Fair Margaret - Page 82/206

Two days later, Mrs. Rushmore received a cable message from New York

which surprised her almost as much as the paragraph about Margaret had.

Alvah Moon has sold invention for cash to anonymous New York

syndicate who offer to compromise suit. Cable instructions naming

sum you will accept, if disposed to deal.

Now Mrs. Rushmore was a wise woman, as well as a good one, though her

ability to express her thoughts in concise language was insignificant.

She had long known that the issue of the suit she had brought was

doubtful, and that as it was one which could be appealed to the Supreme

Court of the United States, it might drag on for a long time; so that

the possibility of a compromise was very welcome, and she at once

remembered that half a loaf is better than no bread, especially when

the loaf is of hearty dimensions and easily divided. What she could not

understand was that any one should have been willing to pay Alvah Moon

the sum he must have asked, while his interest was still in litigation,

and that, after buying that interest, the purchasers should propose a

compromise when they might have prolonged the suit for some time, with

a fair chance of winning it in the end. But that did not matter. More

than once since Mrs. Rushmore had taken up the case her lawyers had

advised her to drop it and submit to losing what she had already spent

on the suit, and of late her own misgivings had increased. The prospect

of obtaining a considerable sum for Margaret, at the very moment when

the girl had made up her mind to support herself as a singer, was in

itself very tempting; and as it presented itself just when the horrors

of an artistic career had been brought clearly before Mrs. Rushmore's

mind by the newspaper paragraph, she did not hesitate a moment.

Margaret was in Paris that morning, at her first rehearsal, and could

not come back till the afternoon; but after all it would be of no use

to consult her, as she was so infatuated with the idea of singing in

public that she would very probably be almost disappointed by her good

fortune. Mrs. Rushmore read the message three times, and then went out

under the trees to consider her answer, carrying the bit of paper in

her hand as if she did not know by heart the words written on it. For

once, she had no guests, and for the first time she was glad of it. She

walked slowly up and down, and as it was a warm morning, still and

overcast, she fanned herself with the telegram in a very futile way,

and watched the flies skimming over the water of the little pond, and

repeated her inward question to herself many times.