“You know my reasons for disliking him, Nina,” her father said. “He is a man more than twice your age; he has a certain sort of unsavory reputation in his affairs with women. He has no income, no profession, no home; all those things tell against him. But the most serious of all, to me, is his mental attitude. The man has no wholesome, decent code. He dabbles in the occult, in Oriental morality—or immorality. With an older woman, that mightn’t matter. She could guide him, perhaps influence him. But you’re only a child—”
“I shall be of age Tuesday!” Nina burst forth, resentfully.
“You will be of age Tuesday. True. But you will be my ward, as far as your Uncle Edward’s legacy is concerned, for another three years. Now, Nina, if you persist in this folly, against my most earnest advice, I can only forbid the man the house, and lock you in your room in the good old-fashioned way. That I shall do. I shall then give out to the world—that has already had a rare treat at the expense of the Carter family!—the news of my utter disapproval of the match. If you manage the marriage in spite of me, I shall forbid you and Blondin my house, and as a matter of course use my right to withhold the payment of your legacy for three years, and stop your present allowance, and your credit with the shops. That’s all I can do! And I do it, Nina,” said Richard in a softer tone, “I do it to hasten the inevitable, my dear! I do it to bring you back to your father sooner instead of later; to give you only one year of disillusionment and suffering, instead of seven or eight!”
It must be a brave girl, thought Harriet, who could persist in any course, after that. But Nina had the impregnable armour of ignorance and pride, and she only sniffed pathetically again, and shrugged her shoulders.
“You do everything in the world to make my marriage a failure!” she said with the irrepressible tears. “And I suppose you’ll be delighted if it is! Uncle Edward’s money belongs to me; Ward has got his; and I don’t see why you just want to shame me before the world for your own satisfaction! Royal is a perfect child about money; he says that I will have to manage our business affairs, anyway. And I don’t see—if a woman can marry a rich man, why a man shouldn’t sometimes be glad if a girl has money! I’m proud to help him out, if he’ll let me. He says he won’t—why, we had planned going—well, just everywhere, Honolulu and southern California and just everywhere, only now he won’t go! He says he is going to stay right here, and take a position with an art magazine that he just hates, and work it all off—before we go, if it takes years—”
“Work what all off?” Harriet asked, simply and quietly.
“This money that a friend of his really lost, but he has taken it upon himself,” Nina answered, a little mollified. “It was eleven thousand dollars, and he has paid off about four, and anyway, I hate so much talk about money!” she finished, angrily.