"I'm a gentleman's daughter," I broke in, weakly.
He smiled. "Oh yes; you're all gentlemen's daughters. Neither is there anything original in that."
"Mrs. Rossiter will tell you that my father was a judge in Canada—"
"The detail doesn't interest me."
"No, but it interests me. It gives me a sense of being equal to—"
"If you please! We'll not go into that."
"But I must speak. If I'm to marry Hugh you must let me tell you who I am."
"It's not necessary. You're not to marry Hugh. Let that be absolutely understood. Once you've accepted the fact—"
"I could only accept it from Hugh himself."
"That's foolish. Hugh will do as I tell him."
"But why should he in this case?"
"That again is something we needn't discuss. All that matters, my dear young lady, is your own interest. I'm working for that, don't you see, against yourself—"
I burst out, "But why shouldn't I marry him?"
He leaned on the table, tapping gently with his hand. "Because we don't want you to. Isn't that enough?"
I ignored this. "If it's because you don't know anything about me I could tell you."
"Oh, but we do know something about you. We know, for example, since you compel me to say it, that you're a little person of no importance whatever."
"My family is one of the best in Canada."
"And admitting that that's so, who would care what constituted a good family in Canada? To us here it means nothing; in England it would mean still less. I've had opportunities of judging how Canadians are regarded in England, and I assure you it's nothing to make you proud."
Of the several things he had said to sting me I was most sensitive to this. I, too, had had opportunities of judging, and knew that if anything could make one ashamed of being a British colonial of any kind it would be British opinion of colonials.
"My father used to say—"
He put up his large, white hand. "Another time. Let us keep to the subject before us."
I omitted the mention of my father to insist on a theory as to which I had often heard him express himself: "If it's part of the subject before us that I'm a Canadian and that Canadians are ground between the upper and lower millstones of both English and American contempt—"
"Isn't that another digression?"
"Not really," I hurried on, determined to speak, "because if I'm a sufferer by it, you are, too, in your degree. It's part of the Anglo-Saxon tradition for those who stay behind to despise those who go out as pioneers. The race has always done it. It isn't only the British who've despised their colonists. The people of the Eastern States despised those who went out and peopled the Middle West; those in the Middle West despised those who went farther West." I was still quoting my father. "It's something that defies reason and eludes argument. It's a base strain in the blood. It's like that hierarchy among servants by which the lady's maid disdains the cook, and the cook disdains the kitchen-maid, and the proudest are those who've nothing to be proud of. For you to look down on me because I'm a Canadian, when the commonest of Englishmen, with precisely the same justification, looks down on you—"
"Dear young lady," he broke in, soothingly, "you're talking wildly. You're speaking of things you know nothing about. Let us get back to what we began with. My son has offered to marry you—"
"He didn't offer to marry me. He asked me—he begged me—to marry him."
"The way of putting it is of no importance."
"Ah, but it is."
"I mean that, however he expressed it—however you express it—the result must be the same."
I nerved myself to look at him steadily. "I mean to accept him. When he asked me yesterday I said I wouldn't give him either a Yes or a No till I knew what you and his family thought of it. But now that I do know—"
"You're determined to try the impossible."
"It won't be the impossible till he tells me so."
He seemed for a second or two to study me. "Suppose I accepted you as what you say you are—as a young woman of good antecedents and honorable character. Would you still persist in the effort to force yourself on a family that didn't want you?"
I confess that in the language Mr. Strangways and I had used in the morning, he had me here "on the hip." To force myself on a family that didn't want me would normally have been the last of my desires. But I was fighting now for something that went beyond my desires—something larger—something national, as I conceived of nationality—something human—though I couldn't have said exactly what it was. I answered only after long deliberation.
"I couldn't stop to consider a family. My object would be to marry the man who loved me—and whom I loved."
"So that you'd face the humiliation—"
"It wouldn't be humiliation, because it would have nothing to do with me. It would pass into another sphere."
"It wouldn't be another sphere to him."
"I should have to let him take care of that. It's all I can manage to look out for myself—"
There seemed to be some admiration in his tone.
"Which you seem marvelously well fitted to do."
"Thank you."
"In fact, it's one of the ways in which you betray yourself. An innocent girl—"
I strained forward in my chair. "Wouldn't it be fair for you to tell me what you mean by the word innocent?"
"I mean a girl who has no special ax to grind—"
I could hear my foot tapping on the floor, but I was too indignant to restrain myself. "Even that figure of speech leaves too much to the imagination."
He studied me again. "You're very sharp."
"Don't I need to be," I demanded, "with an enemy of your acumen?"
"But I'm not your enemy. It's what you don't seem to see. I'm your friend. I'm trying to keep you out of a situation that would kill you if you got into it."
I think I laughed. "Isn't death preferable to dishonor?" I saw my mistake in the quickness with which Mrs. Brokenshire looked up. "There are more kinds of dishonor than one," I explained, loftily, "and to me the blackest would be in allowing you to dictate to me."
"My dear young woman, I dictate to men—"
"Oh, to men!"
"I see! You presume on your womanhood. It's a common American expedient, and a cheap one. But I don't stop for that."
"You may not stop for womanhood, Mr. Brokenshire; but neither does womanhood stop for you."
He rose with an air of weary patience. "I'm afraid we sha'n't gain anything by talking further—"
"I'm afraid not." I, too, rose, advancing to the table. We confronted each other across it, while one of the dogs came nosing to his master's hand. I had barely the strength to gasp on: "We've had our talk and you see where I am. I ask nothing but the exercise of human liberty—and the measure of respect I conceive to be due to