“I'll tell her the story.”
“You wouldn't dare.”
“She has a sense of honor and of obligation even if you haven't. She will pay. She'll pay with herself. That's a devil of a way to get a wife, but if that's the only way I'll take it.”
“But you have just owned up that you have embezzled money. As Kate's mother it's my duty to protect her from disgrace.”
That amazing declaration fairly took away Dodd's breath.
By the manner in which the woman now looked at him it was plain that he had sunk in her estimation.
“You know, Richard, a mother feels called on to protect a good daughter.”
He got up and stamped on the floor in his passion and swore.
“I appreciate what you did for me—but, really, I didn't ask you to steal money—and I supposed your uncle was always liberal with you. You should not have told me falsehoods.”
The maddening feature of this calm assumption of superiority was the fact that the woman seemed really to believe for the moment exactly what she was saying and to forget why Dodd had jeopardized his fortunes; her manner showed her shallow estimate of the situation.