"Write to them—write to them. They won't care a rap about your business.
We're not like that, Maurice."
XI.
"You'd better let me see what he says, Mamma."
Her mother had called to her to come into the study. She had Maurice
Jourdain's letter in her hand. She looked sad and at the same time happy.
"My darling, he doesn't want you to see it."
"Is it as bad as all that?"
"Yes. If I'd had my way you should never have had anything to do with him. I'd have forbidden him the house if your Uncle Victor hadn't said that was the way to make you mad about him. He seemed to think that seeing him would cure you. And so it ought to have done….
"He says you know he wants to break off the engagement, but he doesn't think he has made you understand why."
"Oh, yes, he did. It's because of his business."
"He doesn't say a word about his business. I'm to break it to you that he doesn't care for you as he thought he cared. As if he wasn't old enough to know what he wanted. He might have made up his mind before he drove your father into his grave."