I want you should speak out
plain. What you really mean I'm to do?"
For a moment the iron-willed old man hesitated; he remembered young
Peter, eager, hopeful, crystal-clear young Peter, back there in
South Carolina. He looked challengingly and fiercely at the girl, as
if his bold will meant to seize upon her as upon a piece of clay and
mold it to his desire. Then, "I mean you're to marry," he said
crisply.
"Me? Who to? You?" asked Nancy, blankly.
"_Me_!" gasped Mr. Champneys. "Are you demented?"
"Well, then, who?" she asked, not unnaturally. "And why?"
"The other heir. My nephew. Peter Champneys. Because such is my will
and intention," said he, peremptorily and haughtily, bending his
eagle-look upon her.
"What sort of a feller is he? He ain't got nothin' the matter with
him, has he?"
A wild desire to slap Milly's niece came upon Chadwick Champneys at
that.
"He is my nephew!" he said haughtily. "Why on earth should he have
anything the matter with him?"
It occurred to him then that it mightn't be such an easy matter to
get a high-spirited young fellow, with ideals, to take on trust this
young female person with the red hair.
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