The Dyckman millions in person were about to enter this room. The Dyckman millions wanted Kedzie. If they got her it would be a wonderful thing for a poor, hard-working girl who had had the spunk to strike out for herself and make her own way without expense to her father and mother. The Dyckman millions, furthermore, would bring the millennium at once to the father and mother.
Mrs. Thropp, fresh from her village (yet not so very fresh—say, rather, recent from sordid humility), sat dreaming of herself as a Dyckman by marriage. She imagined herself and the great Mrs. Dyckman in adjoining rocking-chairs, exchanging gossip and recipes and anecdotes of their joint grandchildren-to-be. Just to inhale the aroma of that future, that vision of herself as Mr. Dyckman's mother-in-law, was like breathing in deeply of laughing-gas; a skilful dentist could have extracted a molar from her without attracting her attention. And in the vapor of that stupendous temptation the devil actually did extract from her her entire moral code without her noticing the difference.
If Kedzie had been married to Gilfoyle and besought in marriage by another fellow of the same relative standard of income Mrs. Thropp could have waxed as indignant as anybody. If Kedzie's new suitor had earned as high as four thousand a year, which was a pile of money in Nimrim, she would still have raged against the immorality of tampering with the sacrament of marriage. She might have withstood as much as twenty thousand a year for the sake of home and religion. She abhorred divorce, as well as other people do (especially divorcées).
But to resist a million dollars and all that went with it was impossible. To resist a score of millions was twenty times impossibler. She made up her mind that Dyckman should not escape from this temporary alliance with the Thropps without paying at least a handsome initiation-fee. Suddenly she set her jaw and broke into the parley of her husband and their daughter:
“Well, I've made up my mind. Adna, you shut up awhile and get on out this room. I'm going to have a few words with my girl.”
Adna looked into the face of his wife and saw there that red-and-white-striped expression which always puts a wise man to flight. He was glad to be permitted to retreat. When he was gone Mrs. Thropp beckoned Kedzie to sit by her on the chaise longue. She gathered her child up as some adoring old buzzard might cuddle her nestling and impart choice ideals of scavengery.
“Look here, honey: you listen to your mother what loves you and knows what's best for you. You've struck out for yourself and you've won the grandest chance any girl ever had. If you throw it away you'll be slappin' Providence right in the face. The Lord would never have put this op'tunity in your reach if He hadn't meant you to have it.”
“What you talking about, momma?” said Kedzie.
“My father always used to say: 'Old Man Op'tunity is bald-headed except for one long scalplock in the middle his forehead. Grab him as he comes toward you, for there's nothing to lay holt on as he goes by.'”
“What's all this talk about bald-heads?” Kedzie protested.