"Perhaps you think that will go down with me. Perhaps you are not acquainted with my way of doing business."
"Are you doing business with me, Mr. Belcher? Am I a partner of yours? If I am, perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me—business-like enough to tell me—why you wish me to worm secrets out of this boy."
It was Mr. Belcher's turn to color.
"No, I will not. I trust no woman with my affairs. I keep my own councils."
"Then do your own business," snappishly.
"Mrs. Dillingham, you and I are friends—destined, I trust, to be better friends—closer friends—than we have ever been. This boy is of no consequence to you, and you cannot afford to sacrifice a man who can serve you more than you seem to know, for him."
"Well," said the lady, "there is no use in acting under a mask any longer. I would not betray the confidence of a child to serve any man I ever saw. You have been kind to me, but you have not trusted me. The lad loves me, and trusts me, and I will never betray him. What I tell you is true. I have learned nothing from him that can be of any genuine advantage to you. That is all the answer you will ever get from me. If you choose to throw away our friendship, you can take the responsibility," and Mrs. Dillingham hid her face in her handkerchief.
Mr. Belcher had been trying an experiment, and he had not succeeded—could not succeed; and there sat the beautiful, magnanimous woman before him, her heart torn as he believed with love for him, yet loyal to her ideas of honor as they related to a confiding child! How beautiful she was! Vexed he certainly was, but there was a balm for his vexation in these charming revelations of her character.
"Well," he said rising, and in his old good-natured tone, "there's no accounting for a woman. I'm not going to bother you."
He seized her unresisting hand, pressed it to his lips, and went away. He did not hear the musical giggle that followed him into the street, but, absorbed by his purpose, went home and mounted to his room. Locking the door, and peering about among the furniture, according to his custom, he sat down at his desk, drew out the old contract, and started at his usual practice. "Sign it," he said to himself, "and then you can use it or not—just as you please. It's not the signing that will trouble you; it's the using."