"Neither have I," said Kate. "He's very silent, thinking out more
inventions, maybe. The worst thing about him is a kind of hard-
headed self-assurance. He got it fighting for his mother from
boyhood. He knew she would freeze and starve if he didn't take
care of her; he HAD to do it. He soon found he could. It took
money to do what he had to do. He got the money. Then he began
performing miracles with it. He lifted his mother out of poverty,
he dressed her 'in purple and fine linen,' he housed her in the
same kind of home other rich men of the Lake Shore Drive live in,
and gave her the same kind of service. As most men do, when
things begin to come their way, he lived for making money alone.
He was so keen on the chase he wouldn't stop to educate and
culture himself; he drove headlong on, and on, piling up more, far
more than any one man should be allowed to have; so you can see
that it isn't strange that he thinks there's nothing on earth that
money can't do. You can see THAT sticking out all over him. At
the hotel, on boats, on the trains, anywhere we went, he pushed
straight for the most conspicuous place, the most desirable thing,
the most expensive. I almost prayed sometimes that in some way he
would strike ONE SINGLE THING that he couldn't make come his way
with money; but he never did. No. I haven't an idea what he has
in his mind yet, but he's going to write me about it this week,
and if I agree to whatever it is, he is coming Sunday; then he has
threatened me with a 'deluge,' whatever he means by that."
"He means providing another teacher for Walden, taking you to
Chicago shopping for a wonderful trousseau, marrying you in his
Lake Shore palace, no doubt."
"Well, if that's what he means by a 'deluge,'" said Kate, "he'll
find the flood coming his way. He'll strike the first thing he
can't do with money. I shall teach my school this winter as I
agreed to. I shall marry him in the clothes I buy with what I
earn. I shall marry him quietly, here, or at Adam's, or before a
Justice of the Peace, if neither of you wants me. He can't pick
me up, and carry me away, and dress me, and marry me, as if I were
a pauper."
"You're RIGHT about it," said Nancy Ellen. "I don't know how we
came to be so different. I should do at once any way he suggested
to get such a fine-looking man and that much money. That it would
be a humiliation to me all my after life, I wouldn't think about
until the humiliation began, and then I'd have no way to protect
myself. You're right! But I'd get out of teaching this winter if
I could. I'd love to have you here."