straining fingers, and a flush of excitement on her sharp features, she
presented an enormous difficulty. What, justly, was he to do with her?
How could he provide for a reasonable happiness, a healthy, normal
existence? He decided coldly that he would prevent Essie Scofield's
influence from ever touching the child again. Essie, he knew, was
utterly without any warmth of motherhood. She had solely and callously
used their daughter to extort money from him. But, he admitted to
himself, neither had he any feeling of parentage for the small, lonely
figure before him; nothing but a burning self-accusation, a lacerated
pride. His act proceeded entirely from his head in place of his heart.
For that very reason, Jasper Penny thought, he could give his daughter a
greater measure of security. He would see Stephen Jannan to-morrow and
with the lawyer's assistance get complete control of Eunice's future. He
must alter his will.

None of this, however, assisted in solving the actual immediate
necessity. There was, certainly, Myrtle Forge; his mother, however she
might silently suffer, protest, would ultimately accede in his wishes.
But it was a dreary place for a child, with only the companionship of
old women. He was, for the greater part, away in the interest of his
widely scattered activities, forges, furnaces, nail factories and
rolling mills.

He felt in anticipation the censure of the Penny connections that would
rise like a wall and shut Eunice from the companionship of the other
children, of the family, embittering her at what he had somewhere heard
described as the formative period of growth. His home, he decided, for
the present at least, was an undesirable place for his daughter.

It was, he discovered, past two, and he remorsefully summoned a servant.