He dropped his hand from his chin, and moved a little impatiently in his chair.
“Come,” he said with sudden authority, “I can’t waste my time this way. Are you going to take the money or not?”
His manner, as if by magic, had changed. Every suggestion of deference, or consideration had gone from it. The respect, with which he had been careful to treat her, had suddenly vanished; there was something subtly brutal in his tone, in the very movement of impatience he made. It was as if the real man were at last showing himself.
She uttered a furious phrase of denial and sprang to her feet. His manner was the last unbearable touch on the sore helplessness of her futile rage. His chair had been standing sidewise toward the desk, and now, with a jerk of his body, he swept it back into position.
“All right, then go!” he said, without looking at her.
Berny had intended going, rushing out of the place. Now at these words of dismissal, flung at her as a bone to a dog, she suddenly was rooted to the spot. All her reason, balance, and common sense were swept away in the flood of her quivering, blind anger.
“I will not go,” she cried, at the pitch of folly, “I will not till I’m good and ready. Who are you to order me out? Who are you to tell me what I’m to do? A man who tries to buy another woman’s husband for his daughter, and then pretends he and she are such a sweet, innocent pair! Wouldn’t people be surprised if they knew that Miss Rose Cannon wanted my husband, was getting her father to make bids for him, and was meeting him every Sunday!”
“Stop!” thundered the old man, bringing his open hand down on the table with a bang.
The tone of his voice was bull-like, and the blow of his hand so violent that the fittings of the heavy desk rattled. Berny, though not frightened, was startled and drew back. For a moment she thought he was going to rise and forcibly put her out. Then she looked sidewise and saw two men at a window on the other side of the alley gazing interestedly down at them. Cannon was conscious of the observers at the same time. He restrained the impulse to spring to his feet which had made her shrink, and rose slowly.
“Look here,” he said quietly, “you don’t seem to understand that this interview’s at an end.”