An hour later, Sudden leaned back in his chair and looked at Mary V. Tight-lipped, paler than she had any right to be, Mary V met the look wide-eyed.  Bland moved his feet anxiously, watching them both.

“I played square with him,” he whined.  “Either he didn’t, or else—­”

Sudden’s eyes turned to Bland and settled there meditatively.  “Yes, I guess you did,” he admitted.  “Looks like you had played fair.  Where are you stopping?  I’ll take you back down town.  Need money?”

“Dad!  Aren’t you going to do anything?  If Bland is telling the truth, don’t you see what it means?  Something must have happened—­”

“Well, now, that will all be attended to, kitten.  According to Bland, Johnny checked out before he disappeared.  Also his airplane disappeared with him.  That doesn’t look like he’d been made away with, exactly.  He’s all right, probably—­but we’ll find out.  I’ve a right to know what he did with that flying machine; it’s security for that note of his!”

Mary V sprang to her feet and faced him.  “Dad Selmer, I would never have believed a person on oath if they had said you could be so perfectly mean and mercenary!  If that’s all you care about, why take the Bear Cat and give me that note!  Go on—­take it!  I guess Johnny has a right to do as he pleases until the note is due, at any rate.  You might at least treat Johnny with ordinary business courtesy, I should think.  You know perfectly well that you wouldn’t dare hound your other creditors like that.  But if you are really worried about that note, I shall deem it a pleasure and a privilege to pay it myself, and I’m sure the Bear Cat is good for the amount, or if you prefer you may hold back my allowance, and I shall go without clothes and everything until it is paid.  It’s a perfect outrage to keep nagging Johnny when he’s doing his level best and not asking any help from you or any one else.  I’m sure I honor and respect him all the more, and you would too if you had a drop of human blood—­now what are you grinning for—­and trying to hide it?  Dad Selmer, you do make me perfectly furious at times!”

Mary V laid hands upon her father and for his shortcomings she “woolled” him until his grizzled hair stood straight on end.  Sudden protested, tried to hold her off at arm’s length and found her all claws, like an excited wildcat.

“Now, now—­”

“Tell me then what you are going to do.  And don’t try to make me believe you only care for that horrid note.  Every time I think of you making that poor boy sign over everything he had on earth, except me, of course, and you wouldn’t let him have me when he wanted—­why, dad, I could shake you till—­”

Bland was edging to the door.  He had no experience with families and domestic upheavals, and he did not know just how serious this quarrel might prove.  He expected Sudden to order Mary V from the house—­to disown her, at the very least.  He did not want to be a witness when Sudden broke loose.  But Sudden called him back and turned to Mary V.