Harry’s disgust is unspeakable. He will have nothing of the Sartorius hoard. Rather starve upon his miserable $3500 a year! He will work—he has a license to practise upon his fellow-men as physician and surgeon—and he and Blanche will face the world bravely. But Blanche, unfortunately, does not see it in that light. Harry’s income is regular and safe, but seven hundred pounds is no revenue for the daughter and son-in-law of a millionaire. And when she discovers the reason for Harry’s singular self-sacrifice and modesty, her pride rages high. After all, Sartorius is her father. He may squeeze his tenants for the last farthing, but he has been good to her. His money has been hers, and even when she fathoms the depths of his heartlessness, her shame does not break her loyalty. So she sends Harry about his business and seeks consolation in maidenly tears. Thus they remain for a space—he sacrificing his love to his ideals of honesty and honor, and she offering her virtuous affection upon the altar of filial allegiance and pride.
It is Sartorius who solves the problem. He is not shocked by Harry’s revolt, by any means. The world, as he knows, is full of such silly scruples and senseless ideas of altruism. And, at any rate, he is willing to give his tenants as much as he can afford. He explains it all to Blanche.
“I have made up my mind,” he says, “to improve the property and get in a new class of tenants.... I am only waiting for the consent of the ground landlord, Lady Roxdale.”
Lady Roxdale is Harry’s aristocratic aunt and Blanche’s face shows her surprise.
“Lady Roxdale!” she exclaims.
“Yes,” replies her fond papa. “But I shall expect the mortgagee to take his share of the risk.”
“The mortgagee!” says Blanche. “Do you mean——”
“Harry Trench,” says Sartorius blandly, finishing the sentence for her.
And so the melancholy fact is laid bare that Harry’s safe and honorable $3500 a year, upon which he proposed to Blanche that they board and lodge in lieu of her father’s tainted thousands, is just as dirty, penny for penny, as the latter. Sartorius puts it before Harry, too, and very plainly.
“When I,” he says, “to use your own words, screw and bully and drive those people to pay what they have freely undertaken to pay me, I cannot touch one penny of the money they give me until I have first paid you your seven hundred pounds out of it....”