"You are a very kind little girl. I can depend on you to consider my feelings."
The accent, ever so slight, upon the "you" aroused Rose's attention.
"Why, you are not going?" she exclaimed, coming towards him.
"Such is my charitable intention," he replied, smiling with sad eyes.
"I was only waiting for you to finish your game before bringing Mr.
Galton to the fire to talk politics with you."
"That is a warm topic, and a warm place."
"Perhaps Mr. Dunlop fears that we shall quarrel on the subject. You know we are on different sides, Miss Macleod."
"We shall hardly come to blows, I think," returned Allan, with the look of bright good-fellowship which made him a favourite with both political parties.
"The idea of your quarrelling with anybody!" said Rose, as she accompanied him to the door.
"I may have a very serious disagreement with him some time," replied her jealous though unacknowledged lover, "but it will not be about politics."
He ran hastily down the steps, unconsciously brushing against Commodore Macleod, who favoured him with a bow of about the same temperature as the weather. Muttering a hurried excuse, he went on into the cold gloom of the early winter twilight, shivering slightly, not from the chill without, but from the deadlier chill within. 'What a pompous unbearable old fellow the elder Macleod was. How could he endure to have him for a father-in-law? Ah! how could he endure not to have him?' The fear that he might never stand in a closer relationship to a man for whom he had so little liking lay heavily upon him.