"Oh, you won't? Well, I'd like to know how you're going to stop me. I'm tired slaving behind a counter for a dog's wages--and that eaten up by fines because I won't go out with the floor-walkers. I'm going to do the best I can for myself. I'm going to be an actress, so's I can make a decent living for Edna and ma and myself." "A decent living!" Thursby mocked without mirth. "You're old enough to know better than that." "I'm old enough to know which side my bread's buttered on," the girl flashed back angrily. "I'm through living in this dirty flat and giving up every dollar I make to keep us all from starving. God knows what we'd do if it wasn't for me with a steady job, and Edna working during the season. You don't do anything to help us out: all _you_ get goes on the ponies. I don't see any reason why I got to consult you if I choose to better myself." She rose the better to end her tirade with a stamp of her foot. Thursby likewise got up, if more sluggishly, and moved round the table to confront her. "You don't go on the stage--no!" he said. "That's settled. Understand?" "Oh, I get you," she replied, with a flirt of her head, "but I don't agree with you. I'm going down town first thing tomorrow to try for a job with--with," she hesitated, "Ziegfield's Follies!" "You will do nothing of the sort," he insisted fiercely, congested veins starting out upon his forehead. "You're my daughter, and those are my orders to you, and you'll obey 'em or I'll know the reason why. You...." He faltered as if choking. Then he flung out an arm, with a violent gesture indicating the shrinking woman in the doorway. "You--your mother was an actress when I married her and took her off the stage. She--she--" "Don't you dare say a word against my mother!" Joan screamed passionately into his louring face. "Don't you dare! You hear me: don't you dare!" Her infuriated accents were echoed by a smothered gasp and a spasm of sobbing from the other room. Momentarily abashed by the sheer force of this defiance, the father fell back a pace. An expression of almost ludicrous disconcertion shadowed his discoloured features. Then slowly, as if thoughtfully, he lifted one hand and deliberately tore his collar from its fastening and cast it from him. At this, hastily jerking his cigarette into the air-shaft, Butch got up, removed his hat and carefully placed it on the mantel, out of harm's way. "You," said Thursby with apparent difficulty, breathing heavily between his words--"you shan't use that tone to me, young woman, and live in this house. More than that, you'll leave it this very night--now!--unless you promise to give up this fool's notion of the stage." "Tonight!" Joan paled; her lips tightened; but the glint in her eyes wasn't one of fright. "Tonight!" her father reiterated with malicious pleasure in what he thought to be evidences of consternation. "And what's more, you're going to apologize to me now."