"Daddy!" she whispered. "Let me tell you all before you speak."
Gently, but with a steady, rigid motion of his hands, he pressed her back. The tenderness that had betrayed him for but an instant vanished.
"We'll see about that in a moment," was the cold reply. "I want to ask you a few questions before you tell your story. Sykes tells me he had a talk with you this afternoon."
"A diplomatic conversation," corrected Mary, with a faint smile.
"What did he say?"
"A great deal. It was not, after all, very much of a conversation. It was a declaration. I almost fancied he was issuing a veiled ultimatum. He did, however, ask me a pointed question and I gave him a blunt reply."
"You refused him?"
"Yes."
"Do you know Sykes?"
"Too wisely and too well. His father is a wealthy broker; his mother a delightful aristocrat and a very fashionable lady. They live in a dreamland on The Crescent shut in with exclusive hedges amid the bloom of wonderful flowers. Their well-trimmed terraces run down to the water's edge. Sykes is a fellow-student of some years' duration. He has seemed to take rather more than a mild interest in the lone hope of the McClures. But I do not like him, Dad. I like Ned."