Mr. Prodmore thought an instant. “‘Hard’ is a stupid, shuffling term. What do you mean by it?”
“Well, I don’t understand business,” Cora said; “but I think I understand you, papa, enough to gather that you’ve got, as usual, a striking advantage.”
“As usual, I have scored; but my advantage won’t be striking perhaps till I have sent the blow home. What I appeal to you, as a father, at present to do”—he continued broadly to demonstrate—“is to nerve my arm. I look to you to see me through.”
“Through what, then?”
“Through this most important transaction. Through the speculation of which you’ve been the barely dissimulated subject. I’ve brought you here to receive an impression, and I’ve brought you, even more, to make one.”
The girl turned honestly flat. “But on whom?”
“On me, to begin with—by not being a fool. And then, Miss, on him.”
Erect, but as if paralysed, she had the air of facing the worst. “On Captain Yule?”
“By bringing him to the point.”
“But, father,” she asked in evident anguish—“to what point?”