"I'm not denying it," the other answered sulkily.
"So it's mighty little use your wishing me away!" The McMurrough continued, stretching himself at his ease. "You can't get her without me; nor at all, at all, but on my terms! It would be a fine thing for you, no doubt, if you could sneak round her behind my back! Don't I know you'd be all for old Sir Michael's will then, and I might die in a gutter, for you! But an egg, and an egg's fair sharing."
"Have I said it was any other?" Asgill asked gloomily.
"The old place is mine, and I'm minded to keep it."
"And if any other marries her," Asgill said quietly, "he will want her rights."
"Well, and do you think," the younger man answered in his ugliest manner, "that if it weren't for that small fact, Mister Asgill——"
"And the small fact," Asgill struck in, "that before your grandfather died I lent you a clear five hundred, and I'm to take that, that's my own already, in quittance of all!"
"Well, and wasn't it that same I'm saying?" The McMurrough retorted. "If it weren't for that, and the bargain we've struck, d'you think that I'd be letting my sister and a McMurrough look at the likes of you? No, not in as many Midsummer Days as are between this and world without end!"
The look Asgill shot at him would have made a wiser man tremble. But The McMurrough knew the strength of his position.
"And if I were to tell her?" Asgill said slowly.