"Sort of ashamed of me, aren't you?" inquired his grandfather. "A man that you've seen all the politicians catering to the last day or so, and small enough to bandy insults with a snippet of a girl! Well, bub, there's a lot of childishness in human nature. It breaks out once in a while. Cuss a tack, and grin and bear an amputation! We'll let the girl alone. I don't seem to get in right when she is mentioned. But I wanted to have you tell me that you don't intend to marry Dennis Kavanagh's daughter. You can't afford to do that, boy! Not with your prospects. And now I'm not saying anything against the girl. We'll leave her out, I say. It's just that she isn't the kind of a woman—when she gets to be a woman—that I want to see mated with you." He burst out: "Dammit, Harlan, I can see where you're going to land in this State if you'll let your old gramp have free rein! And the right kind of a wife is half the battle in what you're going into."
"Have you got that right kind picked out for me—along with the rest?
You talk as though you had."
It was said almost in the tone of insult. It might have been the tone—it might have been that the taunt touched upon the truth: Thelismer Thornton's face flushed. He did not seem to find reply easy.
"There's only this to say, grandfather. I know you're interested in me and in seeing me get ahead in the world. You pushed me into politics, and I'm trying to make good. I'm glad you did it—I'll say that now. I see opportunities ahead if I stay square and honest. But don't you try to push me into marriage. I'm going to do my own choosing there. And that doesn't mean that I'm in love with Clare Kavanagh, or intend to marry Clare Kavanagh, or want to marry her—or that she wants to marry me. That's straight, and I don't want to talk about it any more."
He stood up, and his tone was defiant.
"You'd better take a walk, bub," commended the Duke, quietly. "I'm going to nap for a little while. We may be up late to-night."
He picked up his hat and canted it over his face. "Get back here as early as five o'clock," he said, from under its brim.
They were away in the farmer's carryall at that hour, after a supper of bread-and-milk.
In the edge of the village of Burnside the Duke ordered a halt, and stepped down from the carriage. The evening had settled in and it was dark under the elms.
"Here's five dollars, brother. You've used us all right, and now so long to you."