Susan grew pale and trembled. She had never seen her Joe so moved to fury, not even when he had been "downed" by the pseudo Major Archibald Fraser. She faltered out: "Joe, dear, James is much bigger than you." To this Quinney replied ironically: "After all these years o’ church goin’ I thought you believed that Right was stronger than Might. Has it all soaked in? Did you mark that word ’dull’ applied to my business? Do you know what the contents o’ this room would fetch at Christopher’s, if the right men were biddin’?" "Indeed, indeed, I don’t." "Nobody knows what my collection would fetch. The Quinney Collection! S’pose I leave everything to the nation—hey?" Susan sat bowed and silent before the storm. *IV* Quinney did not look at her. Her attitude, her troubled face were sufficient alone to acquit her of any possible complicity in this abominable affair. The more he considered it as a tremendous fact in their lives, the more incredible, the more irrational it became to him. His Posy, the Wonder Child, the gem of the Quinney Collection, writing love-letters to an obscure faker of furniture, a "downy" cove, a rather sullen hireling, who earned four quid a week! Had his child been born and educated "regardless" for—this? Had Susan and he suffered pangs unforgettable in order that their child should forsake them for this maggot of a Miggott? Never! Slowly, his fighting instinct asserted itself. Catastrophe of any kind overwhelmed him at first, and then his vitality, his recuperative qualities, would come to the rescue. He must fight this issue to the end. His dull anger and rancour passed. His active wits began to work. He felt oddly sensible of a certain exhilaration, the conviction that he would soar, like the Melchester spire, above these ignominies and disasters. He stood up, inhaling deep breaths, smiling grimly. "What are you going to do, Joe?" "Watch on, and see." He replaced the billet in its envelope, which had been left open. Then he crossed to the cabinet, and put the letter into the drawer where he had found it. He closed the doors of the cabinet, and came back to his desk. About all these actions there was an automatic precision, as if the man had been transformed into a machine. Susan murmured: "Joe, you frighten me." "Wouldn’t do that for the world, Susie." His voice was slightly less hard. "I’m going to frighten them. See?" "How?" "I’m going to catch ’em together in this room to-night." "Gracious!" "And you’ve got to stand shoulder to shoulder with me, behind that screen. At the right moment, when least expected, we’ll pop out." "And what will you say?" "Ho! What will I say? Between now and then, my dear, I shall think over what I’m going to say. Words won’t fail me. I shall down the pair of them, rub their noses in their insolence and folly." "Oh, dear!" exclaimed Susan. *CHAPTER XIX*