“Since you’re so interested in Harry Chalender, you may be interested to know that the business of blowing up those buildings was his own idea.”
He thought that this would either reinstate him in her respect or at least debase Harry Chalender there. But she dumbfounded him by her always unexpected viewpoint:
“It was a splendid idea!”
“Then why do you blame me for what I was going to do?”
“Because you destroyed my father’s fortune wantonly—for spite—without any reason.”
“It was to save the city. The building would have burned soon anyway.”
“It would not have burned at all! It lies there now untouched. The wind shifted and carried the fire away from it.”
He dropped to a chair, bludgeoned like an ox, and as bovine in his enjoyment of this hellish witticism of fate.
Patty always loved to spurn him when he was down and she triumphed now:
“Besides, if you must bring Harry Chalender into it, I know that even if Harry had blown up all the other buildings in the world, he would have spared my father’s—especially if I had asked him to.”