At first she thought she could not, must not speak, then a man's kind eyes, understanding, compassionate, rallying, looked again into hers. "Courage!" came Watts' voice. He must have known. The lawyer with his priest's habit of the confessional of reading storm and stress back of faces must have read the new strange agony back of hers.
To do honor to Shipman's belief in her, she must meet this thing calmly and without disrespect or passion. The girl swallowed once; with lifted face, turned on her father a look that might, had he noted it, made him wonder. For the uplifted features were swept clean of resentment. Sard was recognizing the parent's claim on her, trying reasonably to meet it, but the Judge saw only one thing; his hard, old eyes told him he had made his decision just in time and that he must act quickly.
"You—you're letting yourself care for this man." The tones, though not loud, lashed on her; the Judge was deliberately making her ashamed. "I should have thought as my daughter, even if not for yourself, you would have had more pride."
Sard, slowly turning the watch on her wrist round and round, listened. There was only one thing to do, to try to meet the eyes, to meet the accusation with respect. But—but where was the respect due her, to her motives and actions? Had not this man, her own father, been willing to degrade her in her own estimation without hearing her, taking counsel with her?
"Dad," she gave a little helpless shiver, "I don't think you know; you don't understand, or you couldn't say such a thing—as—as that!"
But Bogart, taking out the cigar, smiled at it with a shrewd squint. Well, of course, he did know, and she, this untutored young thing, didn't, that was all!
Sard's father knew what would be the plans of a ne'er-do-well who could make an ardent, indulged young person fall in love with him. "Pah!" The Judge's gorge rose at it, also at what he called Sard's "deceit," it being the means of having him employ this man, rose up and condemned her.
He saw her bowed head in the dusk, the girl's cheek white on her blue scarf, and cleared his throat. "It isn't pleasant," he admitted; then with a rasp, "I never expected to speak to you like this any more than I should expect to thrash Dunstan, but," went on the Judge grimly, "under some circumstances I should take pleasure in doing that very thing. Now stop all this nonsense," he assumed that Sard was crying. "I've had a hard morning," the Judge always saw himself as unnerved by his court-room experiences, "but I'm going to be obeyed."
His hand went out; it clenched on the girl's arm; it was not hurtful, only hard, arresting and cold. "You're to have self-control," said the Judge sharply, "and you're to obey me! Understand?"