"I was warned," she beat him down, "that it was a habit of your son to win a girl's confidence with his kind ways and then deceive her."
"Then it was a damned lie, and no one but a damned fool would believe it," shouted Peter Rolls, Sr. "My boy a deceiver of women? Why, he's a Gala-what-you-may-call-it! He'd die any death sooner than harm a woman. I'm his father, and I know what I'm talking about. Who the devil warned you? Some beast, or some idiot?"
"It was neither."
"Who was it, then? Come, out with it. I dare you to. I'll have him sued for slander. I'll––"
"It wasn't a he. It was a woman who ought to know at least as much about him as you do."
"There's no such woman, except his mother, and she worships the ground he walks on. Thinks he's a kind of up-to-date Saint George, and I'm hanged if she's far wrong. Why, since Peter was a boy he's never cared that"—and a yellow thumb and finger snapped for emphasis under Win's eyes—"for any woman till he got silly over you."
The girl laughed a fierce little laugh. "You tell me this? You defend him to me? Is that policy?"
Peter senior suddenly looked foolish. He had straightened himself to glare at the upstart. Now he collapsed again.
"No, it ain't policy," he confessed, "but I guess it's human nature. My blood ain't quite dried up yet, and I can't sit quiet while anybody blackguards my own flesh and bone. You tell me who said these things about him!"
"I will not tell you."