With that, of course, you couldn't reason, couldn't talk at all.... What he really wanted to do, burned to do, was to tell the exact truth. He had passed the point where he could give Betty up; he would have to fight for her now, whatever happened. His one great fear had been that Betty's father would be incapable of entertaining the truth dispassionately, fairly.
But the actual Doane cleared his over-charged brain as a mountain storm will clear murky air. Here was a giant of a man who meant business. Back of that strong face, back of the deep voice, Brachey felt a pressure of anger. It was not Christian forbearance; it was vigor and something more; something that perhaps, probably, would come out before they were through with each other. There was a restless power in the man, a wild animal pacing there behind the slightly clouded eyes. Even in the blinding fire of his own love for Betty he could look out momentarily and see or feel that this giant was burning too. And what he saw or felt, turned his heart to ice and his brain to tempered metal. Sympathy would have reached Brachey this night; weakness, blundering, might have reached him. But now, of all occasions, he would not be intimidated.. .. He felt the change coming over him, dreaded it, even resisted it; but was powerless to check it. The man proposed to beat him down. No one had ever yet done that to Jonathan Brachey. And so, though he tried to speak with simple frankness in saying, “I came to see your daughter,” the words came out coldly, tinged with defiance, between set lips.
It might easily mean a fight of some sort, Brachey reflected. This mountain of a man could crush him, of course. Primitive emotion charged the air as each deliberately stud'ed the other.... It would hardly matter if he should be crushed. There were no police in T'airan to protect white men from each other. His wife would be relieved; a queer, bitter sob rose part way in his throat at the thought. There was no one else... save Betty. Betty would care! And this man was her father! It was terrible.... He was struggling now to attain a humility his austere life had never known; if only he could trample down his savage pride, hear the man out, swallow every insult! But in this struggle, at first, he failed. Like a soldier he faced the huge fighting man with a pack on his back.
“You knew my daughter on the steamer?”
“Yes.”
“Before that—in America?”
“No.”
“There is something between you?”
“Yes.”
“You are a married man?”