"Oh, Luke, you wouldn't hurt father?"
"It isn't that, Betty." Luke was angry. The girl was behaving as he thought that a girl placed as she was ought to behave, and he loved her no less for that, but he was angry at her father's weakness in putting her in such a position, "It isn't that, Betty, I've got to do it. You don't understand these things. You can't understand them."
"She knows that I understand them," Forbes interposed.
"What of it?" challenged Luke. "Betty, I've got to do what I think's right. You wouldn't have me go against everything I believe, would you? You wouldn't have me do something I thought was wrong?"
Betty half raised her head:
"But it can't be wrong not to ruin us!"
Luke turned his words on Forbes.
"I'll withdraw from the company," he said.
"I couldn't buy you out," Forbes answered. He bit his lip; shame colored his cheeks. "And if you sold to anybody else it would be sure to be letting in our enemies. Even the mere report that you wanted to sell would wreck us, coming on top of those bank interviews."
Luke knew Forbes was right.