“Family matter. Can't it wait?” said Henderson, going on with his figuring.
“If it can, I cannot,” Margaret answered, in a tone that caused him to turn abruptly and look at her. He was so impatient and occupied that even yet he did not comprehend the new expression in her face.
“Don't you see I am busy, child? I have an engagement in twenty minutes in my office.”
“You can read it in a moment,” said Margaret, still calm.
Henderson took the letter with a gesture of extreme annoyance, ran his eye through it, flung it from him on the table, and turned squarely round in his chair.
“Well, what of it?”
“To ruin poor Mrs. Fletcher and a hundred like her!” cried Margaret, with rising indignation.
“What have I to do with it? Did I make their investments? Do you think I have time to attend to every poor duck? Why don't people look where they put their money?”
“It's a shame, a burning shame!” she cried, regarding him steadily.
“Oh, yes; no doubt. I lost a hundred thousand yesterday; did I whine about it? If I want to buy anything in the market, have I got to look into every tuppenny interest concerned in it? If Mrs. Fletcher or anybody else has any complaint against me, the courts are open. I defy the whole pack!” Henderson thundered out, rising and buttoning his coat—“the whole pack!”