“Didn’t want to would be truer, Marty,” answered Mrs. Wayne, with the utmost good temper. “Still, as long as you’re here, what do you want?” Marty Burke didn’t answer at once. He stood looking at Mrs. Wayne under his lowering brows; he had stopped swinging his elbows, and was now very slightly twitching his cane, as an evilly disposed cat will twitch the end of its tail. Mrs. Farron watched him almost breathlessly. She was a little frightened, but the sensation was pleasurable. He was, she knew, the finest specimen of the human animal that she had ever seen. “What do I want?” he said at length in a deep, rich voice, shot here and there with strange nasal tones, and here and there with the remains of a brogue. “Well, I want that you should stop persecuting those poor kids.” “I persecuting them? Don’t be absurd, Marty,” answered Mrs. Wayne. “Persecuting them; what else?” retorted Marty, fiercely. “What else is it? They wanting to get married, and you determined to send the boy up the river.” “I don’t think we’ll go over that again. I have a lady here on business.” “Oh, please don’t mind me,” said Mrs. Farron, settling back, and wriggling her hands contentedly into her muff. She rather expected the frivolous courage of her tone to draw the ire of Burke’s glance upon her, but it did not. “Cruel is what I call it,” he went on. “She wants it, and he wants it, and her family wants it, and only you and the judge that you put up to opposing--” “Her family do not want it. Her brother--” “Her brother agrees with me. I was talking to him yesterday.” “Oh, that’s why he has a black eye, is it?” said Mrs. Wayne. “Black eyes or blue,” said Marty, with a horizontal gesture of his hands, “her brother wants to see her married.” “Well, I don’t,” replied Mrs. Wayne, “at least not to this boy. I will never give my consent to putting a child of her age in the power of a degenerate little drunkard like that.”