If you want to be kind to a young woman, it is no use
feeding her ambition and her avarice, for these are a man's idols. A
woman's is love."
Mary wafted the speaker a furtive kiss.
"To enrich that dear child after your death, thirty years hence, and
break her heart in the flower of her youth, is to be unkind to her; and
if you are unkind to her, our compact is broken."
"Unkind to her," said Bartley. "What male parent has ever been more kind,
more vigilant? Sentimental weakness is another matter. My affection is
more solid. Can I oblige you in anything that is business?"
"Mr. Bartley," said Hope, "you can not divert me from the more important
question: business is secondary to that dear girl's happiness. However, I
have more than once asked you to tell me who is the loser of that large
sum, which, as you and I have dealt with it, has enriched you and given
me a competence."
"That's my business," said Bartley, sharply, "for you never fingered a
shilling of it. So if the pittance I pay you for conducting my business
burns your pocket, why, send it to Rothschild.
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