“How long are you going on defying me like this?”

She tried to disengage herself, but his arm was too strong.  “Oh, father,” she said, rather wearily, “don’t let us go over this old argument again.”

“But suppose I find some new argument?  Suppose I send you packing altogether, refuse to contribute further to your support.  What then?”

She started at the threat but replied valiantly:  “I should have to earn my own living.”

“How are you going to do it?”

“There are heaps of ways.”

He laughed.  “There ain’t; as you’d soon find out.  They don’t even pay you for being scullery-maid to a lot of common soldiers.”

She protested against that view of her avocation.  In the perfectly appointed Wellingsford Hospital she had no scullery work.  She was a probationer, in training as a nurse.  He still gripped her.

“The particular kind of tomfoolery you are up to doesn’t matter.  We needn’t quarrel.  I’ve another proposition to put before you—­ much more to your fancy, I think.  You like this Mr. Randall Holmes, don’t you?”

She shivered a little and flushed deep red.  Her father had never touched on the matter before.  She said, straining away: 

“I don’t want to talk about Mr. Holmes.”

“But I do.  Come, my dear.  In this life there must be always a certain amount of give and take.  I’m not the man to drive a one-sided bargain.  I’ll make you a fair offer—­as between father and daughter.  I’ll wipe out all that’s past.  In leaving me like this, when misfortune has come upon me, you’ve been guilty of unfilial conduct—­no one can deny it But I’ll overlook everything, forgive you fully and take you to my heart again and leave you free to do whatever you like without interfering with your opinions, if you’ll promise me one thing—­”

“I know what you’re going to say.”  She twisted round on him swiftly.  “I ’ll promise at once.  I’ll never marry Mr. Holmes.  I’ve already told him I won’t marry him.”

Surprise relaxed his grip.  She took swift advantage and sheered away to the other side of the table.  He rose and brought down his hand with a thump.

“You refused him?  Why, you silly little baggage, my condition is that you should marry him.  You’re sweet on him aren’t you?”

“I detest him,” cried Phyllis.  “Why should I marry him?”

Her eyes, young and pure, divined some sordid horror behind eyes crafty and ignoble.  Once before she had had such a fleeting, uncomprehended vision into the murky depths of the man’s soul.  This was some time ago.  In the routine of her secretarial duties she had, one morning, opened and read a letter, not marked “Private” or “Personal,” whose tenor she could scarcely understand.  When she handed it to her father, he smiled, vouchsafed a specious explanation, and looked at her in just the same crafty and ignoble fashion, and she shrank away frightened.  The matter kept her awake for a couple