"Father!" The boyish face set into stern lines. The boyish figure drew itself erect with a majesty that would have been absurd had it not been so palpably serious. "I can't stand much of this sort of thing, even from you. Miss Barnet is everything that is good and true and lovely. She is in every way worthy—more than worthy. Besides, she is the woman I love—the woman I have asked to be my wife. Please remember that when you speak of her."
John Denby laughed lightly. Sharp words had very evidently been on the end of his tongue, when, with a sudden change of countenance, he relaxed in his chair, and said:—
"Well done, Burke. Your sentiments do you credit, I'm sure. But aren't we getting a little melodramatic? I feel as if I were on the stage of a second-rate theater! However, I stand corrected; and we'll speak very respectfully of the lady hereafter. I have no doubt she is very good and very lovely, as you say; but"—his mouth hardened a little—"I must still insist that she is no fit wife for my son."
"Why not?"
"Obvious reasons."
"I suppose you mean—because she has to work for her living," flashed the boy. "But that—excuse me—seems to me plain snobbishness. And I must say again I didn't think it of you, dad. I supposed—"
"Come, come, this has gone far enough," interrupted the distraught, sorely tried father of an idolized son. "You're only a boy. You don't know your own mind. You'll fancy yourself in love a dozen times yet before the time comes for you to marry."
"I'm not a boy. I'm a man grown."
"You're not twenty-one yet."
"I shall be next month. And I do know my own mind. You'll see, father, when I'm married."