"Yes."
"Very well, then, you shall have it. I won't promise."
His answer came upon her like a shock. She Had expected that he would agree to anything, but he actually defied her.
"Robert!" she cried despairingly.
"I can't be driven and I won't be bullied," he said doggedly. "No man, by holding a revolver to my head, can force me to do anything I don't want to do, nor can any woman either—not even you."
As he spoke, her face grew a little paler, the lines about her mouth deepened. If that was the way he chose to look upon their relations, the sooner the end came the better.
"Very well," she said coldly.
She had turned as if to go to her room when he again spoke:
"Besides, there has to be a head of every family Just as there had to be a head of every business, and so long as I have any family I am going to be the head of it! If I had a partner and he came to me and said 'Do this thing or I quit you,' whether the thing was right or wrong, I'd say, 'Go ahead. Quit.' Because if I didn't, from that moment on, he, not I, would be the boss! So it is with us."
"Then I—am to—go," she said slowly.