"What!" He took a step forward, but he stepped back again and stood there, lashing himself with the switch. "My father tells me that you are a gentleman," he said.
"And you may safely accept your father's opinion of me," I answered.
"But you are not striving, sir, to make that opinion good."
"A good opinion needs no bolstering up."
"This bantering is all nonsense. I've got nothing against you; I have simply asked you a civil question."
"And I hope to be as civil as you are, but out of regard for the feelings of those old people and their daughter I cannot tell you which way they went. You couldn't overtake them, any way."
"But I can try."
"Yes, you could have tried yesterday and the day before, and a week ago, when they needed your sympathy."
He dropped his switch, but he caught it up again, and his face was red. "I might say, sir, that what I have done and that which I have failed to do is no business of yours, but I feel that there is a measure of justice in what you say, and I acknowledge that I have been wrong. That is why I am here now—to set myself right."
"In matters of business we may correct an error, Mr. Lundsford; we may rub out one figure and put down another, but a mark made upon the heart is likely to remain there."