“I am sorry, sir,” said Grindley junior, “if I have proved a disappointment to you.”
“Damn your sympathy!” said Grindley senior. “Keep it till you are asked for it.”
“I hope we part friends, sir,” said Grindley junior, holding out his hand.
“Why do you irate me?” asked Grindley senior. “I have thought of nothing but you these five-and-twenty years.”
“I don’t, sir,” answered Grindley junior. “I can’t say I love you. It did not seem to me you—you wanted it. But I like you, sir, and I respect you. And—and I’m sorry to have to hurt you, sir.”
“And you are determined to give up all your prospects, all the money, for the sake of this—this girl?”
“It doesn’t seem like giving up anything, sir,” replied Grindley junior, simply.
“It isn’t so much as I thought it was going to be,” said the old man, after a pause. “Perhaps it is for the best. I might have been more obstinate if things had been going all right. The Lord has chastened me.”
“Isn’t the business doing well, Dad?” asked the young man, with sorrow in his voice.
“What’s it got to do with you?” snapped his father. “You’ve cut yourself adrift from it. You leave me now I am going down.”