“That’s an absurd question,” she answered. “You’ve made up your mind beforehand, and nothing I could say would make you change it. If I denied that uncle Robert had told me anything about his will, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Certainly not!” replied Alexander, falling into the trap like a school-boy.
“Then it’s clear that nothing I can say can make you change your mind—in other words, that you’re prejudiced,” said Katharine, in cool triumph. “And as that’s undeniable, from your own words, I don’t see that it’s of the slightest use to ask me questions.”
Her father bit his clean-shaven upper lip and frowned severely.
“I don’t know where you get such sophistries from!” he answered, in impotent arrogance. “Unless it’s that Mr. Griggs who teaches you,” he added, taking a new line of aggression.
“Why do you say ‘that’ Mr. Griggs, as though he were an adventurer or a fool?” enquired Katharine, arching her black brows.
“Because I suspect him of being both,” answered Alexander Junior, jumping at the suggestion with an affectation of keenness.
Katharine laughed.
“That’s too absurd, papa! You’d have said just the same thing if I’d said ‘murderer’ and ‘thief.’ You know as well as I do that Mr. Griggs is a distinguished man,—I didn’t say that he was a great genius,—who has got where he is by hard work and good work. He’s no more of an adventurer than you are.”
“I’ve heard strange stories of his youth, which I shall certainly not repeat to you,” answered Alexander, snapping his lips in the fine consciousness of his own really unimpeachable virtue.