Nessie, relieved to be removed from the centre of attention, exclaimed unthinkingly:

"Oh! Mary, was it Denis Foyle?"

Mary sat motionless, her glance fixed upon her plate, a curious pallor around her lips; then, as a lump rose in her throat, she swallowed hard, and an unconscious force drove her to say in a low firm voice:

"He's not a worthless scamp."

"What!" roared Brodie. "You're speaking back to your own father next and for a low-down Irish blackguard! A blackthorn boy! No! Let these paddies come over from their bogs to dig our potatoes for us but let it end at that. Don't let them get uppish. Old Foyle may be the smartest publican in Darroch, but that doesn't make his son a gentleman."

Mary felt her limbs shake even as she sat. Her lips were stiff and dry, nevertheless she felt compelled to say, although she had never before dared argue with her father:

"Denis has got his own business, Father. He won't have anything to do with the spirit trade. He's with Findlay and Company of Glasgow. They're big tea importers and have nothing at all to do with with the other business."

"Indeed, now," he sneered at her, leading her on. "That's grand news. Have ye anything more ye would like to say to testify to the noble character of the gentleman. He doesna sell whisky now. It's tea apparently. Whatna godly occupation for the son of a publican! Well, what next?"

She knew that he was taunting her, yet was constrained to say, appeasingly:

"He's not just an ordinary clerk, Father. He's well thought of by the firm. He goes around the country on business for them every now and then. He he hoped he might get on might even buy a partnership later."

"Ye don't say," he snarled at her. "Is that the sort of nonsense he's been filling up your silly head wi' not an ordinary clerk just a common commercial traveller is that it? Has he not told ye he'll be Lord Mayor o' London next? It's j ust about as likely! The young pup!"