Comstock. "This time yesterday you
were engaged to another woman, no doubt. Now, for some little flare-up
you come racing here to use Elnora as a tool to spite the other girl.
A week of sane living, and you will be sorry and ready to go back to
Chicago, or, if you really are man enough to be sure of yourself, she
will come to claim you. She has her rights. An engagement of years is a
serious matter, and not broken for a whim. If you don't go, she'll come.
Then, when you patch up your affairs and go sailing away together, where
does my girl come in?"
"I am a lawyer, Mrs. Comstock," said Philip. "It appeals to me as
beneath your ordinary sense of justice to decide a case without hearing
the evidence. It is due me that you hear me first."
"Hear your side!" flashed Mrs. Comstock. "I'd a heap sight rather hear
the girl!"
"I wish to my soul that you had heard and seen her last night, Mrs.
Comstock," said Ammon. "Then, my way would be clear. I never even
thought of coming here to-day. I'll admit I would have come in time, but
not for many months. My father sent me."
"Your father sent you! Why?"
"Father, mother, and Polly were present last night. They, and all
my friends, saw me insulted and disgraced in the worst exhibition of
uncontrolled temper any of us ever witnessed. All of them knew it was
the end. Father liked what I had told him of Elnora, and he advised me
to come here, so I came. If she does not want me, I can leave instantly,
but, oh I hoped she would understand!"
"You people are not splitting wood," called Elnora.
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