She was almost hysterical. She felt as though she were struggling desperately against some awful force that was imprisoning her. “Let me go. Please, let me go,” she gasped.
“No!” he said, arrogance in his voice--the arrogance of a man used to women who let men rule them.
Her eyes flashed. “Then I release myself!” she exclaimed haughtily, with a change of front so swift that it startled him. “And don’t you dare ever speak of it to me again!”
She slowly left the room, her head high. But her haughtiness subsided as rapidly as it had risen, and by the time she reached her own apartment she was ready to fling herself down for a miserable cry--and she did. “If I could _only_ get him out of the house,” she wailed.
Frothingham debated his situation. “The thing to do,” he concluded, “is to go straight off to her father.” He had not yet become convinced that in America man occupies a position in the family radically different from his position in England. He found Hollister writing in his study.
Hollister raised his head until it was tilted so far back that he could see Frothingham through the glasses that were pinching in the extreme end of his long nose. “Oh--Lord Frothingham--yes!” He laid down his pen. “What can I do for you?”
Frothingham seated himself in a solemn dignity that hid his nervousness. “For several weeks your daughter and I have been engaged. We--we----”
Hollister smiled good-humouredly. “Before you go any further, my boy,” he interrupted kindly, “I warn you that you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Frothingham stiffly.
“The person you want to see is the girl’s mother. She attends to all that end of the business. I’ve got enough trouble to look after at my own end.”
“What I have to say can be said properly only to her father as the head of the family.”
“But I’m _not_ the head of the family. I’m not sure that I know who is. Sometimes I think it’s my wife, again I suspect Catherine.”
“Your daughter now refuses to abide by her engagement,” said Frothingham, in desperation at this untimely levity.
Hollister took off his glasses and examined them on both sides with great care. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose that settles it.”
Frothingham stared. “I beg pardon, but it does not settle it.”