His first thought was the simplest, the most obvious one. Do about it? Why, marry Denise. Marry her just as soon as circumstances would allow—immediately—to-morrow, if that were possible. Marry her; and then let his mother do her worst. Let her disown him, cut off his allowance, bequeath every shilling of his property to Fanny—what she would. He could stand it, if she could, he guessed. He would have Denise! And so long as he had her, he could snap his fingers at the universe. About the wherewithal, he need not be disturbed. He had enough. Ten thousand dollars in government bonds—that certainly would keep him until he had established himself as an author and was earning a regular and ample income with his pen,—which he did not doubt his ultimate ability to do. Return the money? Return the ten thousand dollars in government bonds? Faugh! Wasn't his mother virtually robbing him of his own already, by taking advantage of an oversight in the wording of his father's will, a mere lawyer's quibble, and giving the fortune which his father had earned, and which had been intended for his enjoyment, to her niece Fanny—whom, by the by, his father had always cordially disliked ? Why, it—it was enough to make his father turn in his grave. In the white heat of his anger, he even looked so far ahead as his mother's demise, and determined to contest her will, and to defeat the sanctimonious young legatee, in spite of all. Such injustice! Such downright thievery! It wasn't the money that he cared about. It was the principle of the thing. How he would enjoy seeing Fanny baffled and defeated! Ha! ha! ha! He laughed wildly at the idea. Yes, he would throw up the passage he had engaged aboard La Touraine, stay where he was, and marry Denise at the earliest feasible date. He would go and see the United States Consul to-morrow morning, to arrange about it.
That there remained, in spite of all, a question of respect and duty toward his mother, did not once enter his head. He had no doubt that his mother would keep her word and make good every threat that she had uttered. But, in his great passion and exasperation, this seemed a very trifling and unimportant matter.
By and by, however, one aspect of the problem occurred to him, which he had not thought of before, and which, he could not deny, certainly did merit some consideration. Denise—what would Denise say, what would she do, if she were aware of his mother's opposition? Would she be willing to become his wife, in the face of it?
This query struck terror to his soul; for, in spite of his desire to the contrary, he could not but feel confident that the right answer was No. Denise would never consent wittingly to step between a mother and her son. She would say, "I love you, yes. But we must not marry. We have no right to purchase our happiness at the price of your mother's sorrow. There is nothing for us to do but to wait until she will give us her permission." Such an attitude, in his opinion, would be entirely unreasonable and indefensible; a quixotism of the worst kind. But he could not override the conviction that it was exactly the attitude which Denise—which, for that matter, almost any fine-grained, sensitive woman—would, under the circumstances assume.
