“You can’t do that!” she exclaimed.
“What’s to stop me?” inquired Penhallow almost amiably.
“But, Adam, why? What has he done? It isn’t fair!”
“He hasn’t done anything. That’s why I’ll be damned it I’ll keep him eating his head off at college. You had a notion he was cut out for a scholar. I’d no objection. The hell of a lot of scholarship he’s shown! All right! If he ain’t going to be a scholar what’s the sense of leaving him there? A country solicitor’s about all he’s fit to be, and that’s what he shall be. Cliff’s willing to take him.”
She stammered: “He isn’t cut out for it! He’d hate it! He wants to write!”
“Wants to write, does he? So that’s his idea! Well, you can tell him to get rid of it! There are two of my spawn playing at that game already, and there isn’t going to be a third. He’ll study law with Cliff.” He spat out a pip, and added: “He can live here, and Ray can see what he can do towards licking him into some kind of shape.”
“Oh, no!” she cried out involuntarily. “He’d hate it! He doesn’t care for the country. He’s much happier in town. This place doesn’t agree with him any more than it agrees with me.”
He heaved himself up in bed, his countenance alarmingly suffused with colour. “So that’s the latest, is it? He doesn’t care for Trevellin! By God, if you weren’t such a spiritless little fool I should wonder if you’d played me false, my girl! Or is this a notion out of your own head? Do you tell me that a son of mine is going to tell me to my face that he doesn’t care for his birthplace?”
She reflected that nothing was more unlikely. Passing her tongue between her lips, she said: “You forget that he’s my son as well as yours, Adam.”
“I don’t forget he’s your son,” he interrupted brutally. “The only doubt I have is whether he’s mine.”