“Madelaine! How did you know? Who told you——?”
“I happened to be hiding, unintentionally, in Miss Howland’s office that day. I heard everything. And there’s not been one day since, when I’ve heard you tear a check from your check book, but what I’ve remembered why and how I’m—here! Why did you do it? Oh, mother dear? Why did you?”
“My God!” cried the woman. “Madelaine, I never dreamed you knew! Or if you did, I thought you too little for it to make any difference. Sometimes I’ve wondered if you’re not really a woman even older and wiser than myself—merely using a young girl’s body.”
“Why did you, mother dear? You really didn’t have to do it!”
“And has that been bothering you, dear?”
“Ever since the day I came!”
The woman’s face and posture remained wooden for a moment. Then she relaxed.
“You poor dear, parentless lamb! Don’t you know—don’t you understand—can’t you see why? I did it because of my love!”
“Your love!”
“Exactly. Maybe I’ve been trained and molded these last few years, Madelaine, to think of value as money. I can’t help that. A thousand people would have termed my payment to the Howland woman absurd and ridiculous. Of course it was. And yet I had a purpose in it. Dear heart—I wanted to feel you had cost me something. Something I had paid for so I had the right to bona fide ownership!”