"I shan't let you."
"I shan't ask you to let me. See here, dad, it's time we understood one another, as you are going the wrong way to work with me. Have you any money?"
"Enough to get back first-class to Australia with a few dollars to see the year out. And I guess I can raise enough in Sydney to hire a schooner and to take up the copra business again. If I stay here I can't get along anyhow. It depends if Wyke left you the dibs."
"I don't believe he has left me any dibs, as you call it," said Claudia, who was now very pale, for the revelation had startled her considerably. "Can't you leave me enough to live on for six months? I can get a situation as a governess until Edwin is rich enough to marry me."
"He shan't marry you," declared Lemby, looking fierce. "Craver's only a manager in that blamed motor-car factory. He ain't even a partner."
"He will be a partner one day when he gets money to put into the firm," said the girl in a low voice and keeping her temper well in hand.
"And where's he going to get the cash? His father's just a blamed sky-pilot in a dashed township, the place where Wyke handed in his cheques. Craver will never be rich, and will never have a title, so he don't marry you."
She clenched her hands, hardened her face, and stepped up to her tyrannical parent looking just as fierce as he did. "I don't want a title, and I don't want money," she said, passionately. "I want to marry the man I love, and Edwin is that man. I intend to become his wife, in spite of you."
"You just try it, that's all."
"I intend to try. I have begun to try."