My
course in this business is as plain as two and two make four. I have got
the money, and I should be a born idiot if I parted with it. There is my
point of view! Simple enough, isn't it? I don't stand on my dignity; I
don't meet you with the law, which is all on my side; I don't blame
your coming here, as a total stranger, to try and alter my resolution;
I don't blame the two girls for wanting to dip their fingers into my
purse. All I say is, I am not fool enough to open it. _Pas si bete_, as
we used to say in the English circle at Zurich. You understand French,
Miss Garth? _Pas si bete!_" He set aside his plate of strawberries once
more, and daintily dried his fingers on his fine white napkin.
Magdalen kept her temper. If she could have struck him dead by lifting
her hand at that moment, it is probable she would have lifted it. But
she kept her temper.
"Am I to understand," she asked, "that the last words you have to say in
this matter are the words said for you in Mrs. Lecount's letter!"
"Precisely so," replied Noel Vanstone.
"You have inherited your own father's fortune, as well as the fortune of
Mr. Andrew Vanstone, and yet you feel no obligation to act from motives
of justice or generosity toward these two sisters? All you think it
necessary to say to them is, you have got the money, and you refuse to
part with a single farthing of it?"
"Most accurately stated! Miss Garth, you are a woman of business.
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