"How well you are looking this afternoon, father! Your cheeks are as red as a girl's!"
"Oh, I'm all right! Don't bother about me. Think of other people sometimes, child. Now, there's a matter I want to speak to you about, if I could only put it to you properly."
"I am ready. Put it directly, point-blank: that is the best way in delicate questions."
"Don't laugh. It's no laughing matter. It's the most serious business of my life, and I've only a few minutes to make you understand," mopping his hot forehead with his handkerchief. "The train will be due in half an hour."
"The train? Serious business? The commissioner of patents is coming?—"
"Damn the patents! I beg your pardon, Jane. But really—This is a request I have to make of you. A request of you from poor Will Laidley."
She drew back. The weight which she had a moment ago thrown off fell on her again. "A request of me?" she said slowly. "Whatever he asked me to do I shall do. I owe him at least so much."
"Of course! You owe him everything. You know he might have left us without a penny, as he thought of doing. Instead of which, there was not even a legacy to any charity."
"No. Every dollar of it came to me. I know."
"Oh, Will behaved most generously, nobly, to you, there's no doubt of it! And this plan of his shows such tender care of you. I never heard of it until to-day from Judge Rhodes. God forbid that I should influence you! But you would be sorry to thwart him in his grave."