"It doesn't require any special thought. He wanted to freeze you out a little while back, and you balked him. Now he has come back at you another way."
"I wonder!" said the iron-founder musingly; and then: "I more than half believe you are right. But if you are, do you realize what you are proposing?"
"I am not proposing anything; I am merely suggesting. But you needn't put in the factor of doubt. This labor trouble that is threatening to smash you is Jasper Grierson's reply to the move you made when you let me in and choked him off. He is reaching for you."
Again Raymer held his peace and the atmosphere of the room grew pungent with tobacco smoke.
"I'm feeling a good bit like a yellow dog, Kenneth," he said, at length. "After what I've admitted and what you've said, I'm left in the position of the poor devil who would be damned if he did and be damned if he didn't. You have succeeded in fixing it so that I can't ask Margery Grierson to be my wife, however much I'd like to."
"That isn't the point," insisted Griswold half-savagely. "How you may feel about it, or what your people may say, is purely secondary. The thing to be considered is, what will happen to Miss Grierson?"
"Oh, the devil! if you put it that way——"
"I am putting it precisely that way."
"Why, see here, old man; if you were Madge's brother, you couldn't be putting the screws on any harder! What's got into you to-night?"
Griswold was inexorable.