"But I don't see why you put up with it," she presently went on. "As it is, you daren't call your soul your own. He manages you like a child—you a grown man."
"What can I do?" said poor Bobo.
"Fire him!"
"So that's your game!" thought Jack. "It's foredoomed to failure, lady!"
"Oh, I can't do that!" said Bobo horrified.
"Why not? I guess you can manage your own affairs as well as other men, can't you? Get a lawyer to help you. Everybody would think more of you if you came right out and put Jack in his place. They talk about it, you know. It's unmanly to submit to the dictation of one who is really no more than your servant. Send him away, and see how much better you'll get along with people. He fixes it so that you always show to a disadvantage beside him. That hurts me, because I know what there is in you!"
"Oh, you siren!" thought Jack. In a way, he could not but admire her cleverness.
She went on: "Some day I suppose you'll want to marry." Jack could imagine how modestly she cast down the long lashes when she said this. "I say this for your own good. No woman, you know, would want to put herself in the position of being under the thumb of her husband's secretary."
All Bobo could find to say was: "I'm sorry you don't like him." Jack had to confess to himself that a better man than Bobo might well have been stumped by such a situation.
"Oh, it doesn't matter about me," she said, "but he is openly rude to me. You don't seem to care."