The young man did not rise with the others and prepare to go, but merely stared at me. I went near and said in a low voice:
“These men will resent your refusal.”
“Are you threatening me?” he said under his breath.
“Give my remark whatever construction you please,” I answered.
He could not hide his anger and fear, for a glance showed him a disquieting expression in the faces of the forty men waiting. Mr. Vancouver looked surprised and irritated as he studied them. The men in whom rebellion was stirring were such as he had always directed and commanded,—artisans, mechanics, clerks, sturdy and spirited every one, and loving fair play.
“Save yourself further trouble,” Rawley drawled in an effort to be nonchalant. “I’ll go—if I feel like it, and when I’m ready.”
Although the men could not hear him, they understood, and a murmur arose. One of them angrily said: “He’s too good to work.”
Then came the outbreak.
“Put him under arrest! Duck him in the river! The snob!”
Annabel suddenly appeared. The men at once desisted, and she understood the situation at a glance. Her astonishment grew as her look of angry reproach at Rawley passed to her father and found him silent and pale, as though for the first time he had seen the spirit of the common American.