Mr. O’Brien was very grateful.
During the reading of the will Lester had sat as stolid as an ox.
He got up after a time, as did the others, assuming an air of nonchalance. Robert, Amy, Louise and Imogene all felt shocked, but not exactly, not unqualifiedly regretful. Certainly Lester had acted very badly. He had given his father great provocation.
“I think the old gentleman has been a little rough in this,” said Robert, who had been sitting next him. “I certainly did not expect him to go as far as that. So far as I am concerned some other arrangement would have been satisfactory.”
Lester smiled grimly. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
Imogene, Amy, and Louise were anxious to be consolatory, but they did not know what to say. Lester had brought it all on himself. “I don’t think papa acted quite right, Lester,” ventured Amy, but Lester waved her away almost gruffly.
“I can stand it,” he said.
He figured out, as he stood there, what his income would be in case he refused to comply with his father’s wishes. Two hundred shares of L. S. and M. S., in open market, were worth a little over one thousand each. They yielded from five to six per cent., sometimes more, sometimes less. At this rate he would have ten thousand a year, not more.
The family gathering broke up, each going his way, and Lester returned to his sister’s house. He wanted to get out of the city quickly, gave business as an excuse to avoid lunching with any one, and caught the earliest train back to Chicago. As he rode he meditated.
So this was how much his father really cared for him! Could it really be so? He, Lester Kane, ten thousand a year, for only three years, and then longer only on condition that he married Jennie! “Ten thousand a year,” he thought, “and that for three years! Good Lord! Any smart clerk can earn that. To think he should have done that to me!”