im.

"I have decided that I would take it," said she, "with a--a--sort of
condition."

Sitting in the chair placed for Mr. Dayne's callers, the young man
showed instant signs of disapprobation.

"No, no! You are big enough to accept your own without conditions."

"Oh--you won't argue with me about that, will you? Perhaps it is
unreasonable, but I could never be satisfied to take it--and spend it
for myself. I could never have any pleasure in it--never feel that it
was really mine. So," she hurried on, "I thought that it would be nice
to take it--and give it away."

"Give it away!" he echoed, astonished and displeased.

"Yes--give it to the State. I thought I should like to give it
to--establish a reformatory."

Their eyes met. Upon his candid face she could watch the subtler
meanings of her idea slowly sinking into and taking hold of his
consciousness.

"No--no!" came from him, explosively. "No! You must not think of such a
thing."

"Yes--I have quite made up my mind. When the idea came to me it was like
an inspiration. It seemed to me the perfect use to make of this money.
Don't you see?... And--"

"No, I don't see," he said sharply. "Why will you persist in thinking
that there is something peculiar and unclean about this money?--some
imagined taint upon your title to it? Don't you understand that it is
yours in precisely the same definite and honest way that the money this
office pays you--"

"Oh--surely it is all a question of feeling. And if I feel--"

"It is a question of fact," said Mr. Surface. "Listen to me. Suppose
your father had put this money away for you somewhere, so that you knew
nothing about it, hidden it, say, in a secret drawer somewhere about
your house"--didn't he know exactly the sort of places which fathers
used to hide away money?--"and that now, after all these years, you had
suddenly found it, together with a note from him saying that it was for
you. You follow me perfectly? Well? Would it ever occur to you to give
that money to the State--for a _reformatory_?"

"Oh--perhaps not. How can I tell? But that case would--"

"Would be exactly like this one," he finished for her crisply. "The sole
difference is that it happens to be my father who hid the money away
instead of yours."

There was a silence.

"I am sorry," said she, constrainedly, "that you take this--this view. I
had hoped so much that you might agree with me. Nevertheless, I think
my mind is quite made up. I--"