"This is all beside the mark," says he. "I will engage for her acceptance."
"I think you forget, Mr. Drummond," said I, "that, even in dealing with myself, you have been betrayed into two-three unpalatable expressions. I will have none such employed to the young lady. I am here to speak and think for the two of us; and I give you to understand that I would no more let a wife be forced upon myself than what I would let a husband be forced on the young lady."
He sat and glowered at me like one in doubt and a good deal of temper.
"So that this is to be the way of it," I concluded. "I will marry Miss Drummond, and that blithely, if she is entirely willing. But if there be the least unwillingness, as I have reason to fear--marry her will I never."
"Well, well," said he, "this is a small affair. As soon as she returns I will sound her a bit, and hope to reassure you----"
But I cut in again. "Not a finger of you, Mr. Drummond, or I cry off, and you can seek a husband to your daughter somewhere else," said I. "It is I that am to be the only dealer and the only judge. I shall satisfy myself exactly; and none else shall anyways meddle--you the least of all."
"Upon my word, sir!" he exclaimed, "and who are you to be the judge?"
"This is to quibble," he cried. "You turn your back upon the facts. The girl, my daughter, has no choice left to exercise. Her character is gone."
"And I ask your pardon," said I, "but while this matter lies between her and you and me, that is not so."
"What security have I?" he cried. "Am I to let my daughter's reputation depend upon a chance?"
"You should have thought of all this long ago," said I, "before you were so misguided as to lose her; and not afterwards, when it is quite too late. I refuse to regard myself as any way accountable for your neglect, and I will be brow-beat by no man living. My mind is quite made up, and, come what may, I will not depart from it a hair's-breadth. You and me are to sit here in company till her return; upon which, without either word or look from you, she and I are to go forth again to hold our talk. If she can satisfy me that she is willing to this step, I will then make it; and if she cannot, I will not."
He leaped out of his seat like a man stung. "I can spy your manoeuvre," he cried; "you would work upon her to refuse!"