“Ill? Why, Hope, whom I met the other day, said that she was feeling very well and very happy.”
“So Hope thinks, because he has forced her into an engagement.”
Random started to his feet.
“Forced her? Nonsense!”
“It isn't nonsense, and don't dare to speak like that to me, sir. I repeat that Lucy—poor child—is breaking her heart for you.”
The young man stared and then broke into a hearty laugh.
“Pardon me, sir, but that is impossible.”
“It isn't, confound you!” said Braddock, who did not like being laughed at. “I know women.”
“You don't know your daughter.”
“Step-daughter, you mean.”
“Ah, perhaps the more distant relationship accounts for your ignorance of her character,” said Random dryly. “You are quite wrong. I was in love with Miss Kendal, and asked her to be my wife before I went on leave. She refused me, saying that she loved Hope, and because of her refusal I took my broken heart to Monte Carlo, where I lost much more money than I had any right to lose.”
“Your broken heart seems to have mended quickly,” said Braddock, who was trying to suppress his wrath at this instance of Lucy's duplicity, for so he considered it.
“Oh, pooh, it's only my way of speaking,” laughed the young man. “If my heart had been really broken I should not have mentioned the fact.”