Mrs. Minster’s wise and resolute countenance never more thoroughly belied the condition of her mind than at this moment. She felt that she did not rightly know just what she had done, and vague fears as to consequences rose to possess her soul.
“If I had spoken to my mother in that way when I was your age, I should have been sent from the room—big girl though I was. I’m sure I can’t guess where you take your temper from. The Mauverensens were always——”
This was not satisfactory, and Kate broke into the discourse about her maternal ancestors peremptorily:
“I don’t care about all that. But some business step has been taken, and it must concern Ethel and me, and I wish you would tell us plainly what it is.”
“The Thessaly Company found it necessary to buy the right of a new nail machine, and they had to have money to do it with, and so some bonds are to be issued to provide it. It is quite the customary thing, I assure you, in business affairs. Only, what I maintained was that it was the same as a mortgage, but Judge Wendover and Mr. Boyce insisted it wasn’t.”
It is, perhaps, an interesting commentary upon the commercial education of these two wealthy young ladies, that they themselves were unable to form an opinion upon this debated point.
“Bonds are something like stocks,” Ethel explained. “They are always mentioned together. But mortgages must be different, for they are kept in the county clerk’s office. I know that, because Ella Dupont’s father used to get paid fifty cents apiece for searching after them there. She told me so. They must have been very careless to lose them so often.”
Mrs. Minster in some way regarded this as a defence of her action, and took heart. “Well, then, I also signed an agreement which puts us into the great combination they’re getting up—all the iron manufacturers of Pennsylvania and Ohio and New York—called the Amalgamated Pig-Iron Trust. I was very strongly advised to do that; and it stands to reason that prices will go up, because trusts limit production. Surely, that is plain enough.”
“You ought to have consulted us,” said Kate, not the less firmly because her advice, she knew, would have been of no earthly value. “You have a power-of-attorney to sign for us, but it was really for routine matters, so that the property might act as a whole. In a great matter like this, I think we should have known about it first.”
“But you don’t know anything about it now, even when I have told you!” Mrs. Minster pointed out, not without justification for her triumphant tone. “It is perfectly useless for us women to try and understand these things. Our only safety is in being advised by men who do know, and in whom we have perfect confidence.”