We were absolutely stonybroke, as they say over
here."
"Anyway, we've got to get out of this," the professor declared.
"My dear father," she replied, "I will agree that if a new city
or a new world could arise from the bottom of the
Once more he struck the table. Then he threw out his hands above
his head with the melodramatic instinct which had always been
strong in his blood.
"Do you think that I am a fool?" he cried. "Do you think I do
not know that if there were not something moving in your brain
you would think no more of that clerk, that bourgeois estate
agent, than of the door-mat beneath your feet? It is what I
always complain about. You make use of me as a tool. There are
always things which I do not understand. He comes here, this
young man, under a pretext, whether he knows it or not. You talk
to him for an hour at a time. There should be nothing in your
life which I do not know of, Elizabeth," he continued, his voice
suddenly hoarse as he leaned towards her. "Can't you see that
there is danger in friendships for you and for me, there is
danger in intimacies of any sort? I share the danger; I have a
right to share the knowledge. This young man has no money of his
own, I take it. Of what use is he to us?"
"You are too hasty, my dear father," she replied. "Let me assure
you that there is nothing at all mysterious about Mr. Tavernake.
The simple truth is that the young man rather attracts me."
The professor gazed at her incredulously.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131