"You're not going to be as hard as that—I am starving, in rags—have a little pity on me. Or is it the way of you lawyers," she said, forcing an anxious smile, "to ask for more than you expect? If so, you are wrong. I will be generous. Help me to marry Fargus and I'll give you one thousand dollars."
"One thousand dollars!" he cried uproariously. "You fool, do you know what the old miser is worth? A quarter of a million! Half, half I say!"
She still sought the man in the lawyer and, throwing herself on her knees, cried:
"But that would make me a slave! You can't mean that—you are too young to be so merciless. Make your own terms, say anything reasonable, and it's yours."
"Miss Morissey," he said pompously, "you are mistaken in the person you're addressing. Mr. Bofinger has left the room. You're dealing now with the lawyer. Let me tell you right now, as a lawyer, I don't set one price to get another. I always get what I ask. When I have once made up my mind what's coming to me, I never relent. I am not twenty-one," he added with a smile. "I do not throw away thousands, either for caresses or tears. Get up!"
She regained her feet, affrighted, perceiving that this obsession of the lawyer was the more implacable that it was set in vanity and pride.
"Don't drive me to despair!" she said with an ugly flash of anger.
He began to laugh.
"You are wrong," she said sullenly, "to squeeze such a bargain. I will refuse."
"Come," he said, rising, and with a brutal movement laying his hand over the bank-note. "Is it for you to make conditions? I know your kind, a fine dress outside, rags to your skin—rags, that's the story, rags and crumbs, beggary and starvation. And you bargain with me! Come, that's too good. Suppose I offer you a thousand and take the rest? I could do it. I hold the whip hand. I make the terms. Enough of this. Come, choose."