within had
reached a stage so acute that it was doubtful whether either of the
disputants would have heard had she stumped like a navvy.

The point of dissension was not at first apparent, because Mama Therese was
speaking, and what she said had exclusively to do with her estimate of
Dupont's character, the mettle of his spirit, the stuff of his mentality,
the authenticity of his pedigree (with especial reference to the virtue of
his maternal ancestry) and the circumstances of his upbringing; which
estimate in sum was low but by no means so low as the terms in which Mama
Therese was inspired to couch it.

Papa Dupont did not seem to be greatly interested. He had heard all this
before, many a time, with insignificant phraseological variations. Sofia,
pausing unseen and unsuspected in the darkness just outside the doorway,
could see him slouching deep in his chair, to one side of the table, his
soft fat hands deep in the pockets of his trousers, his chin sunken on his
chest, something dogged in the louring frown which he was bending upon
nothing, something of genuine indifference in his passive attitude toward
the blowsy virago who was leaning across the table the better to spit
vituperation at him.

And he waited with singular patience until she had to stop for want of
breath. Then he shrugged and said heavily:

"Still, I don't see what else you propose to do, my old one."

Apparently his old one was as poor in expedient as he. "It is for nothing,"
she said, acidly, "that one looks to you!"

"I have said my say. If you have anything better to suggest...." He made a
rhetorical pause for reply, but Mama Therese was well blown and sulky for
the moment. "I am not old, not so old as you, and I have reason to believe
the girl is not indifferent to my person."

"Drooling old pig," Mama Therese observed with reason: "if you dream she
would trouble to look twice at you--!"

"That remains to be seen. And I, for one, fail to see how else we are to
hold her. All this money that has been coming in, paid on the dot every
quarter--that means there is more, much more to come to her. Are you ready
to give it up?"

"Never!" Mama Therese thumped the table vehemently. "It is mine by rights,
I have earned it. Look at the way I have slaved for her, the tender care I
have lavished upon her, ever since she was a little one in my arms."

"By all means," Papa Dupont agreed, "look at it, but don't talk about it to
her. She might not und