Just then he came face to face with "the young upstart." I. Tapp seized his son's arm with a vicious if puny grasp and yelled:
"What d'you mean by it?"
"Mean by what, dad?" asked the boy with that calmness that always irritated I. Tapp.
"Settin' your ma and the girls on me? They all lit on me at once. All crying together some foolishness about your marrying this Grayling girl and putting the family into society."
"Into society?" murmured Lawford. "I—I don't get you."
"You know what they're after," cried the candy manufacturer. "If a dynamite bomb would blow in the walls of that exclusive Back Bay set, they'd use one. And now it turns out this girl's right in the swim———I thought you said she was a picture actress?"
"I thought she was," stammered Lawford.
"Bah! You thought? You never thought a thing in your life of any consequence."
The young man was silent at this thrust. His silence made I. Tapp even angrier.
"But it makes no difference—no difference at all, I tell you. If she was the queen of Sheba I'd say the same," went on the candy manufacturer wildly. "I've said you shall marry Dorothy Johnson—I've always meant you should; and marry her you shall!"