“It’s a charming little house. But it’s their things; it’s what Olive is and does that makes it attractive. Do you happen to know what this debt is?” she asked. He thought there might be a pitfall here and he answered at once:
“Yes; I hold the mortgage. It’s in the bank for collection.”
“She didn’t tell me that you held it. She said a bank had it. The money was borrowed to pay Olive’s way through school. Did you know that was the way of it?”
“I think perhaps Mrs. Merriam said so.”
“If she said so of course that was the reason. She is a very good woman; quite fine, I think.”
“Certainly. I didn’t mean to imply that she had not been quite frank with me. But people are sometimes tempted by their necessities into slight prevarications.”
He smiled and chuckled at his own wisdom in having learned this great fact in human nature.
“Mrs. Merriam has a debt to pay, and if she can’t pay it she will lose the house,” continued Zelda. “The debt is to you.”
“To me as trustee,” he corrected.
“Is it, then, something of mine, father?”