“I am not fond of bread-and-butter school-girls,” said Lady Wynde, half frowning. “The neighborhood will be agape to see how I play the role of step-mother. And, to own the truth, Harold, I have no fancy to be called mother by a tall, overgrown girl, with her hair hanging down her back in two braids, and her dresses reaching to her ankles. I shall feel as old as Methuselah.”
Sir Harold sighed, and a grave shadow settled down upon his square massive brows.
“I hope that Neva will win her way to your heart, Octavia,” he remarked gently. “I thought it would look better if my daughter were to call her father’s wife by the endearing name of mother, but teach her to call you what you will. I have faith in your goodness of heart, my wife.”
“Perhaps I am a little jealous of her,” returned Lady Wynde, with a forced smile. “You fairly idolize her—”
“Have I not made her second to you?” interposed the baronet. “Has she not been banished from her home to please you since you entered it? When I think of her dull, dreary holidays in her school—holidays! the name was a mockery—my soul yearns for my child. Jealous of her, Octavia? What further proofs do you need that I prefer my wife in all things above my child?”
“Why,” said Lady Wynde tremulously, a hectic flush burning on either cheek, “look at the magnificent fortune she will have! While, if you should die I have only the pitiful income of four thousand pounds a year.”
“Pitiful, Octavia!”
“Yes, it is pitiful, compared to Neva’s. You have estates which you can convey away absolutely by will. Why should you not make me independently rich, with property that I can sell if I choose? What you leave to me is to be mine for life. What you leave to Neva is hers absolutely. This is monstrous, hateful, unjust!”
The baronet regarded his wife in amazement.
“You were satisfied with your marriage settlements when they were drawn up, Octavia,” he said.