“Well, I do. Don’t get excited, for there is no cause for it. I suppose that I am master of my own actions, and do not hurt anybody by getting married.”
“Who talks about its hurting?” I cried, feeling myself turn pale under a rush of sudden hatred which tempted me to throw myself upon that man.
“Well, if you take it in that way——”
“I don’t take it in any way whatever! You are entirely free to do what you like; and if you do anything for me, it is not because I have asked you for it. I’ll pay back to you the money you are spending on my education, if I live.”
In spite of the fact that he always got very red, when animated by eating and drinking, my uncle also turned pale. His lips were compressed, and his eyes gleamed with anger.
“If you were not a whipper-snapper, I’d be tempted to answer you roughly. What is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. You are just like your father, the most ungrateful and ill-behaved man in the world.”
“Be kind enough not to mix up my father’s name in this matter, with which it has nothing whatever to do,” I replied, feeling that if I did not exert my self-control, I was liable to seize the bottle and smash it over his head.
“I only mentioned your father to say that though one always tries to help you, you are always growling and scratching. However, I was not going to get married without telling you about it. It is easy to see that you don’t like it at all. Come, my boy, have patience. It was not a thing to consult you about beforehand. The bill, waiter,” he added, knocking his spoon against the glass.
We had raised our voices pretty high and some of the loiterers at the adjoining tables turned their heads and looked at us. I felt ashamed, and frowning, though trembling inwardly, shook the crumbs off my coat and made a movement to rise. My humiliation had a real and immediate foundation, seeing my uncle put a bank-note on the plate on which the waiter had presented the bill. That note I desperately wished I could have taken out of my own pocket. I breathed more freely (boy-like) when a good deal of change in silver was brought back—more than five dollars. With the tip of his forefinger, my uncle pushed a couple of nickels toward the waiter, and getting up, took down his hat from the rack, saying dryly:
“Let’s go.” But on emerging from the dark restaurant into the sunshine, he immediately controlled himself, and, with the adaptability which characterized him in his business relations and political schemes, extended his hand to me, saying, half in joke: