The little man boiled over. He was almost ripe for personal violence. Fortunately, the sense that a man must not fight with his fists in the presence of ladies made him thrust his hands into his pockets. The other convention concerning the use of strong language was honoured in the breach!
"Damn you!" he spluttered. "If you want her, take her—now."
CHAPTER XX
BLACKMAIL
I
The bolt fell from the blue with shattering effect upon Posy and James. Susan, however, with that instinct which makes a woman grab at her petticoats when she is tumbling over a precipice, exclaimed shrilly:
"Joe! He can't take her without her stockings!"
"That's his affair," said Quinney.
His shrewd eye had marked a collapse on the part of James. He felt reasonably assured that the young man was bluffing; he knew that this "downy cove" wanted a wife with more than stockings, no matter how pretty her bare feet might be. Fortified by this conclusion, he, so to speak, fixed bayonets and charged. Unfortunately, he did not take Susan's character into account, which a husband so acute should have done. He was well aware that his wife, with all her shining qualities, was obstinate and emotional. More, he had never regarded her as a mother, although that significant name crossed his lips a hundred times each day. Susan was his wife.
When he charged, head down, seeing "red," intent only upon "downing" the clever knave and the foolish virgin, Susan interposed, metaphorically, her soft body.