“Yes.”
“Well! well! well! Carleton Bennett! No wonder there was something familiar about your mother, something that I seemed to remember. I met her years ago. Well! well! So you're Carleton Bennett's son?”
“Yes, I am his son.”
“Well, what of it?”
I looked at him now. He was smiling, actually smiling. His illness had affected his mind.
“What OF it!” I gasped.
“Ye-es, what of it? What has that got to do with your working for me?”
I could have struck him. If he had not been weak and ill and irresponsible for what he was saying I think I should.
“Mr. Colton,” I said, striving to speak calmly, “you don't understand. My father was Carleton Bennett, the embezzler, the thief, the man whose name was and is a disgrace all over the country. Mother and I came here to hide from that disgrace, to begin a new, clean life under a clean name. Do you think—? Oh, you don't understand!”
“I understand all right. This is the first time I HAVE understood. I see now why a clever man like you was willing to spend his days in a place like Denboro. Well, you aren't going to spend any more of them there. You're going to let me make something worth while out of you.”