PIKE.  No, I wouldn’t do that.

ETHEL [in a challenging voice].  Why not?

PIKE [doggedly].  Because I won’t take up the matter of settlements with him or any one else.

ETHEL [angrily].  Do you mean you cannot see what a humiliation your interference has brought upon you in this?

PIKE.  No; I see that plain enough.

ETHEL.  Have you, after this, any further objections to my alliance with
Mr. St. Aubyn?

PIKE.  It ain’t an alliance with Mr. St. Aubyn that you’re after.

ETHEL.  Then what am I [pauses and lays scornful emphasis on the next word] after?

[Illustration:  “YOU’RE AFTER SOMETHING THERE ISN’T ANYTHING TO”]

PIKE [slowly].  You’re after something there isn’t anything to.  If I’d let you buy what you want to with your money and your whole life, you’d find it as empty as the morning after Judgment Day.

[She turns from him, smiling and superior.]

You think because I’m a jay country lawyer I don’t understand it and couldn’t understand you!  Why, we’ve got just the same thing at home.  There was little Annie Hoffmeyer.  Her pa was a carpenter and doing well.  But Annie couldn’t get into the Kokomo Ladies’ Literary Club, and her name didn’t show up in the society column four or five times every Saturday morning, so she got her pa to give her the money to marry Artie Seymour, the minister’s son—­and a regular minister’s son he was!  Almost broke Hoffmeyer’s heart, but he let her have her way and went in debt and bought them a little house on North Main Street.  That was two years ago.  Annie’s workin’ at the depoe candy-stand now and Artie’s workin’ at the hotel bar—­in front—­drinking up what’s left of old Hoffmeyer’s—­settlement!

ETHEL [outraged].  And you say you understand—­you who couple the name of a tippling yokel with that of a St. Aubyn—­a gentleman of distinction.

PIKE.  Distinction?  I didn’t know he was distinguished.

ETHEL [in a ringing voice].  His ancestors have fought with glory on every field of battle from Crecy and Agincourt to the Crimea.

PIKE.  But you won’t see much of his ancestors.

ETHEL.  He bears their name.

PIKE [with authority and dignity].  Yes—­and it’s the name you want.  Nobody could look at you and not know it wasn’t him.  It’s the name!  And I’d let you buy it if it would make you happy—­if you didn’t have to take the people with it.

[A deepening of color in the light shows that it has grown to be late afternoon, near sunset.]

ETHEL [angrily].  The “people”?

PIKE.  Yes; the whole gang.  Can’t you see how they’re counting on it?  It’s in their faces, in their ways!  This Earl—­don’t you see he’s counting on living on you?  Do you think the son would get that settlement?  Why, a Terre Hut pickpocket could get it away from him—­let alone his old man!  What do you think would become of the “settlement”?