"We needn't sit down," he said rapidly, yet with self-possession. He looked taller, even, MacLeod thought with wonder. His dark eyes were full of fire. "I love your daughter," said Osmond, in a full, steady voice. He chose the words the poets had taught him to use simply, and also, perhaps, the novels he had been reading since he had known Rose.
"My dear fellow!" cried MacLeod expansively. And then, remembering the peculiar circumstances of the case, "I'm sorry, devilish sorry for you."
Osmond smiled. He felt capable, if there were no other way of doing it, of wresting the lady's fate from evil chances with his hands. Yet he liked MacLeod to resist. It made the fight more splendid.
"She must not go back with you," he said. "You are not to insist on it. Don't insist. That will save us all trouble."
MacLeod had gathered himself together. He put his hand in his pocket and meditatively brought out his pipe, fingering the case with an absent and lingering interest, as if he felt the call to a lost rite.
"My dear fellow," he said again, "this is too bad. I'm sorry."
"Rose will remain here," said Osmond briefly. "My grandmother will take the kindest care of her."
"But I can't allow it, you know," said the father, still with tolerance. "Rose is due in Paris. We're both due there. It's very good of you, very hospitable and all that,—but you mustn't carry this Lochinvar business too far. It's too rapid a world, you know. I'm too busy, my dear fellow. That's the truth."
Osmond stood gazing at him reflectively, not in doubt or hesitation, but because he liked the look of so big an animal, and considering that it would be charming to see the creature yield. Osmond had not sharpened his weapons or even decided what they were. He only knew MacLeod must bend, and that there was in himself a big, even an invincible force to make him.
"Rose is not going," he said quietly.