“Eileen,––Jim and I have made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars between us in cold cash. It is in the bank, thanks to you and the promise you got me to make when we started in. Half of that money is mine. I don’t require it. Won’t you let me come into this; it means you and me anyway in the finish. Your father can secure me in any way he likes. My money would satisfy the bank’s claim and steady his holdings. Won’t you let me do this for you and your father?”
“And leave you with a lot of unsaleable property instead of hard cash? No, Phil,––absolutely no! And if you make this offer to my dad, it will mean the end for you and me, for I could never feel otherwise towards you than that I had in some way been bought.”
“Eileen!” remonstrated Phil, hurt at her words.
She burst into tears and hid her face on his shoulder.
“Oh,––I just can’t bear it. I hardly know what I have been saying. I didn’t mean it quite that way, Phil. But you must not suggest putting your money into this. People would never finish talking over it.”
“Yet you were willing to take me, Eileen, when your father’s position looked secure as the country itself and I had hardly one nickel to rub against another.”
“But you had ambition. You were brimming over with it. Nothing could ever have stopped you from making progress sooner or later. And I knew that. Lack of money means nothing to a young man with the ambition which you had, and still have. As for me, I shall have nothing now but myself.”
“And me, Eileen, for I’ll never let you back out. Why,––if you wish it, I’ll leave everything here as it stands, or I’ll give it away,––and we can go somewhere else and start all over.”
“But that wouldn’t be fair, if I did agree.”