“Yes, yes!” agreed Johnathan. “The back office here. They’ll leave us alone. Come into the back office, Natie.”
Nathan glanced at Madelaine. She nodded. They moved toward the back office.
“Your woman friend will excuse us,” suggested the father curtly. “We have much to talk over in private, Nathan.”
“Oh, no,” responded the son. “I don’t care to discuss anything I do not wish Miss Theddon to hear.” And Nathan stood aside for Madelaine to precede him into the cluttered little workshop. Johnathan was not so courteous.
Johnathan, in fact, was piqued. In Madelaine he sensed an adversary. Immediately he took no care to keep concealed his estimate of her, of all women. They seated themselves, a smile of grim humor lurking about Madelaine’s pretty mouth.
“First you will cancel your passage,” began Johnathan doggedly. “You must promise me, Nathan! Remember, you’ll never have but one father.”
“I cannot and will not delay our sailing, father.” Nat’s voice was kind but firm. “Now that’s settled, what about home do you especially wish to know?”
Johnathan produced a soiled handkerchief and blew his nose. But he saw that because of the influence of a “female” undoubtedly, the son was the same adamant, bigoted colt he had always been.
“You might tell me about yourself,” he said lamely, petulantly. “You had a wonderful little wife, Nathan. What happened to her?” Johnathan said this for Madelaine. And he did not miss the pallor which took the humorous lip-smile from the girl’s features as he said it. He had a way to wound the girl, perhaps drive a wedge between her and his boy. “And your child, Natie! Little Mary was one of the sweetest tots I ever saw. What became of her?”
“She was killed by a truck a year before Milly died,” was the son’s rejoinder. He said it stiffly. He wondered—if his father was to be deliberately mean—if it might not have been better after all to ask Madelaine to wait until the visit was ended.