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 were to blame. You knew that Tom had left something that was worth a lot, both of you. Why didn’t you do something? You let it lie there in Crane’s laboratory for this—this Marsellus to come along and exploit, until he almost thinks it’s his own idea.”

“Things might have turned out the same, anyway,” her father protested. “Whatever the process earned was Rosamond’s. I wasn’t in the mood to struggle with manufacturers, I know nothing of such things. And Crane needs every ounce of his strength for his own experiments. He doesn’t care about anything but the extent of space.”

“He’d better have taken a few days off and saved his friend’s reputation. Tom trusted him with everything. It’s too foolish; that poor man being cut to pieces by surgeons all the time, and picking up the little that’s left of himself and bothering about the limitations of space—much good they’ll do him!”

St. Peter rose, took both of his daughter’s hands, and stood laughing at her. “Come now! You have more brains than that, Kitty. It happens you do understand that whatever poor Crane can find out about space is more good to him than all the money the Marselluses will ever have. But are you implying that if Crane and I had developed Tom’s discovery, we might have kept Rosie and her money in the family, for ourselves?”