“Think of her!”
“I tell you it's settled. Let me stay here with you to-night, and tomorrow you drive out and tell her what I've done, that's where I lose my grip.”
“No, I'll have no part in breaking that news to her; but you stay here to-night, and in the morning we'll hunt up McKeever.”
But Stephen only shook his head.
“I thought you'd help me,” he said, with much dejection of manner.
“Not in this, not in the way you wish me to.”
But Benson was fast losing his temper. The boy's selfishness, and stupid determination, exasperated him to the last degree. He was feeling infinite pity for Virginia, who for years had done nothing but deny herself for this ingrate, who was proving himself so unworthy of her love.
“I didn't think it of you, Stephen,” he said at last, as much in sorrow as in anger. “I looked for better things from you, I did indeed!”
The boy burned to vindicate himself. He felt that all his motives were being misjudged; he wanted Benson to understand just why he had enlisted.
“Look here!” he burst out. “I've fooled my time away here digging into your law books just to please my Aunt Virginia, but it's got to stop; there's no use—no sense in it! I can only be of use to her by being of use to myself in my own way! I can't think with her brains nor hope with her hopes; I've got my own hopes, my own sense of things, and they don't fit with hers—that's all there is to it! Of course, it's going to be a wrench to her, it's going to be a wrench to me; maybe you don't think I love her? I tell you I do! She's been all the mother I have ever had—you know that—and because of her I've never missed anything in my life, but she's got an awfully strong will; she'll make endless sacrifices of herself, but her opinions are like iron, and she's never been able to see what I see! I've told her all along that I was wasting my time here with you; but she's set her heart on my having a profession; nothing I can say moves her, you know that—you know what I say is all so!” he finished in an injured tone.