"Yes! at least, perhaps—I have never put it to myself exactly—indeed why do you ask?"
"May I ask how far that interest has gone?"
The younger man half rose from his chair.
"If it had gone at all," he said, hotly, "you would have known it."
"Yes," the doctor knitted his eyebrows, "that's all right. Don't feel disturbed. If I didn't consider you to be a gentleman in a more intensive sense of the word than is usual, I shouldn't be talking to you like this. Have a cigar." There was another long pause. The doctor debated quickly with himself what course to take. When he resumed, he used his rough weapon.
"You ought to know that my daughter will have very little in case of my death."—This time the young man rose entirely from his seat. The doctor smiled and waved him back. "And nothing until my death, which won't come while you are a young man. The world reports me well to do, and I am, but I am taxed by society heavily. I mean I have large demands on my income, and aside from certain properties that must be left in trust for other people and a modest provision for my wife and child, there isn't likely to be much. I tell you all this, partly because I like you, and partly because I think it is only fair. I don't think you are after money. But you must realize now that money will make a great difference in your career."
When Long moved hastily, the doctor smiled.
"I don't say that you should hunt a fortune, but you should keep out of the way of attractive women without fortune."
This time he gave Long an opportunity to vent his feelings. When he had finished, he began again quietly.
"What you say is singularly like what I said myself about nineteen years ago. I think I will tell you the story," and he proceeded coldly to give him an outline of his life. Long listened respectfully. At the close he said, "But the cases are not similar, exactly."