No one, though he might be ninety, likes to have his time limited, and his heir's prospects dwelt upon as the only things of any importance, and Mrs. Dennistoun was a very long way from ninety. She would have sacrificed everything she had to make her child happy, but she did not like, all the same, to be set down as unimportant so far as her own property was concerned.
"I am afraid," she said, with a slight quaver in her voice, "that my trustees would not take Elinor's wishes into consideration in the first place, nor yours either, Philip. They think of me, and I suppose that is really their duty. If I had anything of my own——"
"Do you mean to say," he said, bluntly, "that with a good income and living in the country in a hole, in the most obscure way, you have saved nothing all these years?"
"If I had," said Mrs. Dennistoun, roused by his persistent attack, "I should be very sorry to fling it away."
"Oh, that is what you think?" he said. "Now we're at the bottom of it. You think that to put it in my hands would be to throw it away! I thought there must be something at the bottom of all this pretty ignorance of business and so forth. Good gracious! that may be well enough for a girl; but when a grandmother pretends not to know, not to interfere, etc., that's too much. So this is what you meant all the time! To put it into my hands would be throwing it away!"
"I did not mean to say so, Philip—I spoke hastily, but I must remind you that I am not accustomed to this tone——"
"Oh, no, not at all accustomed to it, you all say that—that's Nell's dodge—never was used to anything of the kind, never had a rough word said to her, and so forth and so forth."
"Philip—I hope you don't say rough words to my Elinor."
"Oh!" he said, "I have got you there, have I. Your Elinor—no more yours than she is—Johnson's. She is my Nell, and what's more, she'll cling to me, whatever rough words I may say, or however you may coax or wheedle. Do you ever think when you refuse to make a sacrifice of one scrap of your hoards for her, that if I were not a husband in a hundred I might take it out of her and make her pay?"
"For what?" said Mrs. Dennistoun, standing up and confronting him, her face pale, her head very erect—"for what would you make her pay?"