CHAPTER IX
When Miss Anthon reached the hotel, she found her mother and the newly imported maid bustling over trunks.
“Your uncle received a cable this morning that calls him home on important business,” Mrs. Anthon explained, “and I thought we might as well move on at the same time. Just as well for Sebastian to be out of that fellow’s way.”
“Does uncle mean to leave him to starve?” Miss Anthon inquired quickly.
“Starve or work, I guess. That’s the law in this world.”
Miss Anthon went into her own room without further words. Her mother’s remark suddenly gave point to the vague impulses of the hour’s talk with Erard. She must come to a decision at once.
As she sat down by her table with a sheet of letter-paper ready, she paused, for the act which she meditated might cost her much more than money. Should she offer him support bluntly, or try some other means—her uncle, perhaps? What gossip might say did not trouble her. But a draft sent and accepted, that closed any other possibility. There was no other possibility now. She might never love him. Should she love him, why need the fact that she had helped him, alter their relations? In the gamble of life she happened to have superfluous advantages. Might she not share these, in a simple, objective manner, without compromising herself? She was giving to life, not to Simeon Erard, and they must be able to rise above the mean considerations involved.
Finally she wrote, deliberately:—
“My dear Mr. Erard:—I feel that I must have a share, even a very little share, in your work, in your ambitions and theories. Where I cannot hope to go, you may, perhaps, more easily through my help. So I have taken the liberty to place at your disposal, at the Messrs. Munro, a draft to be used in ‘going on.’ Every six months that will be renewed. You see, my first venture succeeded, giving me a surplus which I wish to invest again. And I owe to you so much real interest in life that I feel I must show a little gratitude. You need not acknowledge this.
“Believe me, ever sincerely yours,