CHAPTER I.
“Are you quite sure?” Mr. Forbes laid down his newspaper, and looked with slightly extended mouth at his daughter who leaned forward in an attitude of suppressed energy, her hands clasped on the edge of the breakfast-table. The heiress of many millions was not handsome: her features were large and her complexion dull; but she had the carriage and ‘air’ of the New York girl of fashion, and wore a French morning-toilette which would have ameliorated a Gorgon.
“Quite sure, papa.”
“I suppose you have studied the question exhaustively.”
“Oh, yes, indeed. I have read Karl Marx and Henry George and a lot of others. I suppose you have not forgotten that I belong to a club of girls who aspire to be something more than fashionable butterflies, and that we read together?”
“And you are also positive that you wish me to divide my fortune with my fellow-men, and deprive you of the pleasant position of heiress?”
“Perfectly positive,” firmly. “It is terrible, terrible to think of the starving thousands. I feel it my duty to tell you, papa, that if you do not do this yourself, I shall—when—when—but I cannot even think of that.”
“No; don’t worry about it. I’m good for twenty or thirty years yet——”
“You are the handsomest and most distinguished-looking man in New York.”