"No, I cannot," said Paul Morton, with unusual firmness.
"So you refuse, do you?" exclaimed Mrs. Morton, in deep anger.
"Give me your reason, then. I should like to judge of it myself."
"Then I will tell you without reserve, what I had not intended to mention. In all my mercantile career I was never in such danger of ruin as at the present. The dull times at which you sneer have proved very disastrous to me. It is all I can do to keep my head above water. Every day I fear that the crash will come, and that instead of being able to afford you this establishment, I shall be obliged to remove into some humble dwelling in Brooklyn, and seek for a position as clerk or bookkeeper. How would you fancy this change, madam? Yet it is at such a time you harass me with your unreasonable demands for money. If I am ruined, it will be some satisfaction that you, who have had so much to do with bringing it on, are compelled to suffer its inconveniences with me."
Mrs. Morton turned pale while he was speaking, for she had never known anything of her husband's business affairs, and supposed that such a thing as his failure was impossible. To be reduced to poverty, where a wife loves her husband and is beloved in return, is not so hard; but where there is no pretence of love, and the wife lives only for show, it is felt as a terrible misfortune.
"You are only saying this to frighten me," she said after a pause, with an attempt to rally.
"If you think that, you are utterly mistaken," said her husband. "I wish, indeed, that it were true, but unfortunately it is not. My position is to the full, as hazardous, and my ruin as imminent as I have told you. You can imagine whether I have a hundred dollars to spare for you to spend at Stewart's."
Mrs. Morton was for a brief time silent. She hardly knew how to answer; at last she said, "There's your sick friend upstairs. Isn't he a rich man?"
"He won't live very long, probably. Won't he leave you anything?"
"I expected that he would leave me his entire fortune, according to an old promise between us; but only yesterday I learned that he has a son living."
"And you will receive nothing, then?" said his wife, disappointed.
"Not so. I shall be left guardian of the boy, and for seven years I shall receive half the income of the property in return for my services."