“Most distinctly. Unless, that is, she herself wished it.”
“Oh, you would then?” said Le Sage, quickly, clutching at a straw.
“Certainly. But I must hear it from her own lips, face to face. Not through a third party, or on paper.” Le Sage’s “straw” seemed to sink.
“I don’t want to irritate you further, Le Sage,” went on Wyvern after a moment’s pause. “But I’m convinced as firmly as that you and I are sitting here that I shall never hear anything of the sort. It is not in Lalanté to turn from me in misfortune. Our love is too complete.”
“And I don’t count. I, her father, am to stand aside as of no account at all?”
The unconscious pathos that welled up in the very bitterness of his tone, reflected what had lain beneath his mind since some time back—that his child should be so ready and eager to leave him. And Wyvern’s instinct was quick to grasp it.
“I quite see your import and sympathise,” he said. “Yes, I sympathise, thoroughly. But Nature is nothing if not pitiless, and this is a provision of Nature. And look here, Le Sage, my existing run of ill-luck ought to be a recommendation from your point of view in that you will be able to keep the child longer with you, for of course I don’t dream of claiming her until my luck changes.”
“That’ll be never then,” rejoined the other, savagely. “Man, haven’t you more sense of honour than to pin a girl to her contract when you know you haven’t enough to keep yourself, let alone her? She is very young too. I don’t know how I ever gave my consent.”
“She has commonsense and capability far beyond her years, and you know it. Now see here, Le Sage. Be reasonable about this, and give me some sort of a show. If I bring off my plan satisfactorily, I shan’t be the first man whose luck has turned.”
“Oh, damn your ‘plan’ and your ‘luck’ too!” retorted the other, now completely losing his temper. “The first’s a fraud and the other’s fudge. Look here, if you weren’t so much infernally bigger and stronger than me, I’d start in now to hammer you within an inch of your life, but as you are, it’s of no use trying.”