“Only a waste of time.” The words awaken Leslie’s almost benumbed senses. Time; that is just what this discussion is gaining for her, for Stanhope! Since their entrance, she has not opened her lips; now she interrupts Mamma’s discourse.
“Let me read the paper,” she says.
By a quick movement, Papa extracts the paper from beneath the finger of his Prodigal, and holding it tightly, steps back from the table.
“It’s wasting time,” he says, “an’ it’s only a little form.”
Then Leslie draws herself up to her fullest height, and stepping back from the table says:
“I will sign no paper that I have not read.”
With a sudden movement Franz springs upon Papa, wrests the paper from his grasp, and passes it over Mamma’s shoulder to Leslie. Then he turns fiercely upon the pair.
“If ye could read, Franz Francoise,” shrieks Mamma, in a burst of incautious rage, “ye’d never a-done that thing!”
“Kerrect!” retorts Franz, with a malicious grin, “I’d a-read it myself. Not bein’ able to do that, I’d sooner take her word fer it than your’n.”
Again Papa comes forward and lays a hand upon the arm of his son.