"I don't know--twice four-fifty. _You_ multiply it."
"Nine dollars for gloves for them! Good heavens! But, Margaret, they
have their _own_ money."
"That's nice of them--I mean for them. Ah, Daniel, won't you come
home?"
"The time has come, Margaret, when you and I must come to an
understanding about your--your income."
"Won't it do after dinner?"
"It is a matter for private discussion and we are here alone now. Let
us settle it. In the first place," he said impressively, "it is time
that _I_ took over the management of your finances. Does Walter have
them in charge?"
"Daniel," said Margaret gravely, a faint colour coming to her cheeks,
"Walter surely did not give you to understand that _I_ had any money?"
"No. _You_ did."
"I? How?"
"You said you were one of your uncle's heirs."
"Only to the old homestead, Berkeley Hill. Nothing else."
They looked at each other across the table, Daniel's small, keen eyes
meeting steadily her faintly troubled ones.
"Did you think I had money, Daniel?"
"What is the homestead supposed to be worth and how many heirs are
there?"
"Hattie and I own it. I don't know what it is worth. It is awfully
out of repair, you know."
"But Walter pays you rent, of course, for your share in it?"
"Oh, no, he couldn't afford to."
"Couldn't afford to? When they live like millionaires! Oriental rugs,
a butler to wait on the table, solid silver, and expensive
china--anyway, it _looked_ expensive. And they can't afford to pay you
rent?"
"All those things were inherited, Daniel, along with the place, the
butler included."
"Then _you_ own those rugs and that silver and china?"
"Jointly with my sister, yes."
"But that's property, Margaret. How, then, are you receiving your
share?"
"I'm not receiving it."
"Why not? I hate that slipshod Southern way of doing business! You
ought, of course, to be drawing an income from your half of that place."
"But it yields no income."
"Isn't any of the land cultivated?"
"The land consists of two square miles of woodland about the house.
Walter says the place, as it is, couldn't even be rented; and none of
us have any money to spend in fixing it up; so there you are. It's a
home for Hattie's family, that's all."
"Gracious!"
"Is it a shock to you to find me penniless?" asked Margaret gravely.
"Wouldn't you have married me if you had known?"
She was acutely conscious of the fact that since she had married him
for a home, she certainly could not judge him very critically if he
_had_ married her for a supposed fortune.
Daniel looked at her speculatively. Would he have married her if he
had known? Well, he was pretty certain that he would have; that at
that time, incredible as it might seem, her charm for him outmeasured
any dower a wife might have brought him. But now? Did he rue his
"blind and headlong" (so he considered it) yielding to her fascination?
His eyes swept over her appraisingly, over her dark hair, her soft dark
eyes, the curve of her red lips, her broad, boyish shoulders, her fine
hands clasped on the top of the desk, and he knew that he adored her.
Not even in the face of the shock he felt at learning of her
pennilessness, and on the head of her audacious defiance of his wishes,
could he regret for an instant that she was his--his very own. And it
suddenly came to him, with a force that sent the blood to his face,
that her being comparatively penniless (for of course he'd insist on
getting _some_thing out of that Berkeley Hill estate), her present
absolute dependence upon him made her all the more his own, his
property, subject to his will. If she were penniless, he held her in
his power. It was with the primitive instinct of a savage that he
gloated over his possession, the most precious of all his possessions.
"I shall teach her this much about the value of money (of which she
seems as ignorant as a child): that the price of her board and clothing
is obedience to me!"
"Yes, Margaret," he at length replied, "I would have married you if I
had known you were penniless. I married you because I loved you."
She did not tell him that there he had the advantage of her. She
envied him his clear conscience in the matter. A shade of respect for
him came into her countenance as she looked at him, a respect she could
not feel for herself on the same score.
He took a small blank book from his desk and a crisp ten-dollar bill
from his purse and laid them before her.
"This is the first of the month, I shall give you ten dollars a month
for pocket money, and you will keep an account of your expenditures in
this book and show it to me at the first of each month. Anything you
need to buy which this allowance won't cover you can ask me about. You
seem to know nothing of the value of money, and it's time you learned.
I can't trust you with more than a small sum, since you at once go off
and squander it on other people instead of spending it for yourself--or
for what you were told to spend it for. No more of that, my dear!
Your allowance is for your own needs. When you want to make gifts, you
consult me."
She dropped the money into her bag, but she did not pick up the blank
book.
Daniel took it up and held it out to her. She hesitated, but dreading
further discussion with him if she informed him that she had no
intention of accounting to him, like a school-girl, for her use of ten
dollars a month, she tucked the book also into her bag.
"You must sign over to me the power of attorney to collect rent from
your brother-in-law for your half of that estate. I shall look into
the matter, and if I feel that the property justifies it, I'll expend
some money on it, and then we can rent it at a high rate, too high,
probably, for Walter's means. He'll have to move out and live
elsewhere."
Again she did not contradict him, while she privately determined to
write to Walter herself that very day and warn him that she was not a
party to any suggestions which Daniel might make as to Berkeley Hill.
And Daniel was privately telling himself that it would not be any time
at all before he would contrive to get over into his own hands that
entire estate.
"Also," he said to her, "I shall claim for you one half of all the
contents of the house, the books, pictures, china, silver,
furniture----"
"Butler," inserted Margaret.
"Well, we'll leave them the butler," grinned Daniel. "He appeared to
be more out of repair than anything else on the place."
The bare suggestion of bringing their family heirlooms into such a
setting as that of Daniel's New Munich house seemed to Margaret like
horrible sacrilege.
"I'd like to see anybody make Harriet strip Berkeley Hill of half its
belongings!" she smiled.
"But if half its belongings are _yours_?"
"Uncle Osmond never meant them to be taken from the old home."
"His will doesn't say so, does it?"
"Of course not. He gave us credit for a few decent feelings."
Daniel regarded her in perplexity. How was it that she could weakly
let herself be so absurdly imposed upon by her sister and
brother-in-law as to her own property, all she had in the world, and
yet, when it came to a matter like this of his secretary, be so hard to
manage by a man of his resolution?
"He gave you credit, too, it seems, for having no business sense.
Well, fortunately for you, you've got _me_ to take care of that end for
you now. I'll make that estate _yield_ something to your sister's
advantage as well as yours. And now," he concluded, rising, slipping
into his overcoat, and picking up his hat, "just one more word:
understand, my dear, that when you act like a naughty, disobedient,
small girl"--he punctuated his words by tapping her shoulder with his
derby--"you will be treated like one and have your allowance cut off.
Eh? So I trust we'll hear no more of this nonsense about my secretary."
"I trust so, too."
"Good!"
"But," added Margaret as they went forth together to the street, "I
don't just see how you're going to get out of supporting your legal
wife, so long as I consent to _let_ you support me."
"You 'consent' to _let_ me? Now what do you mean by that nonsense?
Some of that 'Feminist' talk, is it, that Miss Hamilton was trying to
stuff you with?"
"Never mind," said Margaret. "I won't explain what I mean, for if I
do, you'll begin to argue with me; and I refuse to argue any more about
anything until I have had a good, square meal."
And so it was that in spite of the revelations of the past hour in
Daniel's office, and the talk so illuminating to them both, Jennie and
Sadie had the surprise of hearing them come into the house together,
laughing and talking as though nothing whatever had occurred to call
for their brother's solemn displeasure with his heedless and
irresponsible wife.