“Whatever Mr. Gallatin’s presence here means, there’s little doubt——”
“I—I asked him to come here,” Jane stammered. “I beg you to leave us.”
“No! If Mr. Gallatin has come here at your invitation, all the more reason that you, too, should hear what I have to say to him.”
“I will not listen. Will you please go, Mr. Gallatin, at once?”
Phil Gallatin, pale but composed, was standing immovable.
“Thank you. If there’s something else your father has to say, I’ll listen to it now,” he said. “I can only hope that it will be nothing that he will regret.”
Jane drew aside and threw herself on the divan, her head buried in her hands.
“There’s hardly a danger of that,” said Loring grimly. “I’ll take the risk anyway. I’m in the habit of keeping my house in order, Mr. Gallatin, and I’m not the kind to stop doing it just because a duty is unpleasant. There seems to be something between you and my daughter. God knows what! I have known it for some days, but I haven’t spoken of it to her or hunted for you because I had reason to believe that she had had the good sense to forget the silly romantic ideas you had been putting into her head. I see that I was mistaken. Your presence in this house is the proof of it. I’ll try to make my objections known in language that not only you but my daughter will understand.”
With a struggle Gallatin regained his composure, folded his arms and waited. Jane raised her head, her eyes pleading, then quietly rose and walking across the room, laid her fingers on Phil Gallatin’s arm and stood by his side, facing her father. Mr. Loring began speaking, but she interrupted him quickly.
“Whatever you say to Philip Gallatin, Father, you will say to me. Whatever you know of him—I know, too, past or present. I love him,” she finished solemnly.