“Lord Frothingham, of course, did not discuss the matter with me--a gentleman is, naturally, delicate in matters of money. He simply stated the posture of his affairs and left me in full charge. When I suggested to him that eight hundred thousand--_pounds_--would be adequate, he protested that that was too much. ‘I wish Mr. Hooper to appreciate that it is his daughter I want,’ said he. ‘Make the least possible conditions. I’d be glad to marry her without a penny if my position permitted. It’s hard to have to consider such things at this time,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we can pull through with seven hundred thousand.’ I did not and do not agree with him, but I assented because I knew that you would liberally supplement the settlements.”
Every sentence in that speech exasperated Mr. Hooper--perhaps Lawrence’s persistence in expressing himself in pounds instead of in dollars most of all. Pounds made the huge sum demanded seem small, made his resistance seem mean and vulgar. He reflected for several minutes. “I won’t do it!” he said in a sudden gust of temper. “Half that is my final figure. I’ll settle the obligations--the five hundred and seventy thousand dollars--and I’ll entail five hundred thousand and give Jenny five hundred thousand for her lifetime, it to go afterward to the younger children.”
Lawrence combed his whiskers with his fine fingers, shaking his head slowly as he did so. “But, Mr. Hooper----”
“That’s final,” interrupted Hooper. “It’s bad enough--it’s shameful--it’s un-American, sir, to make any settlement at all.”
At “un-American” Lawrence took advantage of the fact that Hooper was not looking at him to indulge in a glance of contemptuous amusement. “Nobody but an American,” he said to himself, “could have dragged ‘un-American’ into such a discussion as this. The cad is dickering over his daughter like an old-clothes dealer over a bag of rags.”
Hooper was talking again--talking loudly: “Not a cent more! Not a d----n cent more! If they need more after they’re married, let ’em come to me for it. They’ll get it. But I ain’t fool enough to make ’em independent of me. I ain’t going to give ’em a chance to forget the hand that feeds ’em. No, sir; I want my daughter to continue to love me and think of me.”