There was no answer to be made to this statement. Olive had never attempted to be hypocritical with her grandmother by pretending to feel any affection for her. She now simply sat perfectly still and respectful, waiting to hear what was to be said next. But rarely had she looked more attractive than on this afternoon. In the first place, her walk had given her a bright color and she was wearing a particularly becoming frock.
Miss Winthrop had insisted that Olive always dress with great care on these visits to her grandmother, so this special frock, which Ruth lately had sent from New York, was now worn for the first time. It was of some soft material of silk and wool made with a short waist and softly clinging skirt of a bright golden brown with a girdle of brown velvet. Olive was very slender always and of only medium height, but her dark coloring was rich and unusual and now her expression was gayer and in some unconscious way she seemed more confident and less timid in her manner than formerly.
For several moments after her first long speech Madame Van Mater continued to study the appearance of the young girl sitting opposite her, and then, without the least warning of her intention, said abruptly: “Olive, I suppose you have not understood why I have insisted on your coming to see me so regularly and constantly since my discovery of your connection with me. You may, of course, have guessed, but if you have not I am prepared to tell you this afternoon. I have been studying you and I am now willing to say that I have in the past done you a great injustice. However much my son disappointed me by his choice of an occupation and by his marriage to your mother instead of Katherine Winthrop, I had no real right to cast off from me all responsibility in regard to his child. You are not altogether what I would have you to be, you have less social ease of manner and less conversational ability than I desire in my granddaughter; but I am prepared to overlook these faults in you now, Olive, or at least to give you time to conquer them. What I am coming to is this. I have recently decided to make reparation to you by having you come here to live with me when your year at Primrose Hall is passed, and if I find you as refined and as capable of being managed as I now suppose you to be, I am prepared to change my will, making you heir to the greater part of my estate and giving my grand-niece and nephew, Donald and Elizabeth Harmon, only the portion formerly intended for you. You need not thank me; I am doing this simply because I wish to do it. And also because it will please Katherine Winthrop, who is one of the few persons for whom I have always cared.”
Olive smiled, although the smile did not really cross her lips, but seemed somehow to drift across her entire face. “I had no intention of thanking you, grandmother,” she returned quietly, “only of refusing your offer. It may be very kind of you to desire me to live with you, but I thought you understood that nothing and no one in the world could ever persuade me to stop living with the ranch girls so long as they wish me to be with them. And even after we are grown up and they marry or anything else happens, why, even then, I have plans of my own.”
“Ranch girls, fiddlesticks,” exclaimed Madame Van Mater, far more inelegantly than one would have thought possible to her. “Of course, I wish to say nothing against these friends of yours; under the circumstances I am even prepared to be grateful to them for their kindness to you, but surely you cannot expect to live forever on their bounty, and what can they offer you in the way of social opportunity? I believe they have no parents to introduce them into society, only this chaperon named Ruth Drew and some man or other who manages their ranch.”
Olive flushed and then smiled. “I don’t believe I am very anxious or very well fitted for social opportunity,” she answered, “but I don’t think you need worry about the ranch girls, for when the time comes for them to take any part in society I am sure they will find opportunities enough. I wrote Jack only a few weeks ago, ten days after her operation was over, that as soon as she was well enough and whenever she wanted me to, I would go back with her to the ranch or we would travel or do whatever was best for her. Of course, we don’t any of us know yet whether Jack’s operation was successful, but Jean and Frieda and I have positively made up our minds that nothing will induce us to be separated from her after this year.”
“You are talking school girl nonsense,” Madame Van Mater returned coldly, “but naturally I do not care to argue this question with you. I shall have Katherine Winthrop put the matter before you. But you can rest assured, Olive, of these two things: In the first place, that if at any time you displease me I can leave my money to any one whom I may select, as my husband’s will gave his estate entirely into my hands; and in the second place, that if I desire to control your actions, you are not yet of age and I, and not the ranch girls, am your natural guardian.”
Very few times in her life had Olive ever known what it was to be violently angry, and yet no matter how gentle one’s nature anger must get the best of all of us now and then. Quickly the girl now got up from her chair and crossing the room faced Madame Van Mater with an expression as determined as her own. “Please understand that I do not want to defraud either Donald or Elizabeth Harmon of the money you have always promised them. They have been very kind since the discovery of my connection with them and of course you must be more fond of them than you can ever be of me. The truth of the matter is that though I don’t want to be rude or unfair, I do not like you, grandmother, nor do I feel that I can ever forgive the years of your neglect of me. Do you think it is quite fair for you now to speak of being my natural guardian when for so many years you desired nothing so much as that my name should never be mentioned to you? Please don’t let us talk of this ever, ever any more, but understand that I shall never leave the ranch girls.”
Plainly Madame Van Mater was amazed at Olive’s unexpected anger, for until this moment her granddaughter had always seemed to her rather too gentle and shy. Now the old woman simply shrugged her shoulders indifferently. “You may go,” she replied, “but of course, Olive, I shall decide later what course in regard to you I shall consider it advisable to take.”
So with scarlet cheeks and feeling more obstinate than ever before in her life, Olive, finding herself dismissed, rushed for consolation to Primrose Hall.