“Yes, I am sick, mother; I am sick to death,” Burr groaned out. Then he went down on the floor at his mother's feet, and hid his face in her lap, as he had used to do when he was a child in trouble. Mrs. Gordon's stern repose of manner had never seemed to repel any demonstration of her son's. Now she continued to knit above his head, but he apparently felt no lack of sympathy in her.
She asked no more questions, but waited for him to speak. “She's just gone in there,” he half sobbed out, presently. “Oh, mother, what shall I do—what shall I do?”
“You'll have to get used to it,” said his mother. “You'll have to make up your mind to it, Burr.”
“Mother, I can't! Oh, God, I can't see her every day there with him. Mother, we've got to sell out and move away. You'll be willing to, won't you? Won't you, mother?”
“You forget Dorothy. She can't leave the town where her father is.”
“I wish I could forget Dorothy in honor!” Burr cried out.
“You can't,” said his mother, “and there's an end of it.”
“I know it,” said Burr. He got up and stood looking moodily out of the window.
“You know,” said his mother, still knitting, “how I have felt from the very first about Madelon Hautville. I never approved of her for a wife for you; I approve of her still less now, after her violent conduct and her consent to marry Lot, whom she cannot care for. Still, since you feel as you do about it, I should be glad to have you marry her, if such a thing could be done with any show of honor; but it cannot. You know that as well as I. You must marry Dorothy Fair, and Madelon is going to marry Lot. Leaving everything else out of the question, it is out of your power to say anything on account of the money which you will lose by her marriage with him. You know what she might think.”
“Curse the money!” Burr cried out. “Curse the money and the position and all the damned lot of bubbles that come between a man and what's worth more, and will last!”