“Bosh!” he retorted. “He hasn’t got any spirit to be broken.”
“Yes, he has!” she cried vehemently. “But he’s a delicate, highly strung boy, and your treatment of him is enough to drive him out of his mind! You encourage the others to bully him, and mock at him! You force him to do the sort of things he loathes! You don’t see what sort of an effect you’re having on his nerves!”
“So that’s the modern youth, is it?” he sneered. “The best cure I know for his kind of nerves is to be made to face up to your fences.”
“Adam, I beg of you, let Clay continue at Cambridge, and choose his own profession!”
“Now, don’t let’s have all that over again!” he said. “The whole thing’s settled. He can have a bit of a holiday before he starts work with Cliff, but start work with him he shall, make no mistake about that! If there’s anything in the boy at all, he’ll thank me for it one day. What the devil are we talking about Clay at all for? He’s provided for. It’s Bart, and that wench you took out of the kitchen, who’s on my mind just now.”
She got up jerkily, and said in an unsteady Voice: “You care nothing for Clay, Adam. Well, I care nothing for Bart, and his affairs, except that I consider Loveday far too good for him!”
She went towards the door, but he thundered at her to stop. She paused, her fingers already grasping the handle, and looked back at him with an expression on her face half of fear, half of defiance.
“Come back here, my girl!” he commanded grimly. “I’ve got something to say to you!”
“No!” she said, in a faint voice. “I can’t bear any more. I can’t!”
She made as if to open the door, but he said very distinctly: “If you leave this room till I say you may, I give you fair warning, my dear, I’ll have you brought back to me. I’ll send Jimmy for you, and tell him to see that you come.”