A. M. Chisholm

“ She flushed angrily, immediately fixing the responsibility for the leak on Ackerman. “Who told you there was anything between us?”
“Never mind. Is it a fact?”
“Is what a fact?”
“Don't beat about the bush with me. How far has this flirtation of yours gone?”
“Not very far,” she answered calmly. “Mr. Kent has merely asked me to marry him.”
“What!” cried Garwood, “you don't mean to tell me you're engaged?”
“I suppose we are—in a way.”
“This must stop,” said Garwood. “I thought you had more sense. You can't marry him. He is a nobody; he is on the verge of bankruptcy; he is merely after my money.” ”

“ Garwood?”
“I am aware of them, yes.”
“Miss Garwood says that you object to her engagement to me. Will you kindly tell me why?”
“With pleasure. You are not in a position to marry, and you entrapped my daughter into a clandestine engagement, which was not a manly thing to do. In fact, to put it very plainly, you are trying to marry money.”
“To put it just as plainly,” said Joe, flushing, “I don't care about your money at all. I am in a position to marry. The secret engagement I own up to and take the blame for. ”

“ She disliked Ackerman and distrusted him. Also he knew the young man with the real estate pedigree.
“I can't congratulate your father on that particular friend,” Kent observed bluntly, and became thoughtful.
Mr. Ackerman looked after the car and became thoughtful also. Shortly afterward he entered Hugh Garwood's office.
The president of the O. & N. would have been spare and shapely if he had taken ordinary exercise; but being far too busy a man to spend any time on the trifling matter of physical well-being his figure had run to seed. ”