"It wasn't because she didn't agree with me," George interrupted, with heat.
"It was the act of a cad," Penny finished. "Look here, young man, I'm going to tell you a few plain truths about yourself. You're not the sort of person that you think you are. You've deceived yourself the way other people are deceived about you—by your exterior. But inside of that good-looking carcass of yours there's a brain composed of cheese. You weren't only a cad to do it—you were a fool!" "You can't use that tone to me!" cried George.
"Oh, can't I just? By Jove, it's things like that that make one wake up. Now I know why women have a passion for suffrage. I never knew before," Penny went on, with more passion than logic. "You had a nerve to make that statement of yours. You're a fine example of chivalry. You let loose a few things when you wrote that fool statement, but you did a worse trick when you fired Betty Sheridan. God, you're a pinhead—from the point of view of mere tactics. Sometimes I wonder whether you've any brain."
George had turned white with anger.
"That'll just about do," he remarked.
"Oh, no, it won't," said Penny. "It won't do at all. I'm not going to remain in a firm where things like this can happen. I wouldn't risk my reputation and my future. You're going to do the decent thing. You're going to Betty Sheridan and tell her what you think of yourself. She won't come back, I suppose, but you might ask her to do that, too. And now I'm going out, to give you time to think this over. And tonight you can tell me what you've decided. And then I'll tell you whether I'm going to dissolve our partnership. Your temper's too bad to decide now. Maybe when you've done that she won't treat me like an unsavory stranger."
He left, and George sat down to gloomy reflection.
To do him justice, the idea of apologizing to Betty had already occurred to him. If he put off the day of reckoning, when the time came he would pay handsomely. He realized that there was no use in wasting energy and being angry with Penny. He looked over the happenings of the last few hours and the part he had played in them, and what he saw failed to please him. He saw himself being advised by Doolittle to concentrate on the Erie Oval. He heard him urging him not to be what Doolittle called unneighborly. The confiding words of Cousin Emelene rang in his ears.
He saw himself, in a fit of ill-temper, discharging Betty. He saw Genevieve, lovely and scornful, urging him to be less pompous. All this, he had to admit, he had brought on himself. Why should he have been so angry at these questions? Again Emelene's remark echoed in his ear. He had only to answer them—and he was going to concentrate on the Erie Oval!
There came a knock on the door, and a breezy young woman demanded,