“I refuse! I refuse you nothing. Better would it have been for me if I had when you were younger; then you would think twice before you flung all obedience to the winds. You have only to ask what you want to know, and listen with patience while it is told to you.”
“I have asked you a dozen times.”
“How you do exaggerate! I call it exaggeration, although I might perhaps be forgiven for using a harsher term. Exactitude of statement is more——”
“Will you tell me, or shall I go?”
“Have I not just said that I will tell you anything? What is it you want to know? Your own ridiculous conduct has driven everything out of my head.”
“You said my father had defied the men and was in danger yesterday.”
“Oh, that! After seeing the police guard Mr. Hope and Mr. Monkton through the lawless mob, what must your father do but show how brave he was compared with his superiors. He came out of the gates alone, and walked through the mob.”
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything.”
“Then how did he defy the men?”