From the dining-room they had passed into the study. Margaret, in this bitter and yet impartial review of the plaintiff’s argument which her father made, heard the rumble of her father’s fury and despair, and was upset by it completely.
“Father,” she murmured, “aren’t we lost? Have you still hope?”
“As if I hadn’t!”
“When will it be over?”
“At two o’clock, in forty minutes more, Mr. Porterieux will resume his argument.”
“Hasn’t he done enough harm to us?”
“It appears not. He has one more argument to enlarge on.”
“What is it?”
“The new admission that comes, according to him, from my making restitution of the one hundred thousand francs. By three o’clock I suppose my turn comes. At four or four-thirty I shall be done.”
And he added, in an easy tone, to reassure her: