"I will not thwart him again."
"If I could put it to you properly now!" The captain grew red and coughed. Mr. Neckart looked at him with fierce disgust. Was he so brutal as to talk to any woman of her marriage with a man whom she had never seen?
"You forget," he said coldly. "Miss Swendon owes no gratitude for money which was justly her own. William Laidley, too, was a weak, impure man—the very last who should be allowed to stretch his hand out of his grave to control any woman's life. You should not hamper her with any such gratitude."
"You cannot judge of this for me, Mr. Neckart," said Jane. "He has the right, especially when it concerns his money.—What is it he wished me to do?"
The captain stammered with embarrassment.
"Tut! tut! Money has nothing to do with it.—As for poor Will, Bruce, he had his good points. De mortuis—you know. I knew him in his prime. It's a trifle, after all," evading Neckart's eye, of which he had read the meaning. "But you are so apt, Jane, to take unreasonable prejudices against people. This is a friend of Will's, whom Judge Rhodes will bring out this evening. And it was your cousin's wish that he should be your friend also—adviser, eh? I've no head for business, you know, and you might refer knotty questions to him. Consult him about stocks, and the drainage of the stables, and this and that," glancing at Neckart for approval of his delicacy and cunning. "I only wanted to warn you not to take an antipathy to him, but I am clumsy—"
"Is that all?" putting her hand to her eyes for a minute as though they ached.—"Come, Bruno. It is time to dress for dinner."
"Yes, do, my dear. Haven't you any dress with frills and fal-lals, such as the ladies are wearing now? These clinging gowns do well enough for home-folks like me and Bruce, but—Something airy, gay, now. It's only as an adviser that Will recommended Mr. Van Ness to you, you understand? Your cousin consulted him of late years in all financial matters. I do suppose Van Ness—and Laidley too," turning to Neckart—"would think the child was flinging the money to the dogs, buying such a place as this to humor her old father's whims."
Jane halted, her hands on the dog's collar: "I will have no advice from Mr. Van Ness, father, as to my disposal of the money. It is mine. No man, dead or living, shall interfere with my use of it," she said in a low voice.
"Now I've prejudiced her against him," groaned the captain as soon as she was out of sight. "I saw you thought me coarse in urging this matter on her so abruptly, Bruce. But you do not understand. My time here is short—God knows how soon it may end—and I can't bear the thought of leaving the child alone. Van Ness is so pure a man—a Christian whom all the world reverences—What better can I hope than to see her his wife before I go?"