The Last Woman

She listened to him to the end, quietly and outwardly unmoved. When he concluded, she replied in the same even tone she had used ever since her father entered the library: "I don't know, and I don't care to know, any of the particulars regarding how the arrangement came about between you and Mr. Duncan. What I do know is this: the arrangement was made between you, and was agreed upon between you. I was called in, to be consulted, at your private office, with the third interested party concealed like a spy in an inner room. I agreed to the transaction as I understood it. I will carry it out as I agreed to do, while at your office, and in no other way. If Roderick Duncan wishes to make me his wife, he must do it according to the stipulations I have dictated to Mr. Melvin, this afternoon, or he can never do it at all. That, sir, is all I have to say."

She turned and went from the room, closing the door behind her as softly as the lawyer had done.

The old man slipped down more deeply into his chair, covered his eyes with one hand, and murmured, audibly: "I have had to live almost seventy years to find out that, after all, I am nothing but an old fool."