He, or somebody else!
Suddenly he threw away the faded wood-blossoms, sprang up from the tree, and paced to and fro. A wave of revolt came sweeping through and through him. Was he not making mountains out of mole-hills?
If he could trample down all this sentimental fiddle-de-dee, what was the plain English of the case so far as she was concerned? Unbidden, innumerable circumstances stored from local knowledge offered themselves as guides for argument. Take any girl of that class--well, what are her chances? Why, you are lucky if you keep 'em straight until the time comes to send 'em out into domestic service; their parents scarcely expect it, barely seem to desire it. But after that time, when they get among strangers and there's nobody with an eye on them, they fall as victims--if you choose to call it so--to the first marauder--to the young master, the nephew home for his Christmas holidays, or the man who comes to tune the piano. If not himself, it would be somebody else.
And he thought. "Blast it all, am I a man or a mouse? Who's to judge me, or stan' in my way, if I do what I please? Suppose it's found out, well, it must be smoothed over, covered up, and put behind the fireplace. I shan't be Number One that's bin th' same road!" and he remembered how lightly other married men, his neighbors, country farmers, or town tradesmen, amused themselves with their servants, and how their middle-aged wives just had to grin and bear it. "An' Mavis," he thought, "can do the same. Heavens an' earth, I've got an answer ready if she tries to make a fuss, or wants to take the dinner-bell and go round as public crier--an answer that ought to flatten her as if a traction engine had bin over her. 'My lass, who began it? Bring out your slate and put it alongside mine, an' we'll see which looks dirtiest, all said and done.'" While he was thinking in this manner, his face became very ugly, with hard deep lines in it, and about the mouth that cruel pouting expression once seen by Mavis.
He came back to the tree; and sat down, letting his hands hang loose, his head droop, and his shoulders contract. The fire had gone cold again.
Now he felt only disgust and horror. Norah's ignorance and disregard of moral precepts, or readiness to yield to the snares of unlicensed joy, were summed up in the better and truer word innocence. The greater her weakness, the greater his wickedness. If he could not save her from others, he could save her from himself. Then if she fell, it would at least be a natural fall. It would not be a foul betrayal of youth by age; it would not be the sort of degraded crime that makes angels weep, and ordinary people change into judges and executioners.