"F'r heaven's sake!" protested Grismer. "Are you still carrying that old chip on your shoulder? I thought it was all squared."
Jim considered him for a few moments.
"All right," he said; "it's squared, Oswald.... Only, somehow I can't get over feeling that there are some more fights ahead of us.... Have a caramel?"
Chiltern Grismer joined Cleland Senior on the way to the street, and they strolled together toward the station entrance. Stephanie walked in silence beside Cleland, holding rather tightly to his arm, not even noticing Grismer, and quite overwhelmed by her own bereavement.
Grismer murmured in his dry, guarded voice:
"She's pretty enough and nicely enough behaved to be your own daughter."
Cleland nodded; a deeper flush of annoyance spread over his handsome, sanguine face. He resented it when people did not take Stephanie for his own flesh and blood; and it even annoyed him that Grismer should mention a matter upon which he had become oddly sensitive.
"I hope you won't ever be sorry, Cleland," remarked the other in his dry, metallic voice. "Yes, indeed, I hope you won't regret your philanthropic venture."
"I am very happy in my little daughter," replied Cleland quietly.
"She's turning out quite satisfactory?"