“Thanks.” Storm was conscious of an air of defeat in the old man’s manner and he resented it vaguely, then shrugged. What did it matter, anyway? He would be free from this pettifogging nuisance soon enough. “About the other matter——?”
“You mean Leila’s estate?” Foulkes’ tone softened. “I have the papers all here for you to look over. We must advertise for claims for six months, of course—a mere formality in this case—and then what she left can be turned over to you. She had just fourteen thousand when she married you and spent eleven of it. Here are the accounts. It was a matter of pride with her to buy your Christmas and birthday presents with her own money, Norman, and I couldn’t gainsay her. Two thousand went for that black pearl scarf-pin, three thousand——”
“Don’t!” Storm cried sharply. “I don’t want to hear all that! Send the papers up to my rooms. Can’t you see——?”
He stopped with a gesture of repugnance, and the attorney, ignorant of the source of the other’s emotion, nodded compassionately.
“I know, my boy, but I want you to see how matters stand. There are three thousand left, of the principal, which were to have been paid to Jaffray for that land adjoining yours, and accrued interest on the constantly depleted original capital which aggregates almost as much again. Her estate, roughly speaking, will amount to between five and six thousand dollars; I’ll send you the exact figures.”
“I don’t care about them! I’m not thinking of what she left; it isn’t that.” Storm rose, unable to meet the kindly gaze of the older man. “I only want to get the whole thing settled and done with. I can’t bear to discuss it; these details are horrible, impossible for me to contemplate sanely just yet!”
“I quite understand, Norman, but they must be attended to, you know.” Foulkes rose and held out his hand. “I’ll render you an accounting in six months, and then it will be over.—About your own affairs. You have never taken the advice I volunteered with very good grace, and I shall not offer any now. I am getting old, and you are no longer a boy; you know your own mind. However, if in the future you feel the need of disinterested counsel or help you know where to come for it.”
“Thank you, sir.” Storm felt an odd sense of contrition. “I’m not going into that South American scheme. I shall look around before deciding definitely on what I have in mind, and I’m sorry if I have seemed to resent your interest in the past. A man can’t be in leading-strings all his life, you know, and I have a good, conservative proposition now.”
He had. Storm chuckled grimly to himself as he departed. Fifty thousand would carry him far away, give him a year or two of utterly care-free existence, and leave a respectable sum to start in some fresh venture. The European countries were practically bankrupt; a little cash would bring monumental return and in some continental capital he could start a new life. Just as the thought of escape from Greenlea had made his surroundings there suddenly intolerable, so now the contemplation of utter freedom and a wider vista brought with it an impatience, a longing for instant action. The lease on Potter’s rooms, the trumpery five thousand from Leila’s estate—these details need not deter or delay him!
Another thought did, however. It was one thing, and a perfectly natural one, under the circumstances, for him to have closed the house and moved in town; it would be quite another question were he to throw up a fifteen-thousand-a-year job, seize all the cash he could lay his hands upon and rush out of the country. No man in his sane senses would take such a step unless some more urgent and sinister motive actuated him than a mere desire for forgetfulness of grief in strange scenes and a new environment.