“I would not give my child up to the scoundrel!”
“But suppose the court were to order you to do so?”
“I would resist, and take the consequences. I would never give my child to that devil! I would sooner—Heaven knows that I would sooner throw her alive into that lion’s cage in the circus at the Smithsonian Park over there!”
“But, uncle, suppose, in case of your resistance, the officers were ordered to do their duty and take the woman from you by force, to give her to the man. You know such might be the effect of your resistance. What then?”
The father’s face darkened like a thundercloud. His eyes, under their black brows, flashed like lightning.
“Le,” he said, “why do you torture me by such improbable suppositions? In such a case I should—I could be another Virginius, and give my child instant death to save her.”
“No, uncle, you would not. You came of Christian parents, and you have had a Christian training. You would do nothing unworthy of your race and your education. Uncle, remember your Christian parentage and training, and do not speak and act like a heathen Roman,” said Le, solemnly.
The two men looked at each other in comic embarrassment almost approaching laughter, had not the matter been so serious.
“We have been letting imagination run away with us, Le. You and I have been getting ourselves into unnecessary heroics. There will be nothing to justify it. It is true that we have the most infernal villain to deal with that ever disgraced the human form, but he must be dealt with by law, and not by violence. All will be well,” said the elder man.
“Uncle, it was I who got into heroics first, and then stung you into the same state. But really now, I do not think that I shall have any occasion to murder Anglesea and swing for it, or that you will have any cause to enact the Roman father and slay your daughter to save her. Wait for my coup.”