child, Laury, and that you’ve taken a liking for another stupid child—and there’s a pair of you; but all the same, if you do as I tell you, all will come right!”