"Anything but," the latter answered.
Jasper Hardy always went right to the point. He disliked equivocation; so he rasped out immediately:
"Have you got the money?"
"No."
Angela, who was tender-hearted, tried to intercede.
"Now, father!" she pleaded. She hated this business.
But Hardy paid not the slightest heed to her. He was a man of action, and women shouldn't interfere—particularly young and pretty girls.
"Then I reckon I'll have to foreclose," he went on relentlessly. "There's nothing else to do." His hands closed tightly, and his hard eyes looked even harder.
"I'm afraid you're right," Gilbert said. "I was afraid it would be inevitable. I couldn't have hoped for anything else."
"I'm sorry," Jasper Hardy announced; but did not mean it.