President Vennor was so wholly unused to anything like a retort from a junior and an inferior that he sat down in the opposite seat and felt mechanically in his pockets for a cigar. Brockway promptly capped the climax of audacity by offering one of his own, and the President took it absently.
"It is scarcely worth your while to be disrespectful, Mr. Brockway," he said, when the cigar was alight.
"I don't mean to be."
"But you intercepted my telegram this morning, and sent me a most impertinent reply."
"I did; and a little while before that, you had tried to knock me down."
"So I did, but the provocation was very considerable; you must admit that."
"Cheerfully," said Brockway, who was coming to his own in the matter of self-possession with gratifying rapidity. "But I take no shame for the telegram. As I told Miss Gertrude, I would have done a much worse thing to compass the same end."
The President frowned and coughed dryly. "The incentive was doubtless very strong, but I am told that you have since been made aware of the facts in the case—relative to my daughter's forfeiture of her patrimony, I mean."
"The 'incentive,' as you call it, was the only obstacle. When I learned that it did not exist, I asked your daughter to be my wife."
"Knowing that my consent would be withheld?"