"Is that all!" scoffed his daughter. "Trafford's cost forty thousand."
"But I'm not a thief like Trafford. And let me tell you, my child, seventeen thousand dollars at four per cent would produce each year a larger sum than the income of the average American family."
"But I've often heard you say the common people have entirely too much money, more than they know how to spend. Now—about the entrance. Alois and I——"
"When you marry Fred Roebuck, I'll let you build yourself any kind of town house you like," interrupted her father.
She perched on the arm of his chair. "Now, really, father, you know you wouldn't let me marry a man it makes me shudder to shake hands with?"
"Nonsense—a mere notion. You try to feel that way because you know you ought to marry him."
"Never—never—never!" cried Amy, kissing him at each "never." "Besides, he's engaged to Sylvia Barrow. He got tired of waiting for me."
Fosdick pushed away from her. "I'm bitterly disappointed in you," he said, scowling at her. "I've been assuming that you would come to your senses. What would become of you, if I had as little regard for your wishes as you have for mine?"
"Fred Roebuck was a nobody," she pleaded. "You despised him yourself. Now, papa dear, I'm thinking of marrying a somebody, a man who really amounts to something in himself."
"Who?" demanded Fosdick, bristling for battle.