"Then I'll accept it for you," said Lemby, coolly, and heaved his big body out of the chair. "We can't live on nothing, can we?"
Claudia turned sharply from the window, out of which she was looking. "Live on nothing?" she repeated, blankly, for the words conveyed no sense to her.
"That's it, my girl." Lemby stretched himself with a yawn. "My pile never was a big one. It's time for us to get back to the Sunny South and make dollars, failing the old man's cash dropping in."
"But I thought we were rich," expostulated Claudia, in dismay. "If not, why did we come to England to live in so expensive a style?"
"Oh, I wanted to do the right thing by you, my girl," said the pirate, truculently. "I saw as you were a high-stepper when I looked you up at that blamed school in Sydney. I had enough to give us a few years of luxury, so I yanked you home to snatch a husband of the sort I wanted."
"In plain English," cried Claudia, turning very red, and clenching her hands as she faced her father, "you took me into the slave-market; to sell me to the highest bidder?"
"Shucks!" said Lemby, uneasily, for Claudia had a whirlwind temper, which was rising rapidly.
"It's not shucks, or anything like shucks," she retorted, stamping her foot. "I don't recognise your right to choose mv husband. I am a human being as well as your daughter, and I intend to arrange my life for myself."
"What about the ten commandments?" sneered Lemby, hedging. "'Children, obey your parents,' ain't it?"
"'Parents, respect your children,'" counter-quoted the girl. "And how can I respect you, dad, when you tried to force me into a disagreeable marriage. Like a fool, I allowed you to bully me into promising to marry Sir Hector. But now that he is dead and buried I shall act as I please."