y eyes, and her mother, in a hastily
donned wrapper and bedroom cap, clutching a sort of blue lace quilt,
sunk hysterically in the depths of a great armchair. At the first glance
he guessed the scene of cries and reproaches which had just ended. At
his entrance Mrs. Drake burst out furiously:

"I won't have it; I won't be insulted like this. Mr. Crocker, I desire
you, I command you, to leave the room. It's enough that my daughter
should take advantage of me. I will not be shamed before strangers."

"Lock the door," said Patsie quietly, "and keep the key."

He did so and came back to her side.

"Don't mind what she says," said Patsie scornfully. "She's not ill,
she's not hysterical, it's all put on: she knows just what she's doing."

At this Mrs. Drake burst into exaggerated sobs and shrank down into the
chair, covering her face with the quilt she clung to, without
perception of the grotesqueness of her act.

"Now, you're going to listen to me," said Patsie, striving to remain
calm through her anger. "You don't fool me the least bit, so you might
just as well listen quietly. I know just how much money you have and
every cent of it has been given to you by my father. You are worth over
four million dollars, I know that."

"It's not true, that's a lie," said Mrs. Drake with a scream.

"It is true," continued Patsie calmly, "and you know it's true. This
house is yours and everything in it. Do you want me to tell you exactly
what stocks and bonds you have at the present moment? Shall I have my
father come in, too, and tell us in detail just what he has given you
all these years? Do you want that?" She waited a moment and added
scornfully: "No, I rather guess that is not what you want. I asked you
before to help raise a loan to save him from losing what he had. You
could have done it: you refused. Now I am asking you to give exactly
what I shall give and what Doris will give, $500,000, so there will be
nothing, not the slightest reproach against his good name, against the
name you bear and I bear. Will you do it or not?"

"You don't know what you are talking about," cried the mother wildly.
"It's $500,000 now, it's $500,000 to-morrow and then it's everything.
You want me to ruin myself. You think just because he's gone on risking
everything, just because he never could be satisfied, that I should
suffer, too. You want me to make a pauper of myself. Well, I won't.
What right had he to risk money that didn't belong to