“You need not continue,” answered the old lady, rising in stately wrath. “You have said quite enough. Now let me make my reply. It is simply that if you ever attempt to put such an affront as that upon me, you’ll wish you had never been born.”
She instantly withdrew from the piazza of the house in which all were guests, John Meaux gallantly accompanying her. She paid no more heed to Peyton’s clamorous protestations of apology than to the buzzing of the bees that were plundering the honeysuckles of their sweets.
When she had gone Peyton began to realize the mistake he had made. In that Col. Majors, who was left alone with him, greatly assisted him. In the slow, deliberate way in which he always spoke, Col. Majors said:
“You know, Peyton, that I do not often volunteer advice before I am asked to give it, but in this case I am going to do so. It seems to me that you have overlooked certain facts which present themselves to my mind, as important, and of which I think the courts would take cognizance.”
“Oh, I only meant to give Cousin Polly a hint,” broke in Peyton. “Of course I didn’t seriously mean that I would take the girl away from her.”
“It is well that you did not,” answered the lawyer, “for the sufficient reason that you could not do that if you were determined upon it.”
“Why, surely,” Peyton protested. “I have a right to look after the girl’s welfare?”
“Absolutely none whatever.”
“Why, you forget the arrangement between me and Dr. South.”
“Not at all. That arrangement was at best a contract without consideration, and therefore nonenforcible. Even if it had been reduced to writing and formally executed, it would be so much waste paper in the eyes of a court. Dorothy is a ward in chancery. The court would never permit the enforcement of a contract of that kind upon her, so long as she is under age; and when she attains her majority she will be absolutely free, if I know anything of the law, to repudiate an arrangement disposing of her life, made by others without her consent.”