She filled two little glasses. "Let us drink to our—secret."
Then while the wine was firing his veins, she spoke again of Jean and Derry. "It really seems as if he should have told you."
"I won't have him getting married. He can't marry unless he has money."
"Please don't speak of it to him. I don't want to get into trouble. You wouldn't want to get me into trouble, would you?"
"No."
She filled his glass again. He drank. Bit by bit she fed the fire of his doubts of his son. When at last he fell asleep in his lacquered bed he had made up his mind to rather drastic action.
She sat beside him, her thoughts flying ahead into the years. She saw things as she wanted them to be—Derry at odds with his father; married to Jean; herself mistress of this great house, wearing the diamond crown and the pearl collar; her portrait in the place of the one of the painted lady on the stairs; looking down on little Jean who had judged her by youth's narrow standards—whose husband would have no fortune unless he chose to accept it at her hands.
Thus she weighed her influence over the sleeping sick man, thus she dreamed, calm as fate in her white uniform.