“Oh, no, Stevuns!” She was quite the romantic parasite as she came and knelt beside him in coaxing attitude. “Why, papa wishes me to have everything I want. He would be terribly worried if he thought I had to do without a single shoe button!”
“But must all the shoe buttons be of gold?” Steve interpolated.
She paid no attention to him. “I’m papa’s only heir––the money is all mine, anyway, and it always has been. You know how simple papa’s tastes are.”
“Like my own––like those of all busy people who are doing things. We haven’t time to pamper ourselves.”
“Someone has to buy up the trash! And you ought to thank us rich darlings of the gods for existing at all––we make you look so respectable by contrast.” She waited for his answer.
He rose and went over to the carved mantel, standing so he could look down the long room crowded with luxuries.
“But this place isn’t the home of an American man and his wife. It’s a show place––bought with your father’s money! And I’ve failed. I’m not supporting my wife. Good heavens, if I were I’d have to be cracking safes every week-end to do it. I can’t make any more money than I am making––and stay at large––and you cannot go on living off your father and being my wife. I won’t have it! I won’t be that kind of a failure!”
“What shall I do with the money, throw it to the 224 birds?” Her head began to ache, as it always did when a serious conversation was at hand.
“Wait until it is yours and then spend it on something for the good––not the delight––of someone else, or of a great many other people. Be my wife––let me take care of you,” he begged, earnestly.
Beatrice hesitated. “I couldn’t,” was her final answer. “I couldn’t manage with the allowance you give me––don’t worry, dearest, there’s no reason at all that we shouldn’t have as good a time as there is. Papa wants us to.”