“I have this to say, young woman, that your wealth entirely changes the situation.”
“And I maintain it doesn’t, not a particle.”
“I will show you how it does. I was poor, and I thought you were poor. Therefore it was my duty, as you remarked, to go out into the world and wring money from somebody. That, luckily, is no longer necessary. Hilda, we may be married this very day. Come, I dare you to consent.”
“Oh!” she cried, dropping her hands to her side and leaning back in her creaking chair, looking critically at me with eyes almost veiled by their long lashes, a kindly smile, however, hovering about her pretty lips. “You are in a hurry, aren’t you?”
“Yes, you didn’t expect to clear the way so effectively when you spoke?”
Before she could reply we were interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Hemster, who carried a long sealed envelope in his hand. He gazed affectionately at the girl for a moment or two, then pinched her flushed cheek.
“Hilda, my dear,” he said, “I never saw you looking exactly like this before. What have you two been talking about? Something pleasant, I suppose.”
“Yes, we were,” replied Hilda pertly; “we were saying what a nice man Silas K. Hemster is.”
The old gentleman turned his glance toward me with something of shrewd inquiry in it.
“Hilda,” he said slowly, “you mustn’t believe too much in nice men, young or old. They sometimes prove very disappointing. Especially do I warn you against this confidential secretary of mine. He is the most idiotically impractical person I have ever met. Would you believe it, my dear, that he was to-day offered two hundred and fifty thousand dollars if he would merely keep quiet about something he knew which he thought was his duty to tell me, and he was fool enough to refuse the good and useful cash?”