"Aye, harm her! What do you think a girl like that, as good-lookin' as her, gets out of goin' up the road with a lad like you that's born above her! A bellyful of pain, that's all!"
"I don't know what you mean, father!"
"Well, it's time you learned. I'll talk to you plumb an' plain, Henry. I'll not let you seduce a girl on my land, do you hear? They can do that sort of thing in England, if they like ... it's nothin' to me what the English do ... but by God I'll not have a girl on my land ruined by you or by anybody else!"
Mr. Quinn's voice was more angry than Henry had ever heard it.
"Father," Henry said, "I want to marry Sheila!..."
"What?"
Mr. Quinn's fist had been raised as if he were about to bang his desk to emphasise his words, but he was so startled by Henry's speech that he forgot his intention, and he sat there, open-mouthed and wide-eyed, with his fist still suspended in the air, so that Henry almost laughed at his comical look.
"What's that you say?" he said, when he had recovered
"I want to marry her, but she won't have me!"
Mr. Quinn's anger left him. He leant back in his revolving chair and laughed.