A running commentary of ironic exclamations had accompanied Fanny Brace's perusal of the letter. When she had finished it she scornfully flung it down.
"This is too much," she said. "Of course, you declined the invitation on the instant!"
"To decline is to decline all the Hunter property," said Ethel.
"I shall decline nothing."
"Not decline to marry Oliver Van Voorst?"
"To decline Oliver Van Voorst is to decline all that rightfully belongs to me."
This colloquy had taken place between the two cousins as they stood face to face, each with a quickened glance and heightened color.
"If you go there you are offering yourself to this young man," said Fanny Bruce.
"I have written that they may expect me on the 18th," said Ethel.
There was something in the girl's manner not quite measurable to the older woman.
"I beg you to give up this mad scheme," she exclaimed with feeling. "It will bring you to grief."
"Bring me to grief! I have been through my grief. I am trying to pay the price of it without flinching and without tears," said Ethel.
"You must accept the inevitable."
"I will accept the inevitable. This is not inevitable."
"I cannot understand. You mean that you want this young man to fall in love with you."
Ethel's whole face broke into smiles and laughter. "Perhaps he will not fall in love with me," she said.
"Impossible! Every man falls in love with you!"
"But think of this young man so well brought up, fastidious by instinct and accustomed from his infancy to the highest standards."
"You will see, you will see," added Fanny. Then with intense earnestness of manner she went on, "I cannot bear to have my Ethel less noble than she has it in her power to be."
"I shall do nothing ignoble," said Ethel. "But if to be noble is to sit down and accept injustice, to have my whole life spoiled by it, I do not wish to be noble."
"It is Mrs. Hunter's will."
"Only by an unlucky accident. She has said to me a hundred times that almost all she possessed would ultimately be mine. It would not be her desire or wish that I should let it all go without a struggle. She would have wished me to use all my resources, and they shall be used."
At this moment came an interruption, an interruption which might easily have been foreseen, but which at this moment, when everything
