"No
doubt, no doubt," he said. "You would sacrifice anything for him.
Everybody knows that. But it is, after all then, your fortune which Pen
is offering to the young lady; and of which he wishes to take possession
at eighteen."
"I know my mother will give me anything," Pen said, looking rather
disturbed.
"Yes, my good fellow, but there is reason in all things. If your mother
keeps the house, it is but fair that she should select her company. When
you give her house over her head, and transfer her banker's account to
yourself for the benefit of Miss What-d'-you-call-'em--Miss Costigan--
don't you think you should at least have consulted my sister as one of
the principal parties in the transaction? I am speaking to you, you see,
without the least anger or assumption of authority, such as the law and
your father's will give me over you for three years to come--but as one
man of the world to another,--and I ask you, if you think that, because
you can do what you like with your mother, therefore you have a right to
do so? As you are her dependent, would it not have been more generous to
wait before you took this step, and at least to have paid her the
courtesy to ask her leave?"
Pen held down his head, and began dimly to perceive that the action on
which he had prided himself as a most romantic, generous instance of
disinterested affection, was perhaps a very selfish and headstrong piece
of folly.
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