"You'll obey me."
"I shan't. I'll obey my conscience."
"I'll twist your neck, dash you!" roared the buccaneer, infuriated by this opposition, which he quite expected.
"Oh, no you won't!" Claudia slipped aside, as he lunged forward, and placed the breadth of the room between them. "You were always a bully father, and are just the kind of slave-driver who should be in the forecastle of a tramp steamer. But you don't bully me. I'll die first. So there," and she stamped.
"Dashed spitfire, you are," he growled. "Have it your own silly way. But you don't marry that engineer bounder, mind."
"Edwin is not a bounder!" cried Claudia, indignantly. "He's a bred-and-born gentleman. While I," she added, bitingly, "I am your daughter."
"Oh"--Lemby began to laugh good-humouredly--"I see what you're getting at, my girl. No, I ain't a gilded Lord, for sure, and never pretended to be. I'm just plain Oliver Lemby, as deals square by them as deals square with him. But your mother was a lady, Claudia, so your blood ain't all mud, remember."
"Why don't you remember, dad," she retorted, angrily, "and treat me with some sort of respect? I know you're kind-hearted, and mean well: but your manners are awful. Be civil."
"I am civil--as civil as I need be to my own daughter."
"Because I am your daughter, that's no reason why I should be bullied. But it's no use talking, dada," she ended wearily, "you'll never understand."