“Oh, it is legal,” he replied bitterly “the pound of flesh was legal. A wife need not appear against her husband, but a daughter may be dragged into court and forced to give evidence against her father.”
As he spoke, such anger flashed from his eyes that the clerk shivered all down his backbone. He thought he would take his departure as quickly as might be, and drawing a little nearer, put down a coin upon the table beside Erica.
“This fee is to cover your expenses, madame,” he said.
“What!” exclaimed Erica, her anger leaping up into a sudden flame, “do you think I shall take money from that man?”
She had an insane desire to snatch up the sovereign and fling it at the clerk's head, but restraining herself merely flicked it back across the table to him, just touching it with the back of her hand as though it had been polluted.
“You can take that back again,” she said, a look of scorn sweeping over her face. “Tell Mr. Pogson that, when he martyrs people he need not say: 'The martyrdom will make you hungry here is luncheon money,' or 'The torture will tire you here is your cab fare!'”
“But, madame, excuse me,” said the clerk, looking much embarrassed. “I must leave the money, I am bound to leave it.”
“If you leave it, I shall just throw it into the fireplace before your eyes,” said Erica. “But if indeed it can't be sent back, then give it to the first gutter child you meet do anything you like with it! Hang it on your watch chain as a memento of the most cruel case your firm every had to do with!”
Her color had come back again, her cheeks were glowing, in her wrath she looked most beautiful; the clerk would have been less than human if he had not felt sorry for her. There was a moment's silence; he glanced from the daughter to the father, whose face was still pale and rigid. A great pity surged up in the clerk's heart. He was a father himself; involuntarily his thoughts turned to the little home at Kilburn where Mary and Kitty would be waiting for him that evening. What if they should ever be forced into a witness box to confirm a libel on his personal character? A sort of moisture came to his eyes at the bare idea. The counsel for the defense, too, was that Cringer, Q. C., the greatest bully that ever wore silk. Then he glanced once more at the silent, majestic figure with the rigid face, who, though an atheist, was yet a man and a father.
“Sir,” he said, with the ring of real and deep feeling in his voice, “sir, believe me, if I had known what bringing this subpoena meant, I would sooner have lost my situation!”