This sounded, in one way, like sanity. But in another—
“Mr. Colton,” I cried, “even if you meant it, which you don't—do you suppose I would go back to New York, where so many know me, and enter your employ under an assumed name? Run the risk of—”
“Hush! Enter it under your own name. It's a good name. The Bennetts are one of our oldest families. Ask my wife; she'll tell you that.”
“A good name!”
“Yes. I declare, Paine—Bennett, I mean—I shall begin to believe you haven't got the sense I credited you with. I can see what has been the matter with you. You came here, you and your sick mother, with the scandal of your father's crookedness hanging over you and her sickness making her super-sensitive, and you two kept the secret and brooded over it so long that you have come to think you are criminals, too. You're not. You haven't done anything crooked. What's the matter with you, man? Be sensible!”
“Sensible!”
“Yes, sensible, if you can. I don't care who your father was. He was a smart banker, before he went wrong, and I can see now where you inherited your ability. But never mind that. He's dead; let him stay so. I'm not trying to get him. It's you I want.”
“You want ME! Do you mean you would take me into your employ, knowing who I am?”
“Sure! It is because I know WHAT you are that I want you.”
“Mr. Colton, you—I don't know what to say to you.”