Flint gave no sign that he heard. Mr. Worthington seated himself at his desk, and after some thought wrote on a piece of note-paper the following lines: “My dear Miss Wetherell, I should be greatly obliged if you would find it convenient to call at my house at eight o'clock this evening,” and signed them, “Sincerely Yours.” He sealed them up in an envelope and addressed it to Miss Wetherell, at the schoolhouse; and handed it to Mr. Flint. That gentleman got as far as the door, and then he hesitated and turned.
“There is just one way out of this for you, that I can see, Mr. Worthington,” he said. “It's a desperate measure, but it's worth thinking about.”
“What's that?”
It took some courage for Mr. Flint, to make the suggestion. “The girl's a good girl, well educated, and by no means bad looking. Bob might do a thousand times worse. Give your consent to the marriage, and Jethro Bass will go back to Coniston.”
It was wisdom such as few lords get from their seneschals, but Isaac D. Worthington did not so recognize it. His anger rose and took away his breath as he listened to it.
“I will never give my consent to it, never—do you hear?—never. Send that note!” he cried.
Mr. Flint walked out, sent the note, and returned and took his place silently at his own table. He was a man of concentration, and he put his mind on the arguments he was composing to certain political leaders. Mr. Worthington merely pretended to work as he waited for the answer to come back. And presently, when it did come back, he tore it open and read it with an expression not often on his lips. He flung the paper at Mr. Flint.
“Read that,” he said.
This is what Mr. Flint read: “Miss Wetherell begs to inform Mr. Isaac D. Worthington that she can have no communication or intercourse with him whatsoever.”
Mr. Flint handed it back without a word. His opinion of the school-teacher had risen mightily, but he did not say so. Mr. Worthington took the note, too, without a word. Speech was beyond him, and he crushed the paper as fiercely as he would have liked to have crushed Cynthia, had she been in his hands.