"He'll be black and blue when I've man-handled him. It's that dog, James Miggott."
Susan grew pale and trembled. She had never seen her Joe so moved to fury, not even when he had been "downed" by the pseudo Major Archibald Fraser. She faltered out:
"Joe, dear, James is much bigger than you."
To this Quinney replied ironically:
"After all these years o' church goin' I thought you believed that Right was stronger than Might. Has it all soaked in? Did you mark that word 'dull' applied to my business? Do you know what the contents o' this room would fetch at Christopher's, if the right men were biddin'?"
"Indeed, indeed, I don't."
"Nobody knows what my collection would fetch. The Quinney Collection! S'pose I leave everything to the nation—hey?"
Susan sat bowed and silent before the storm.
IV
Quinney did not look at her. Her attitude, her troubled face were sufficient alone to acquit her of any possible complicity in this abominable affair. The more he considered it as a tremendous fact in their lives, the more incredible, the more irrational it became to him. His Posy, the Wonder Child, the gem of the Quinney Collection, writing love-letters to an obscure faker of furniture, a "downy" cove, a rather sullen hireling, who earned four quid a week! Had his child been born and educated "regardless" for—this? Had Susan and he suffered pangs unforgettable in order that their child should forsake them for this maggot of a Miggott?