“Meantime I’ll finance your brother’s airship proposition until it either fails or finally succeeds.”
Orissa was greatly distressed. She felt at the moment like giving way to a flood of tears, for she realized that this absurd, astonishing proposal would deprive her of her position. He saw her agitation and felt intuitively she would not consider his offer. So he said, with grim insistence:
“You may answer me with one word, my child; yes or no.”
“Oh, Mr. Burthon, it is impossible! I have a home, a mother and brother, and—I—I could not think of such a thing.”
“Not to save those relatives from disaster—from misery—from ruin, perhaps?”
The implied threat hardened her heart, which had begun to pity the man.
“Not even to save them from death!” she replied firmly.
“Am I so distasteful to you, then? Is my money of so little account?”
With cold dignity Orissa rose from her chair. He saw the look on her face and became a little alarmed.
“Please forget all I have said,” he added, hastily. “I—I am not myself to-day. You may get the mail ready, Miss Kane, and I will sign the letters before I go.”