From the Housetops | Page 3

quite straight in the matter. It will save time and put an
end to recriminations. My daughter does not care the snap of her
fingers for Mr. Thorpe. I think she loves you quite as dearly now as she
ever did. At any rate, she says she does. But that is neither here nor
there. She is going to marry Mr. Thorpe, and of her own volition. I
have advised her to do so, I will admit, but I have not driven her to it,
as you say. No one but a fool would expect her to love that old man. He
doesn't ask it of her. He simply asks her to marry him. Nowadays
people do not always marry for love. In fact, they frequently marry to
avoid it--at least for the time being. Your grandfather has told you of
the marriage settlement. It is to be two million dollars, set apart for her,
to be hers in full right on the day that he dies. We are far from rich,
Anne and I. My husband was a failure--but you know our
circumstances quite well enough without my going into them. My
daughter is her own mistress. She is twenty-three. She is able to choose
for herself. It pleases her to choose the grandfather instead of the
grandson. Is that perfectly plain to you? If it is, my boy, then I submit
that there is nothing further to be said. The situation is surely clear
enough for even you to see. We do not pretend to be doing anything
noble. Mr. Thorpe is seventy-seven. That is the long and short of it."
"In plain English, it's the money you are after," said he, with a sneer.
"Obviously," said she, with the utmost candour. "Young women of
twenty- three do not marry old men of seventy-seven for love. You may
imagine a young girl marrying a penniless youth for love, but can you

picture her marrying a penniless octogenarian for the same reason? I
fancy not. I speak quite frankly to you, Braden, and without reserve.
We have always been friends. It would be folly to attempt to delude
you into believing that a sentimental motive is back of our--shall we
say enterprise?"
"Yes, that is what I would call it," said he levelly. "It is a more refined
word than scheme."
"The world will be grateful for the opportunity to bear me out in all that
I have said to you," she went on. "It will cheerfully, even gleefully
supply any of the little details I may have considered unnecessary or
superfluous in describing the situation. You are at liberty, then, to go
forth and assist in the castigation. You have my permission,--and
Anne's, I may add,--to say to the world that I have told you plainly why
this marriage is to take place. It is no secret. It isn't improbable that
your grandfather will consent to back you up in your denunciation. He
is that kind of a man. He has no illusions. Permit me to remind you,
therefore, that neither you nor the world is to take it for granted that we
are hoodwinking Mr. Thorpe. Have I made myself quite clear to you,
Braden?"
The young man drew a deep breath. His tense figure relaxed. "I did not
know there were such women in the world as you, Mrs. Tresslyn. There
were heartless, soulless women among the Borgias and the Medicis, but
they lived in an age of intrigue. Their acts were mildly innocuous when
compared with--"
"I must ask you to remember that you are in my home, Braden," she
interrupted, her eyes ablaze.
"Oh, I remember where I am, perfectly," he cried. "It was in this very
room that Anne promised to become my wife. It was here that you gave
your consent, less than a year ago."
He had been pacing the floor, back and forth across the space in front
of the fireplace, in which logs were blazing on this raw February
afternoon. Now he stopped once more to face her resolutely.

"I insist that it is my right to see Anne," he said. His eyes were
bloodshot, his cheek pallid. "I must hear from her own lips that she no
longer considers herself bound to me by the promise made a year ago. I
demand that much of her. She owes it to me, if not to herself, to put an
end to the farce before she turns to tragedy. I don't believe she
appreciates the wickedness of the thing she is about to do. I insist that it
is my right to speak with her, to urge her to reconsider, to point out to
her the horrors of--"
"She will not see you, Braden," broke in the mother, finality in her
voice.