"Yes—I have quite made up my mind. When the idea came to me it was like an inspiration. It seemed to me the perfect use to make of this money. Don't you see?... And—"
"No, I don't see," he said sharply. "Why will you persist in thinking that there is something peculiar and unclean about this money?—some imagined taint upon your title to it? Don't you understand that it is yours in precisely the same definite and honest way that the money this office pays you—"
"Oh—surely it is all a question of feeling. And if I feel—"
"It is a question of fact," said Mr. Surface. "Listen to me. Suppose your father had put this money away for you somewhere, so that you knew nothing about it, hidden it, say, in a secret drawer somewhere about your house"—didn't he know exactly the sort of places which fathers used to hide away money?—"and that now, after all these years, you had suddenly found it, together with a note from him saying that it was for you. You follow me perfectly? Well? Would it ever occur to you to give that money to the State—for a reformatory?"
"Oh—perhaps not. How can I tell? But that case would—"
"Would be exactly like this one," he finished for her crisply. "The sole difference is that it happens to be my father who hid the money away instead of yours."
There was a silence.
"I am sorry," said she, constrainedly, "that you take this—this view. I had hoped so much that you might agree with me. Nevertheless, I think my mind is quite made up. I—"
"Then why on earth have you gone through the formality of consulting me, only to tell me—"
"Oh—because I thought it would be so nice if you would agree with me!"