He always called
her Jane in company, unless he was excited. "I know what you are
going to say. I won't have it."
"I was only going to say--" urged the sub-editor in tone of one
suffering injustice.
"I quite know what you were going to say," retorted Peter hotly.
"I can see it by your chin. You are going to take their part--and
suggest their acting undutifully towards their parents."
"I wasn't," returned the sub-editor. "I was only--"
"You were," persisted Peter. "I ought not to have allowed you to
be present. I might have known you would interfere."
"--going to say we are in want of some help in the office. You
know we are. And that if Mr. Grindley would be content with a
small salary--"
"Small salary be hanged!" snarled Peter.
"--there would be no need for his going to Africa."
"And how would that help us?" demanded Peter. "Even if the boy
were so--so headstrong, so unfilial as to defy his father, who has
worked for him all these years, how would that remove the obstacle
of Mr. Appleyard's refusal?"
"Why, don't you see--" explained the sub-editor.
"No, I don't," snapped Peter.
"If, on his declaring to his father that nothing will ever induce
him to marry any other woman but Miss Appleyard, his father disowns
him, as he thinks it likely--"
"A dead cert!" was Grindley junior's conviction.
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