"The summons doesn't say what the trouble is about." Graham was dodging in spite of himself.
"But who is the person that is suing you?" Mr. Phillips questioned again testily.
"The summons says 'Lily Porter, by her father and next friend, Henry S. Porter, against John Hayw—"
"Says what? A WOMAN?"
President Phillips jumped to his feet and went pale as ashes. Graham, dry-lipped, could only nod his head weakly in affirmation. For five seconds Mr. Phillips was speechless. Then words came back, along with a rush of blood to his face that looked to burst it. So terrible was his wrath, the killing look in his eyes, that Graham instinctively squared away to defend himself from bodily injury. Such a torrent, such a blast, of withering, blistering profanity, wild, incoherent, unutterable, he never had listened to in all his life. Try as he would to interpose a word, an explanation, a defence, his efforts only drove the father to more abandoned fury. After a dozen fruitless attempts he realized there was nothing to do but wait for the furor to burn itself out. To the young man, conscious of the passing of precious time, it seemed that his anger would never cool. When the President showed the first signs of exhaustion he took courage to speak again.
"I swear to you, sir, the young woman has no cause to complain of me. I have done her no—"
"Oh of course not, of course not," said Mr. Phillips in the most bitingly sarcastic tone. "Of course not, of course not! But who the devil is she?"
"Miss Lily Porter, daughter of Henry S. Porter—Black Henry the newspapers sometimes call him. Perhaps you have heard—"
"What! That nigger? Not a nigger woman! But of cour—oh my God, Helen, how can I pr—" but he choked for a moment in livid anger before he writhed into another frenzy, that was as volcanic, as horrible, and as pitiable as it is unprintable. He cursed, he raved, he choked, he tore wildly at his collar for breath.
It was frightful to look upon, and if Graham had feared for his own safety in the first outburst, he feared for Mr. Phillips' life in the last. It looked as if in the violence of his wrath he would burst a blood-vessel. Graham was in mortal fear that he would die in his tracks, and tried desperately to reinforce his denial of guilt as the only possible relief for his father-in-law's dementia, but all his attempts only inflamed Mr. Phillips the more. The negro seemed not to know that it was not a question of his guilt or innocence that was tearing the father's vitals and threatening his reason, but shame—insufferable shame!