“My rules are old-fashioned, but when I was a girl one took presents only from the man one was going to marry. In the circumstances, your hesitating is perhaps ominous.”
“I rather think some modern girls take all the presents they can get,” Evelyn remarked.
“Had Harry considered you their sort, he would not have sent the jewel.”
“Then you think I might keep his present?”
“I think you ought to weigh things; perhaps you have begun to do so,” Mrs. Haigh replied in a meaning voice. “Kit is an attractive fellow, but some talent for engineering and music is all he has.”
“Yet you knew his poverty and you were his champion!”
“I am Kit’s friend, but I am your mother, and I would sooner you did not begin a fight like mine. To go without is not all the trouble; poverty means hateful shabbiness and humiliating pretense. Then Kit was not forced to be poor. He was willing, in a sense he chose, to be poor.”
Evelyn felt the statement was accurate, and she waited. For a few moments Mrs. Haigh pondered and then resumed:
“Kit is properly Jasper Carson’s heir, and I believed Jasper meant to acknowledge his claim. His plan was to try Kit at the shipyard, and if he was satisfied send him to the forge. By and by Kit might have been his partner. The trial was not satisfactory——”
“But you admitted you did not doubt Kit’s innocence.”