“There’s no ‘but’ about it, sir!”
“Yes, there is,” insisted The O’Mahony, drawing near and tentatively surrendering his hand to the other’s prompt and cordial clasp. “Supposing it all goes as you say—supposing I am The O’Mahony—what are you going to be?”
The young man’s eyes glistened and a happy change—half-smile, half-blush—blossomed all over his face.
“Well,” he said, still holding the other’s hand in his, “I don’t know just how to tell you—because I am not posted on the exact relationships; but I’ll put it this way: If it was your daughter that you ’d left on the vessel there with O’Daly, I’d say that what I propose to be was your son-in-law. See?”
It was only too clear that The O’Mahony did see. He had frowned at the first adumbration of the idea. He pulled his hand away now, and pushed the young man from him.
“No, you don’t!” he cried, angrily. “No, sirree! You can’t make any such bargain as that with me! Why—I’d ’a’ thought you’d ’a’ known me better! Me, going into a deal, with little Katie to be traded off? Why, man, you’re a fool!”
The O’Mahony turned on his heel contemptuously and strode up and down the room, with indignant sniffs at every step. All at once he stopped short.
“Yes,” he said, as if in answer to an argument with himself, “I’ll tell you to get out of this! You can go and do what you like—just whatever you may please—but I’m boss here yet, at all events, and I don’t want anybody around me who could propose that sort of thing. Me make Kate marry you in order to feather my own nest! There’s the door, young man!”
Bernard looked obdurately past the outstretched forefinger into the other’s face.
“Who said anything about your making her marry me?” he demanded. “And who talked about a deal? Why, look here, colonel”—the random title caught the ear of neither speaker nor impatient listener—“look at it this way: They all love you here in Muirisc; they’re just boiling over with joy because they’ve got you here. That sort of thing doesn’t happen so often between landlords and tenants that one can afford to bust it up when it does occur. And I—well—a man would be a brute to have tried to come between you and these people. Well, then, it’s just the same with me and Katie. We love each other—we are glad when we’re together; we’re unhappy when we’re apart. And so I say in this case as I said in the other, a mane between you and these people. Well, then, it’s just the same with me and Katie. We love each other—we are glad when we’re together; we’re unhappy when we’re apart. And so I say in this case as I said in the other, a man would be a brute—”