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.