Let them stay here a
few weeks in the year--what could it matter to you in this immense
house?--or if that is impossible, at least give your wife a proper
allowance--you would spend it three times over in a day on things like
these"--her eye glanced toward a superb ewer and dish, of _verre
eglomisee_, standing between her and Melrose--"and let your daughter take
her place as your heiress! She ought to marry early--and marry
brilliantly. And later--perhaps--in her children--"
Melrose stood up.
"I shall not follow you into these dreams," he said fiercely. "She is not
my heiress--and she never will be. The whole of my property"--he spoke
with hammered emphasis--"will pass at my death to my friend and agent and
adopted son--Claude Faversham."
He spoke with an excitement his physical state no longer allowed him to
conceal. At last--he was defeating this woman who had once defeated him;
he was denying and scorning her, as she had once denied and scorned him.
That her cause was an impersonal and an unselfish one made no difference.
He knew the strength of her character and her sympathies. It was sweet to
him to refuse her something she desired. She had never yet given him the
opportunity! In the twenty years since they had last faced each other, he
was perfectly conscious that he had lost mentally, morally, physically;
whereas she--his enemy--bore about with her, even in her changed beauty,
the signs of a life lived fruitfully--a life that had been worth while.
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