“What are they going to do?” asked Stephen.
“I suppose it will mean a lawsuit; it certainly will if Wade can bring it about. Have you seen your aunt?”
“Not recently.”
“I think you should, Stephen.”
“Well, perhaps; but look here, either I must stop this thing coming to trial, or I must leave Uncle Jake's house. I think if I asked her to, my aunt would drop the whole matter; and if I remain in my present relation with Uncle Jake, I feel it's my duty to ask her to do this. And if I don't, it's my duty to leave him. Now I can't well ask her to abandon what may mean a comfortable fortune to her; something's due her.”
“Very much is due her,” said the banker decidedly.
“Well, yes,” admitted Stephen. “But see, it's not that I fear to lose any benefits that some day may come to me from Uncle Jake, I don't care the snap of my finger for all his money, but what I do care about is having him think that I'm a base ungenerous brute. Mind, I don't for one minute admit that I think he's ever taken advantage of my aunt—I don't, I can't—I won't!”
“Naturally,” said the banker kindly. “You have the greatest regard for him. You'd be singularly unworthy if you hadn't; but really, Stephen, he is not acting as a man should who knows he is in the right and has nothing to fear. If he can explain the transaction, he can explain it as well now as later on, and save himself a lot of annoyance into the bargain; you must realize this. Now we know Mr. Benson, and if he is one thing more than another, he is dispassionate and reasonable; he has neither false pride nor weak vanity; he is a cool, level-headed man of large affairs who has lived a long time in the world, and who must be fully conscious of the folly and weakness of the stand he has taken in this case; he is silent then because there is nothing he can say.”
“Then you agree wholly with Wade?”
“I am sorry to have to say it to you, Stephen, but I do. And you can't question your aunt's right, her perfect right, to go ahead with this matter. You must try and see it as she sees it. All her affairs were in his hands, and he took the basest and most contemptible advantage of her trust.”