I'd have told him to go to the devil

"There's a measure of truth in it. But, Ban, you can't use Mr. Marrineal's own paper to expose conditions in Mr. Marrineal's mother's mills. If he'd even directed you to hold off--" "That's his infernal cleverness. I'd have told him to go to the devil." "And resigned?" "Of course." "You can resign now," she pointed out. "But I think you'd be foolish. You can do such big things. You _are_ doing such big things with The Patriot. Cousin Billy Enderby says that if Laird is elected it will be your doing. Where else could you find such opportunity?" "Tell me this, Io," he said, after a moment of heavy-browed brooding very unlike his usual blithe certainty of bearing. "Suppose that lumber property were my own, and this thing had broken out." "Oh, I'd say to print it, every word," she answered promptly. "Or"--she spoke very slowly and with a tremor of color flickering in her cheeks--"if it were mine, I'd tell you to print it." He looked up with a transfigured face. His hand fell on hers, in the covert of the little shelter of plants behind which they sat. "Do you realize what that implies?" he questioned. "Perfectly," she answered in her clear undertone. He bent over to her hand, which turned, soft palm up, to meet his lips. She whispered a warning and he raised his head quickly. Ely Ives had passed near by. "Marrineal's familiar," said Banneker. "I wonder how he got here. Certainly I didn't ask him.... Very well, Io. I'll compromise. But ... I don't think I'll put that quotation from the Areopagitica at the head of my column. That will have to wait. Perhaps it will have to wait until I--we get a paper of our own." "Poor Ban!" whispered Io.