'Your way of speaking shocks me. It is blasphemous. I cannot help
it, if that is my first feeling. It might not be so, I dare say,
if I understood the kind of feeling you describe. I do not want
to vex you; and besides, we must speak gently, for mamma is
asleep; but your whole manner offends me--' 'How!' exclaimed he. 'Offends you! I am indeed most unfortunate.' 'Yes!' said she, with recovered dignity. 'I do feel offended;
and, I think, justly. You seem to fancy that my conduct of
yesterday'--again the deep carnation blush, but this time with
eyes kindling with indignation rather than shame--'was a personal
act between you and me; and that you may come and thank me for
it, instead of perceiving, as a gentleman would--yes! a
gentleman,' she repeated, in allusion to their former
conversation about that word, 'that any woman, worthy of the name
of woman, would come forward to shield, with her reverenced
helplessness, a man in danger from the violence of numbers.' 'And the gentleman thus rescued is forbidden the relief of
thanks!' he broke in contemptuously. 'I am a man. I claim the
right of expressing my feelings.' 'And I yielded to the right; simply saying that you gave me pain
by insisting upon it,' she replied, proudly. 'But you seem to
have imagined, that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct,
but'--and here the passionate tears (kept down for
long--struggled with vehemently) came up into her eyes, and
choked her voice--'but that I was prompted by some particular
feeling for you--you! Why, there was not a man--not a poor
desperate man in all that crowd--for whom I had not more
sympathy--for whom I should not have done what little I could
more heartily.' 'You may speak on, Miss Hale. I am aware of all these misplaced
sympathies of yours. I now believe that it was only your innate
sense of oppression--(yes; I, though a master, may be
oppressed)--that made you act so nobly as you did. I know you
despise me; allow me to say, it is because you do not understand
me.' 'I do not care to understand,' she replied, taking hold of the
table to steady herself; for she thought him cruel--as, indeed,
he was--and she was weak with her indignation.
'No, I see you do not. You are unfair and unjust.' Margaret compressed her lips. She would not speak in answer to
such accusations. But, for all that--for all his savage words, he
could have thrown himself at her feet, and kissed the hem of her
wounded pride fell hot and fast. He waited awhile, longing for
garment. She did not speak; she did not move. The tears of her to
say something, even a taunt, to which he might reply. But she was
silent. He took up his hat.