“I have received your note,” he began directly, “asking me to come in and see you about the matter of difference between the estates.  That is why I have called.  I trust that this means that you are going to be sensible and take your money.”

“In a way—­yes.  I will tell you—­what I have thought.”

“Well, sit down to tell me please.  You look tired; not well at all.  Not in the least.  Take this comfortable chair.”

Obediently she sat down in Mr. Dayne’s high-backed swivel-chair, which, when she leaned back, let her neat-shod little feet swing clear of the floor.  The chair was a happy thought; it steadied her; so did his unexampled solicitousness, which showed, she thought, that her emotion had not escaped him.

“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—­”