“Yes, I shall miss you,” replied his wife. “Dear me, Jacóbus, what shall I do with my time all day?”
“First you will cry,” said Jacóbus, with ghastly enjoyment of a far-off possibility; “and then you will get tired of crying.” He waited a little ruefully for a disclaimer. “And then you will begin to enjoy your money.”
“By-the-bye, that is a subject we have never spoken about since the marriage settlement,” said Harriet, holding one of the stiff yellow papers against her cheek. “At least, I have never spoken about it. Of course, you tell me twenty times in a week that you will leave me a lot of money; but that counts for nothing. I believe you used to say the same thing to Ursula. Seriously, Jacóbus, have you ever made a will?”
“I have,” said Jacóbus, enjoying his importance.
“I thought people who had been notaries always died intestate. If you had died intestate, Jacóbus, I suppose Ursula would have had all your money?”
“Ursula and that foolish Josine. Ursula, Baroness van Helmont, of Horstwyk and the Horst. This conversation appears to me unpleasing, Harriet.”
“Unavoidable conversations almost always are.” Harriett’s face was entirely hid by the “Report on Sewage.” “Has this will of yours really appointed me your heir?”
Mynheer Mopius fell back and gasped. “Can you not wait a little longer?” he said—“a very little longer?”
“Jacóbus, I am only repeating what you have told me over and over again. I want to know, if you please, whether you have really left your whole fortune to me.”
She drew near to the bed.