“Miss Nancy was taken by surprise,” Inman answered. “She wasn’t used to my blunt ways and—well, she gave me no encouragement.”
“And though she gave you ‘No’ for an answer, you followed her here on t’ off-chance ’at she’d change her mind, if she saw more of you?”
“I usually get what I set my mind on,” Inman answered, so calmly that Baldwin turned his eyes upon him in amazement at the note of assurance. “She knows I shan’t plague her; if she becomes my wife it’ll be of her own free will; and I’m willing to take my chance.”
He smiled as he completed the sentence, and the look and tone of assurance kindled Baldwin’s wrath.
“I’ve a good mind to send you about your business,” he stormed, peppering the declaration with the hottest words in his vocabulary. “You’re the coolest devil I ever came across, and I’d as lief have old Nick himself in the place. If Nancy has said ‘No’——”
Inman laid his hand on the other’s arm and spoke more sternly though even yet with studied restraint.
“Listen, Mr. Briggs! If you sack me I shall find a job somewhere about——”
“It won’t be wi’ Drake’s, that’s certain,” broke in Baldwin hotly, “Jagger’ll none be keen on finding a job for a rival; and who else is there, nearer nor Scaleber?”
“We needn’t discuss it, Mr. Briggs,” Inman replied. “I’m more likely to want to put a spoke in Jagger Drake’s wheel than to help him to put one in yours. You’ve seen enough to know that I can take Jagger’s place, and you’ve nobody else that can; and seeing that I’ve promised not to molest Miss Nancy what harm will there be in keeping me on?”
The cunningly-designed argument left Baldwin without an answer, and the milder tone in Inman’s voice served to modify him. After all, as he said to himself, Nancy was her own mistress and had for some time past shown an independence of spirit that had been anything but welcome. Now that Jagger had set up in opposition there was no reason why he should lose the services of the one man who could help to checkmate the Drakes’ move—indeed self-interest pointed in the opposite direction. He therefore said: