“My dear father, why waste your time and mine? I told you I should not go from this room until I had the money, and I mean it—quite mean it,” she added, very quietly.
“It’s disgraceful that you should treat me in this way. I’ll give orders that you are not to be admitted again, unless by my express instructions. What was the amount you mentioned? Five hundred dollars? Do you realize what five hundred dollars really is?”
“Five hundred is next to useless. It is disgracefully little for an outfit and general expenses of your grandson.”
“The boy is a scamp; an idle, horse-racing young vagabond—a thief, too. Have you forgotten that horse he stole? I haven’t.”
“Rubbish, father. The horse belonged to Dick. You gave it to him, and it was his to sell. But we’re wasting time. Shall I write the check? Ah! 73 here’s the book,” and Mrs. Swinton drew it toward her as she seated herself at the desk.
She knew his ways so well that in his increasing petulance she saw the coming surrender.
“I am going to draw a check for a thousand, father,” she said with assumed indifference, and took up a pen as though the matter were settled.
“A thousand!—no, five hundred—no, it’s too much. Five hundred dollars for a couple of suits of khaki? Preposterous! Fifty would be too much.”
“Well, the very lowest is fifty, father,” she remarked, with a sudden abandonment of irritation, and a new light in her fine eyes.
“Ah! that’s more like it.”