"All this," J. Howard declared, magisterially, "is beside the point. If you've told my son that you'd marry him—"
"I haven't."
"Or even given him to understand that you would—"
"I've only given him to understand that I'd marry him—on conditions."
"Indeed? And would it be discreet on my part to inquire the terms you've been kind enough to lay down?"
I pulled myself together and spoke firmly. "The first is that I'll marry him—if his family come to me and express a wish to have me as a sister and a daughter."
Old Mrs. Billing emitted the queer, cracked cackle of a hen when it crows, but she put up her lorgnette and examined me more closely. Ethel Rossiter gasped audibly, moving her chair a little farther round in my direction. Mrs. Brokenshire stared with concentrated intensity, but somehow, I didn't know why, I felt that she was backing me up.
The great man contented himself with saying, "Oh, you will!"
I ignored the tone to speak with a decision and a spirit I was far from feeling.
"Yes, sir, I will. I shall not steal him from you—not so long as he's dependent."