The Price She Paid | Page 8

dollars, most of it available

within a few months.
``As you have the good-will of the firm and as your mother and sister
have only what can be realized in cash,'' said he to Frank, ``no doubt
you won't insist on your third.''
``I've got to consider my wife,'' said Frank. ``I can't do as I'd like.''
``You are going to insist on your third?'' said Conover, with an accent
that made Frank quiver.
``I can't do otherwise,'' said he in a dogged, shamed way.
``Um,'' said Conover. ``Then, on behalf of my sister and her daughter
I'll have to insist on a more detailed accounting than you have been
willing to give --and on the production of that small book bound in red
leather which disappeared from my brother-in-law's desk the afternoon
of his death.''
A wave of rage and fear surged up within Frank Gower and crashed
against the seat of his life. For days thereafter he was from time to time
seized with violent spasms of trembling; years afterward he was
attributing premature weaknesses of old age to the effects of that
moment of horror. His uncle's words came as a sudden, high shot
climax to weeks of exasperating peeping and prying and questioning,
of sneer and insinuation. Conover had been only moderately successful
at the law, had lost clients to Frank's father, had been beaten when they
were on opposite sides. He hated the father with the secret, hypocritical
hatred of the highly moral and religious man. He de- spised the son. It
is not often that a Christian gentleman has such an opportunity to
combine justice and revenge, to feed to bursting an ancient grudge, the
while conscious that he is but doing his duty.
Said Frank, when he was able to speak: ``You have been listening to
the lies of some treacherous clerk here.''
``Don't destroy that little book,'' proceeded Conover tranquilly. ``We
can prove that you took it.''
Young Gower rose. ``I must decline to have anything further to say to
you, sir,'' said he. ``You will leave this office, and you will not be
admitted here again unless you come with proper papers as
administrator.''
Conover smiled with cold satisfaction and departed. There followed a
series of quarrels--between Frank and his sister, between Frank and his
mother, between Frank's wife and his mother, between Mildred and her

mother, between the mother and Conover. Mrs. Gower was suspicious
of her son; but she knew her brother for a pinchpenny, exacting the last
drop of what he regarded as his own. And she discovered that, if she
authorized him to act as administrator for her, he could --and beyond
question would--take a large share of the estate. The upshot was that
Frank paid over to his mother and sister forty-seven thousand dollars,
and his mother and her brother stopped speaking to each other.
``I see that you have turned over all your money to mother,'' said Frank
to Mildred a few days after the settlement.
``Of course,'' said Mildred. She was in a mood of high scorn for
sordidness--a mood induced by the spectacle of the shameful manners
of Conover, Frank, and his wife.
``Do you think that's wise?'' suggested Frank.
``I think it's decent,'' said Mildred.
``Well, I hope you'll not live to regret it,'' said her brother.
Neither Mrs. Gower nor her daughter had ever had any experience in
the care of money. To both forty- seven thousand dollars seemed a
fortune--forty-seven thousand dollars in cash in the bank, ready to issue
forth and do their bidding at the mere writing of a few figures and a
signature on a piece of paper. In a sense they knew that for many years
the family's annual expenses had ranged between forty and fifty
thousand, but in the sense of actuality they knew nothing about it--a
state of affairs common enough in families where the man is in
absolute control and spends all he makes. Money always had been
forthcomcoming;{sic} therefore money always would be forthcoming.
The mourning and the loss of the person who had filled and employed
their lives caused the widow and the daughter to live very quietly
during the succeeding year. They spent only half of their capital. For
reasons of selfish and far-sighted prudence which need no detailing
Frank moved away to New York within six months of his father's death
and reduced communication between himself and wife and his mother
and sister to a frigid and rapidly congealing minimum. He calculated
that by the time their capital was con- sumed they would have left no
feeling of claim upon him or he feeling of duty toward them.
It was not until eighteen months after her father's death, when the total
capital was sunk to less than fifteen thousand dollars, that