“Don’t be absurd,” she said coldly. “You know I won’t ask him, and you don’t want him.”
“I have always said that decision is the greatest of all qualities—even when the decision is bad. It saves so much worry, and tends to health.” Suddenly he turned to the desk and opened a tin box. “Here is further practice for your admirable gift.” He opened a paper. “I want you to sign off for this building—leaving it to my absolute disposal.” He spread the paper out before her.
She turned pale and her lips tightened. She looked at him squarely in the eyes. “My wedding-gift!” she said. Then she shrugged her shoulders. A moment she hesitated, and in that moment seemed to congeal. “You need it?” she asked distantly.
He inclined his head, his eye never leaving hers. With a swift angry motion she caught the glove from her left hand, and, doubling it back, dragged it off. A smooth round ring came off with it and rolled upon the floor.
Stooping, he picked up the ring, and handed it back to her, saying: “Permit me.” It was her wedding-ring. She took it with a curious contracted look and put it on the finger again, then pulled off the other glove quietly. “Of course one uses the pen with the right hand,” she said calmly.
“Involuntary act of memory,” he rejoined slowly, as she took the pen in her hand. “You had spoken of a wedding, this was a wedding-gift, and—that’s right, sign there!”
There was a brief pause, in which she appeared to hesitate, and then she wrote her name in a large firm hand, and, throwing down the pen, caught up her gloves, and began to pull them on viciously.
“Thanks. It is very kind of you,” he said. He put the document in the tin box, and took out another, as without a word, but with a grave face in which scorn and trouble were mingled, she now turned towards the door.
“Can you spare a minute longer?” he said, and advanced towards her, holding the new document in his hand. “Fair exchange is no robbery. Please take this. No, not with the right hand; the left is better luck—the better the hand, the better the deed,” he added with a whimsical squint and a low laugh, and he placed the paper in her left hand. “Item No. 2 to take the place of item No. 1.”
She scrutinised the paper. Wonder filled her face. “Why, this is a deed of the homestead property—worth three times as much!” she said. “Why—why do you do this?”