"Well," said he, "if we're going to take inventories—have you a soul?"
Osmond shook his head again.
"I don't know," he answered.
"Well, then, what's the use of slanging me? If you're in the same box yourself—Come, who has one? has anybody?"
Osmond thought then of Rose, and of the fire of the spirit playing over her, that brightness he could neither classify nor define. Yet he must believe in it.
"Yes," he said. "I have seen it."
"You have? And you think I'm exempt. Why?"
Osmond was not getting anywhere. MacLeod and his own ineptitude of speech seemed to be forcing him into the solicitous fright of the mother, bent on shielding her child from the wolf.
"You are too powerful," he said, and realized that he was using the evidence Rose had given him, thought for thought.
"I hope so. I ought to be. I've got to overturn power."