Clearwater was so astounded that his mouth fell open and gave him some difficulty before it permitted him to say:
“Why—what in the hell do you mean?”
“Now look here, Senator,” remonstrated Helm, “what’s the use of getting excited? You don’t want to lose your daughter. It’s me you don’t like. Well—you need never see me. I’ll go away when you visit our house, and she’ll visit you whenever she wants to and leave me behind. Why shouldn’t we get along peaceably? She’s your only child. She’s all you’ve got. It’ll grieve her to know she’s going against your wishes. Why not make her as easy as you can? I don’t expect you to pretend to like me. But you can just kind of—pass me over. I’ll help.”
Clearwater, warned by a slight vertigo, had seated himself. Said he slowly:
“Do you mean to say, sir, that you think my daughter will marry you?”
“Oh, come now, Senator,” pleaded George, “you know how it was when you went courting. Would your wife have given you up, because her father and mother didn’t like you?”
“Enough of this,” said Clearwater quietly. He rose. “I wish you good day, sir. I wish you to understand that you will not see my daughter again—that she will not marry you—that if she did I’d cut her off without a cent. As you”—with scathing contempt—“have no doubt heard, she has some property of her own. It is very small—very small, sir. And I have control of it until she is thirty—time enough to starve her out and to spare, as she knows——”
“Senator,” interrupted George, “I hope you won’t say these things to her. Do them if you think it right. I shall be glad if you do, as I don’t want my wife beholden to anybody but me. Do them, Senator, but don’t let on to her. She might feel that you didn’t love her. She might—I hate to say it, sir—she might stop loving you herself, if she thought you could put money before love.”
“I need no assistance in managing my family,” said Clearwater, in cold fury. He bowed, “Good day, sir.”
Helm hesitated, then bowed with simple dignity and withdrew. Clearwater watched at one of the windows until he saw him walking slowly out of the grounds and down the street—tall and lean, awkwardly dressed. Said Clearwater aloud with an angry sneer: “He looks as if he belonged at the servants’ entrance.” The remark was not without justification, yet Clearwater knew—and the knowledge enraged him—that there was in the air of that figure, in the expression of that face, a quality, far removed from the menial, or even the humble. And it was that quality that made the arrogant and confident old man a little nervous as he awaited the coming of the daughter for whom he had sent as soon as Helm disappeared round the corner.