Yet I made no headway with my objections, until I stumbled upon the one argument that served me and led to a final compromise, "Dear," I had protested, really and deeply hurt by Susan's stubborn stand for absolute independence, "can't you feel how cruelly unkind all this is to me?"
"Oh," she wailed, "unkind? Why did you say that! Surely, Ambo, you don't mean it! Unkind?"
I was quick to press my advantage. "When you ask me to give up even the mere material protection of my family? You are my family, Susan—all the family I shall ever have. I don't want to be maudlin about it. I don't wish to interfere with your freedom to develop your own life in your own way. But it's beyond my strength not to plead that all that's good in my life is bound up with yours. Please don't ask me to live in daily and hourly anxiety over your reasonable comfort and health. There's no common sense in it, Susan. It's fantastic! And it is unkind!"
Susan could not long resist this plea, for she felt its wretched sincerity, even if she knew—as she later told me—that I was making the most of it. It was Miss Goucher who suggested our compromise.
"Mr. Hunt," she said, "my own arrangement with Susan is this: We are to pool our resources, and I am to make a home for her, just as if I were her own mother. I've been able to save, during the past twenty-five years, about eight thousand dollars; it's well invested, I think, and brings me in almost five hundred a year. This is what we were to start with; and Susan feels certain she can earn at least two thousand dollars a year by her pen. I know nothing of the literary market, but I haven't counted on her being able to earn so much—for a year or so, at least. On the other hand, I feel certain Susan will finally make her way as a writer. So I'd counted on using part of my capital for a year or two if necessary. We plan to live very simply for the present, of course—but without hardship."
"Still——" I would have protested, if for once Miss Goucher had not waived all deference, sailing calmly on:
"As Susan has told you, she's convinced that she needs the assurance of power and self-respect to be gained by meeting life without fear or favor and making her own career in the face of whatever difficulties arise. There's a good deal to be said for that, Mr. Hunt—more than you could be expected to understand. Situated as you have always been, I mean. But naturally, as Susan's guardian, you can't be expected to stand aside if for any reason we fail in our attempt. I see that; and Susan sees it now, I'm sure. Yet I really feel I must urge you to let us try. And I promise faithfully to keep you informed as to just how we are getting on."
"Please, Ambo," Susan chimed in, "let us try. If things go badly I won't be unreasonable or stubborn—indeed I won't. Please trust me for that. I'll even go a step farther than Sister. I won't let her break into her savings—not one penny. If it ever comes to that, I'll come straight to you. And for the immediate present, I have over five hundred dollars in my bank account; and"—she smiled—"I'll try to feel it's honestly mine. You've spent heaven knows how much on me, Ambo; though it's the least of all you've done for me and been to me! But now, please let me see whether I could ever have made anything of myself if I hadn't been so shamelessly lucky—if life had treated me as it treats most people. . . . Jimmy, for instance. . . . He hasn't needed help, Ambo; and I simply must know whether he's a better man than I am, Gunga Dhin! Don't you see?"
Yes; I flatter myself that I did, more or less mistily, begin to see. Thus our morning conference drew to its dreary, amicable close.
But from the door Susan turned back to me with tragic eyes: "Ambo—I'm caring. It does—hurt." And since I could not very safely reply, she attempted a smile. "Ambo—what is to become of poor Tumps? Togo will have to come; I can't reduce him to atheism. But Tumps would die in New York; and he never has believed in God anyway! Can you make a martyr of yourself for his surly sake? Can you? Just to see, I mean, that he gets his milk every day and fish heads on Friday? Can you, dear?"