“Why, at how suddenly it became light, just as I was talking about my plan—and luck changing. I’m not superstitious, but I’ll be hanged if I won’t take that as an omen—and a good one.”
Le Sage grunted, and shook his head in utter disgust.
“An omen?” he repeated. “Good Lord, Wyvern, what rot. Man, you’ll never be anything but a dreamer, and you can’t run a farm upon dreams—no nor anything else. Would you mind letting me into this ‘plan’ of yours?”
“At present I would. Later on, not now. And now, Le Sage, if you have quite done schoolmastering me, I move that we go back. In fact, I don’t know that it was worth while our coming so far just to say all that.”
“But you’ll think so in a minute. It happens I haven’t said all I came to say, and as it has to be said, I may as well say it at once and without beating around the bush. You must cease thinking of Lalanté at all. You must consider your engagement to her at an end.”
Wyvern had felt nearly certain that some such statement constituted the real object of their talk, but now that it was made, it was none the less a blow. He felt himself growing a shade paler under the weather worn bronze of his face.
“What does Lalanté herself say about it,” was his rejoinder.
“Say? Say?” echoed Le Sage, angrily. “She has no say in the matter. I simply forbid it.”
“You can’t do that, Le Sage. She is of full age, you know,” said Wyvern quietly, but with a ring of sadness in his tone. “Look here—no, wait—hear me out,” seeing that the other was about to interrupt with a furious rejoinder. “I’ve set myself out all through this interview never for a moment to lose sight of the fact that you are her father, consequently have sat quiet under a tone I would stand from no other man alive. But even the authority of a father has its limits, and you have started in to exercise yours a trifle too late.”
“Then you refuse to give her up?” furiously.