“It makes me choke up,” said Terence,
“to have you offer me this great thing.
It’s a fine name, Cornish. But you know
that I can’t do it. It would be cowardly—a
sort of rotten treason for me to change. It would
be wrong. I know it would be wrong. I’m
a Colby, Aunt Elizabeth. Every time that name
is spoken, I feel it tingling down to my fingertips.
I want to stand straighter, live cleaner. When
I looked at the old Colby place in Virginia last year,
it brought the tears to my eyes. I felt as if
I were a product of that soil. Every fine thing
that has ever been done by a Colby is a strength to
me. I’ve studied them. And every now
and then when I come to some brave thing they’ve
done, I wonder if I could do it. And then I say
to myself that I must be able to do just such
things or else be a shame to my blood.
“Change my name? Why, I’ve gone all
my life thanking God that I come of a race of gentlemen,
clean-handed, and praying God to make me worthy of
it. That name is like a whip over me. It
drives me on and makes me want to do some fine big
thing one of these days. Think of it! I’m
the last of a race. I’m the end of it.
The last of the Colbys! Why, when you think of
it, you see how I can’t possibly change, don’t
you? If I lost that, I’d lose the best
half of myself and my self-respect! You understand,
don’t you? Not that I slight the name of
Cornish for an instant. But even if names can
be changed, blood can’t be changed!”
She turned her head. She met the gleaming eyes
of Vance, and then let her glance probe the fire and
shadow of the hearth.
“It’s all right, my dear,” she said
faintly. “Stand up.”
“I’ve hurt you,” he said contritely,
leaning over her. “I feel—like
a dog. Have I hurt you?”
“Not the least in the world. I only offered
it for your happiness, Terry. And if you don’t
need it, there’s no more to be said!”
He bent and kissed her forehead.
The moment he had disappeared through the tall doorway,
Vance, past control, exploded.
“Of all the damnable exhibitions of pride in
a young upstart, this—”
“Hush, hush!” said Elizabeth faintly.
“It’s the finest thing I’ve ever
heard Terry say. But it frightens me, Vance.
It frightens me to know that I’ve formed the
character and the pride and the self-respect of that
boy on—a lie! Pray God that he never
learns the truth!”
CHAPTER 7
There were not many guests. Elizabeth had chosen
them carefully from families which had known her father,
Henry Cornish, when, in his reckless, adventurous
way, he had been laying the basis of the Cornish fortune
in the Rockies. Indeed, she was a little angry
when she heard of the indiscriminate way in which
Vance had scattered the invitations, particularly
in Craterville.
But, as he said, he had acted so as to show her that
he had entered fully into the spirit of the thing,
and that his heart was in the right place as far as
this birthday party was concerned, and she could not
do otherwise than accept his explanation.
