Page:The Portrait of a Lady (London, Macmillan & Co., 1881) Volume 2.djvu/237

 Rosier flattered himself that he spoke rather sternly.

"I don't see what Madame Merle has to do with it. Why did you apply to Madame Merle?"

"I asked her for an opinion—for nothing more. I did so because she had seemed to me to know you very well."

"She doesn't know me so well as she thinks," said Osmond.

"I am sorry for that, because she has given me some little ground for hope."

Osmond stared into the fire for a moment.

"I set a great price on my daughter."

"You can't set a higher one than I do. Don't I prove it by wishing to marry her?"

"I wish to marry her very well," Osmond went on, with a dry impertinence which, in another mood, poor Rosier would have admired.

"Of course I pretend that she would marry well in marrying me. She couldn't marry a man who loves her more; or whom, I may venture to add, she loves more."

"I am not bound to accept your theories as to whom my daughter loves," Osmond said, looking up with a quick, cold smile.

"I am not theorising. Your daughter has spoken."

"Not to me," Osmond continued, bending forward a little and dropping his eyes to his boot-toes.

"I have her promise, sir!" cried Rosier, with the sharpness of exasperation.

As their voices had been pitched very low before, such a note attracted some attention from the company. Osmond waited till this little movement had subsided, then he said very quickly—

"I think she has no recollection of having given it."