“I don’t think you should ask me that, father,” said the girl quietly. “I am old enough to choose my own associates. I have known Mr. Larkin for years, where you have only known him for 146 days. I love you too much to disgrace you or mother, daddy dear; but you must not ask me to act like a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl.”
To Bissell, after dinner, this talk would have served its intended purpose—that of presenting reasonably the reverse side of the argument. Now, however, it merely stirred him up. He looked sharply at his daughter with his small, piercing eyes.
“Do you defy me?” he thundered, amazed at the girl’s temerity. “All I do is try to think up ways of makin’ yuh happy, an’ now yuh insist on havin’ this scoundrel make love to yuh, whether I want it or not. Answer me this, Julie, are you in love with him?”
“I’ve never met another man I cared as much for,” she returned with calm frankness, looking at him with big, unafraid brown eyes.
“Great Heavens!” cried Bissell, leaping out of his chair and raising his clenched fists above his head. “That I should come to this! Julie, do yuh know what yore sayin’? Do yuh know what yore doin’?”
“Yes, I do; and do you want to know the reason for it?”
“Yes.”
“Because I think the things that have been done 147 to Mr. Larkin are contemptible and mean.” There was no placidity in those brown eyes now. They flashed fire. Her face had grown pale, and she, too, had risen to her feet. “I’m a cowman’s daughter, but still I can be reasonable. Our range is free range, and he has a perfect right to walk his sheep north if he wants to. And even if he hadn’t, there is no excuse for the stampede that took place the other night.
“And last of all, you have no right to keep Mr. Larkin here against his will so that he does not know what is happening to the rest of his flocks. I consider the whole thing a hideous outrage. But that isn’t all. You have talked to me this afternoon in a suspicious manner that you have no right to use toward me. I am not a child, and shall think and act for myself.”
“What do you mean by that? That you will help this scoundrel?”