'Why, yes, or I shall have in time. Uncle Arthur, you know, is in no condition to make a will now. It would not stand a minute. All the lawyers say that.'
'You have taken counsel, then?'
The parasol dug a great hole in the soft pines and was in danger of being broken, as Tom replied:
'Oh, yes; we are sure of that. Whatever Uncle Arthur has, and it is more than a million, will go to father, and, after him, to Maude and me; so you are sure to be rich and to be the mistress of Tracy Park, which will naturally come to me. Think, Jerrie, what a different life you will lead at the Park House from what you do now, washing old Mrs. Crawford's stockings and Harold's overalls.'
'Yes, I am thinking,' Jerrie answered, very low; and if Tom had followed the end of her parasol, he would have seen that it was forming the word Gretchen in front of him.
'Suppose Mr. Arthur has a wife somewhere?' Jerrie asked.
'A wife!' Tom exclaimed. 'That is impossible. We should have heard of that.'
'Who was Gretchen?' was the next query.
'Oh, some sweetheart, I suppose—some little German girl with whom he amused himself a while and then cast off, as men usually do such incumbrances.'
Tom did not quite know himself what he was saying, or what it implied, and he was not at all prepared to see the parasol stuck straight into the ground, while Jerrie sprang to her feet and confronted him fiercely.