“Mercy, no!” Mrs. Minster replied. “It is nothing at all. Of course, I’m not worried. What an idea!”
“I thought you acted as if there was something on your mind,” said Kate.
“Well, you would act so, too, if—” There Mrs. Minster stopped short, and sighed.
“If what, mamma?” put in Ethel. “We knew there was something.”
“He sticks to it that issuing bonds is not mortgaging, and, of course, he ought to know; but I remember that when they bonded our town for the Harlem road, father said it was a mortgage,” answered the mother, not over luminously.
“What bonds? What mortgage?” Kate spoke with emphasis. “We have a right to know, surely!”
“However, you can see for yourself,” pursued Mrs. Minster, “that the interest must be more than made up by the extra price iron will bring when the trust puts up prices. That is what trusts are for—to put up prices. You can read that in the papers every day.”
“Mother, what have you done?”
Kate had pushed back her plate, and leaned over the table now, flashing sharp inquiry into her mother’s face.
“What have you done?” she repeated. “I insist upon knowing, and so does Ethel.”