--this--is the way you wish the matter settled?"

Surface took his face from his hands and looked up. His expression was a
complete surprise. It was neither savage nor anguished, but
ingratiating, complacent, full of suppressed excitement. Into his eyes
had sprung an indescribable look of cunning, the look of a broken-down
diplomat about to outwit his adversary with a last unsuspected card.

"No, no! Of course I'll not let you leave me like this," he said, with a
kind of trembling eagerness, and gave a rather painful laugh. "You force
my hand. I had not meant to tell you my secret so soon. You can't guess
the real reason why I refuse to give my money to Miss Weyland, even
when you ask it, now can you? You can't guess, now can you?"

"I think I can. You had rather have the money than have me."

"Not a bit of it. Nothing of the kind! Personally I care nothing for the
money. I am keeping it," said the old man, lowering his voice to a
chuckling whisper, "_for you!_" He leaned over the table, fixing Queed
with a gaze of triumphant cunning. "I'm going to make you _my heir!_
Leave everything I have in the world _to you!_"

A wave of sick disgust swept through the young man, momentarily
engulfing his power of speech. Never had the old man's face looked so
loathsome to him, never the man himself appeared so utterly detestable.

Surface had risen, whispering and chuckling. "Come up to the
sitting-room, my dear boy. I have some papers up there that may open
your eyes. You need never work--"

"Stop!" said Queed, and the old man stopped in his tracks. "Can't I make
you understand?" he went on, fighting hard for calmness. "Isn't it clear
to you that _nothing_ could induce me to touch another penny of this
money?"

"Ah!" said Surface, in his softest voice. "Ah! And might I inquire the
reason for this heroic self-restraint?"

"You choose your words badly. It is no restraint to honest men to
decline to take other people's money."

"Ah, I see. I see. I see," said Surface, nodding his shining hairless
head up and down.

"Good-by."

"No, no," said the old man, in an odd thick voice. "Not quite yet, if
you please. There is still something that I want to say to you."

He came slowly around the tiny table, and Queed watched his coming with
bursts of fierce repugnance which set his hard-won muscles to twitching.
An elemental satisfaction there might be in throwing the old man through
the window. Yet, in a truer sense, he felt th