He rose decisively. "Very well, I will go to my lawyers at once—this morning. They will arrange it as you wish."
"Oh—will you? How can I thank you? And oh," she added hastily, "there was—another point that I—I wished to speak to you about."
He gazed down at her, looking so small and sorrowful-eyed in her great chair, and all at once his knees ran to water, and the terrible fear clutched at him that his manhood would not last him out of the room. This was the reason, perhaps, that his voice was the little Doctor's at its brusquest as he said:—
"Well? What is it?"
"The question," she said nervously, "of a—a name for this reformatory that I want to found. I have thought a great deal about that. It is a—large part of my idea. And I have decided that my reformatory shall be called—that is, that I should like to call it—the Henry G. Surface Home."
He stared at her through a flash like a man stupefied; and then, wheeling abruptly, walked away from her to the windows which overlooked the park. For some time he stood there, back determinedly toward her, staring with great fixity at nothing. But when he returned to her, she had never seen his face so stern.
"You must be mad to suggest such a thing. Mad! Of course I shall not allow you to do it. I shall not give you the money for any such purpose."
"But if it is mine, as you wrote?" said Sharlee, looking up at him from the back of her big chair.
Her point manifestly was unanswerable. With characteristic swiftness, he abandoned it, and fell back to far stronger ground.
"Yes, the money is yours," he said stormily. "But that is all. My father's name is mine."