"I don't care whether it is or not. Besides, it isn't dope; it's food; it's medicine; it's a remedy for the ills of this poor old civilization. We've got it in our power, we English-speaking peoples—"
"You haven't," he declared, coolly. "Your country would still be the goat."
"Yes," I agreed, "Canada would still be the goat; but we don't mind that. We're used to it. You'll always have a fling at us on one side and England on the other; but we're like the strong, good-natured boy who doesn't resent kicks and cuffs because he knows he can grow and thrive in spite of them."
He put his hand on my arm and spoke in the kindly tone that reminded me of his father.
"My dear little girl, you can drop it. It won't go down. Suppose we keep to the sort of thing you can tackle. You see, when you've married me you'll be an American. Then you'll be out of it."
I was hurt. I was furious. The expression, too, was getting on my nerves. I began to wish I was out of it. Since I couldn't be in it, marriage might prove a Lethe bath, in which I should forget I had anything to do with it. Sheer desperation made me cry out:
"Very well, then, Hugh! If we're to be married, can't we be married quickly? Then I shall have it off my mind."
There was not only a woeful decline of spirit in his response, but a full acceptance of the Brokenshire yoke.
"We can't be married any quicker than dad says. But I'll talk to him."
He made no objection, however, when, a little later, I received from my uncle a draft for my entire fortune and announced my intention of handing the sum over to Mr. Strangways for investment. Hugh probably looked on the amount as too insignificant to talk about; in addition to which some Brokenshire instinct for the profitable may have led him to appreciate a thing so good as to make it folly to say nay to it. The result was that I heard from Larry Strangways, in letters which added nothing to my comfort.