"In short, Mr. Cowan, my son offers to adopt that boy of yours—make him his own son in name—and opportunities and advantages—his own son."
So it was only that! Dave drew a long, pleasant breath and wiped his brow. Then he took a pencil from the table and began to draw squares and triangles and diamond patterns upon a pad of soft paper that lay at hand.
"Well—I don't know." His eyes followed the pencil point. Nor did he know until it presently developed that the desired adoption was of the Merle twin. He had supposed, without debate, that they would be meaning the other. "You mean Merle," he said at last on some leading of Gideon's.
"To be sure!" said Harvey D., as if there could have been no question of another.
"Oh, him!" said Dave—there was relief in his tone. "You're sure you mean him?"
"But of course!" said Harvey D., brightening.
"All right," said Dave. He felt they were taking the wrong twin, but he felt also that he must not let them see this—they might then want the other. "All right, I'll agree to that. He's a bright boy; it ought to be a good thing for him."
"Ought to be!" quoted Harvey D. with humorous warmth. "But, of course, it will be! You realize what it will mean for him—advantages, opportunities, education, travel, family, a future!--the Whipple estate—but, of course, we feel that under our training he will be a credit to us. He will be one of us—a Whipple in name and in fact."
Dave Cowan ceased to draw angled designs on his pad; he now drew circles, ovals, ellipses, things fluent with curves.
"All right," he said, "I'm willing, I want to do the best I can for the boy. I'm glad you feel he's the right one for you. Of course the other boy—well, they're twins, but he's different."