“It is sufficient for you to know that I’ll never part with another sou,” Zertho answered with impatience.
“Very well, my dear friend, we shall see. Of all men you in the past have been among the most discreet, and none have ever accused you of the folly of impatience; but I tell you plainly that you shall never marry Liane Brooker,” he said distinctly, without the slightest undue warmth.
“I intend to marry her,” Zertho answered. “In a month she will be my wife.”
“You dare not act like that.”
“But I shall.”
“Then you defy me? Very good. We now understand one another.”
“No, I do not defy you,” Zertho exclaimed quickly. “But in this matter I shall follow my own inclination entirely. I intend to marry Brooker’s daughter.”
“Without my sanction?”
“Don’t you intend to give it? It surely is no affair of yours?”
“No, I shall not give it,” he answered carelessly tossing his dead cigar-end into the ash-tray. “Liane shall never become your wife.”