"She is another man's wife. Why don't you let her alone?" pursued the father.
"For that very reason," said Ferdy, recovering his composure and his insolent air.
"---- it! Let the woman alone," said his father. "Your fooling around her has already cost us the backing of Wentworth & Son--and, incidentally, two or three hundred thousand."
The younger man looked at the other with a flash of rage. This quickly gave way to a colder gleam.
"Really, sir, I could not lower myself to measure a matter of sentiment by so vulgar a standard as your ---- money."
His air was so intolerable that the father's patience quite gave way.
"Well, by ----! you'd better lower yourself, or you'll have to stoop lower than that. Creamer, Crustback & Company are out with us; the Wentworths have pulled out; so have Kestrel and others. Your deals and corners have cost me a fortune. I tell you that unless we pull through that deal down yonder, and unless we get that railroad to earning something, so as to get a basis for rebonding, you'll find yourself wishing you had my 'damned money.'"
"Oh, I guess we'll pull it through," said the young man. He rose coolly and walked out of the office.
The afternoon he spent with Mrs. Norman. He had to go South, he told her, to look after some large interests they had there. He made the prospects so dazzling that she laughingly suggested that he had better put a little of her money in there for her. She had quite a snug sum that the Wentworths had given her.
"Why do not you ask Norman to invest it?" he inquired, with a laugh.