“I do not!”

“He does!  He does!” cried Cora.  “He said that I was—­I was too much `interested’ in Mr. Corliss.”

“Is that an `insult’?” the father demanded sharply.

“It was the way he said it,” Cora protested, sobbing.  “He meant something he didn’t say.  He did!  He did!  He meant to insult me!”

“I did nothing of the kind,” shouted the old man.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I said I couldn’t understand your getting so excited about the fellow’s affairs and that you seemed to take a mighty sudden interest in him.”

“Well, what if I do?” she screamed.  “Haven’t I a right to be interested in what I choose?  I’ve got to be interested in something, haven’t I? You don’t make life very interesting, do you?  Do you think it’s interesting to spend the summer in this horrible old house with the paper falling off the walls and our rotten old furniture that I work my hands off trying to make look decent and can’t, and every other girl I know at the seashore with motor-cars and motor-boats, or getting a trip abroad and buying her clothes in Paris?  What do you offer to interest me?”

The unfortunate man hung his head.  “I don’t see what all that has to do with it——­”

She seemed to leap at him.  “You don’t?  You don’t?”

“No, I don’t.  And I don’t see why you’re so crazy to please young Corliss about this business unless you’re infatuated with him.  I had an idea—­and I was pleased with it, too, because Richard’s a steady fellow—­that you were just about engaged to Richard Lindley, and——­”

“Engaged!” she cried, repeating the word with bitter contempt.  “Engaged!  You don’t suppose I’ll marry him unless I want to, do you?  I will if it suits me.  I won’t if it suits me not to; understand that!  I don’t consider myself engaged to anybody, and you needn’t either.  What on earth has that got to do with your keeping Richard Lindley from doing what Mr. Corliss wants him to?”

“I’m not keeping him from anything.  He didn’t say——­”

“He did!” stormed Cora.  “He said he would if you went into it.  He told me this afternoon, an hour ago.”

“Now wait,” said Madison.  “I talked this over with Richard two days ago——­”

Cora stamped her foot again in frantic exasperation.  “I’m talking about this afternoon!”

“Two days ago,” he repeated doggedly; “and we came to the same conclusion:  it won’t do.  He said he couldn’t go into it unless he went over there to Italy—­and saw for himself just what he was putting his money into, and Corliss had told him that it couldn’t be done; that there wasn’t time, and showed him a cablegram from his Italian partner saying the secret had leaked out and that they’d have to form the company in Naples and sell the stock over there if it couldn’t be done here within the next week.  Corliss said he had to ask for an immediate answer, and so Richard told him no, yesterday.”