eyes.
Essentially, it was this urge to justify himself which now moved him, as he stood before Brodie, saying:
'I came in like this, Mr. Brodie, because I thought you mightn't agree to see me otherwise. I’m Denis Foyle of Darroch.'
Brodie was astounded at the unexpectedness of this entry and at the audacity it betokened, but he made no sign. Instead he settled himself more deeply in his chair; his head seemed to sink right into the magnitude of his shoulders, like a rock sunk on the summit of a hill. 'Son of the pub keeper?' he sneered.
'Exactly,' replied Denis politely.
'Well, Mister Denis Foyle' he emphasised the mister ironically 'what do you want here?' He began to hope to goad Foyle into an assault, so that he might have the pleasure of thrashing him.
Denis looked straight at Brodie and, disregarding the other's manner, proceeded according to his plan.
'You may be surprised at my visit, but I felt I must come to you, Mr. Brodie. I have not seen your daughter, Miss Mary Brodie, for over three months. She has consistently avoided me. I wish to tell you frankly that I have an attachment for your daughter and have come to ask your permission to allow me to see her.'
Brodie gazed upwards at the young man with a heavy masklike face which showed nothing of the tide of rising amazed anger he felt at the other's demand. After a moment's lowering stare at Foyle he said, slowly, 'I am glad to hear from your own lips I have been obeyed! My daughter has refused to see you because I forbade her to look at ye! Do you hear me? I forbade her, and now that I've seen
what ye are I still forbid her.'
'Why, Mr. Brodie, may I ask?'
'Must I explain my actions to you? The fact that I order it is enough for my daughter. I do not explain to her; I command.'
'Mr. Brodie, I should be glad to know your objection to me. I should do my best to meet you in any way you desired.' With all his power Foyle tried to propitiate the other. 'I'm very anxious to please you! Let me know what to do and I'll do it.'
Brodie leered at him:
'I want ve to take your smooth face out o’ my office and never show it in Levenford again; and the quicker ye do't the better yell please me.'
With a deprecating smile Foyle replied:
'Then it's only my face you object to, Mr. Brodie.' He felt he must win the other around somehow!
Brodie was beginning to become enraged; the fact that he could not beat down this young sprig's eyes, nor yet provoke him to temper, annoyed him. With an effort he controlled himself and said sneeringly:
'I'm not in the habit of exchanging confidences with your kind, but as I have a moment to spare, I will tell you what I object to. Mary Brodie is a lady; she has blood in her veins of which a duchess might be proud, and she is my daughter. You are a low-down Irish scum, a nothing out of nothing. Your father sells cheap drink and I've no doubt your forbears ate potato peelings out o' the pot.' Denis still met his eyes unflinchingly, although the insults quivered inside him.
Desperately he forced himself to be calm. 'The fact that I am Irish surely does not condemn me,' he replied in a level voice. 'I don't drink not a drop. In fact, I'm in a totally different line of business, one which I feel will one day bring a great return.'
'I've heard about your business, my pretty tatie-picker. Long trips over the countryside, then back to loaf about for days. I know your kind. If ye think that you can make money by hawkin' tea around Scotland then you're stupid, and if ye think ye can make up for your rotten family by takin' up a trashy job like that, then you're mad.'
'I wish you would let me explain to you, Mr. Brodie.'
Brodie contemplated him savagely.
'Explain to me! You talk like that to me, you damned commercial traveller. Do you know who you're speakin' to? Look!' he roared, flourishing the paper and thrusting it in front of the other. 'See this, if you can read! These are the people I associate with ' He inflated his chest and shouted, 'I would as soon think of letting my daughter consort with you as I would let her mix with swine.'
With a considerable effort Foyle controlled his temper.
'Mr. Brodie,' he pleaded. 'I wish you would listen to me. Surely you must admit that a man is what he makes himself that he himself controls his own destiny, irrespective of what his parents may be. I am not ashamed of my ancestry, but if that it what you object to, surely it does not damn me.'
Brodie looked at the other frowningly.
'Ye dare to talk that damned new-fangled socialism to me!' he roared angrily. 'One man is as good as another, I suppose! What are we comin' to next. You fool! I'll have none of ye. Get out!'
Denis did not move. He saw clearly that this man was not amenable to reason; that he might batter his head against a stone wall with more avail; he saw that, with such a father, Mary's life must be a procession of terrifying catastrophes. But, because of her, he determined to maintain his control, and, quite quietly, he said, 'I am sorry for you, Mr. Brodie. You belong to an age that is passing; you do not understand progress. And you don't understand what it is to make friends; you must only make enemies. It is not I who am mad!'
Brodie got up, lowering, his rage like that of an angry bull. 'Will you get out, you young swine?' he said thickly, 'or will I smash you?' He advanced towards the other heavily. In a second Denis could have been out of the office, but a hidden antagonism had been aroused in him by Brodie's insults and, although he knew he ought to go for Mary's sake, nevertheless he remained. Confident that he
could take care of himself, he was not afraid of the other's lumbering strength and he realised, too, that if he went now, Brodie would think lie had driven him out like a beaten dog. In a voice suffused by resentment he exclaimed:
'Don't touch me! I've suffered your insults, but don't go any further!'
At these words Brodie's anger swelled within him until it almost choked him.
'Will I not, though,' he cried, his breath coming in quick noisy gusts. 'I've got ye like a rat in a trap and I'll smash ye like a rat.'
With a heavy ferocious stealth he advanced slowly towards the other, carefully manoeuvred his towering bulk near to him; then, when he was within a yard of Denis, so near that he knew it was impossible for him to escape, his lips drew back balef ully upon his gums, and suddenly he raised his mammoth fist and hurled it with crushing force full at young Foyle's head. A sharp, hard, brittle crack split the air. There had been no head for him to hit; quicker than a lightning flash, Foyle had slipped to one side and Brodie's hand struck the
stone wall with all the power of a sledge hammer. His right arm dropped inertly to his side; his wrist was broken. Denis, looking at him with his hand on the door knob, said quietly:
'I'm sorry, Mr. Brodie. You see that after all there are some things you do not understand. I warned you not to try anything like that.'
Then he was gone, and not a moment too soon. The heavy, mahogany, revolving chair, thrown across the room by Brodie's left arm like a shot from a catapult, crashed against the light door and shivered the glass and framework to atoms.
Brodie stood, with heaving nostrils and dangling arm, staring stupidly at the wreckage. He felt conscious of no pain in his injured arm, only an inability to move it, but his swelling breast was like to burst with defeated fury. The fact that this young pup above every one had bearded him, and gotten away with it, made him writhe with wounded pride; the physical hurt was nothing, but the damage to his pride was deadly.
The fingers of his left hand clenched convulsively. Another minute, he was certain, he would have cornered and broken him. But to have been outdone without so much as a blow having been struck against him! Only a faint remnant of self-control and a glimmering of sense prevented him from running blindly into the street after Foyle, in an effort to overtake and crush him. It was the first time in his life that any one had dared to get the upper hand of him, and he ground his teeth to think that he had been outfaced and outwitted by the effron-
tery of such a low-born upstart.
'By God!' he shouted to the empty room, 'I'll make him pay for it.'
Then he looked down at his useless hand and forearm which had already become blue and swollen. He realised that he must have the condition seen to and also that he must invent some story to explain it some balderdash about having slipped on the stairs, he thought. Sullenly he went out of the shop, banged shut the front door, locked
