“Because I won’t have Mary taken to that place to mix with the people who frequent it.”
“I see. This is exclusiveness with a vengeance. Perhaps you consider that those unholy doors should be shut to me also.”
“I have no right to express an opinion as to where my father should or should not go; but if you ask me, I think that, under all the circumstances, you would do best to keep away.”
“The circumstances! What circumstances?”
“Those of our poverty, which leaves us no money to risk in gambling.”
Then the Colonel lost all control of his temper, as sometimes happened to him, and became exceedingly violent and unpleasant. What he said does not matter; let it suffice that the remarks were of a character which even headstrong men are accustomed to reserve for the benefit of their women-folk and other intimate relations.
Attracted by the noise, which was considerable, Mary came in to find her uncle marching up and down the room vituperating Morris, who, with quite a new expression upon his face—a quiet, dogged kind of expression—was leaning upon the mantel-piece and watching him.
“Uncle,” began Mary, “would you mind being a little quieter? My father is asleep upstairs, and I am afraid that you will wake him.”
“I am sorry, my dear, very sorry, but there are some insults that no man with self-respect can submit to, even from a son.”
“Insults! insults!” Mary repeated, opening her blue eyes; then, looking at him with a pained air: “Morris, why do you insult your father?”