"Why did I do it? 'Pon my soul,
Mary, I simply don't understand you sometimes. You've made me stand by
and see you insulted for a month, and then I see him catch hold of
you, and you run, and I go and thrash him, and you say, 'Why did you
do it?' _Do_ it? _Do_ it? Why, good Lord, what would you have had me
do--apologise for you?"
She turned away, dropped his hand.
My unfortunate George groaned aloud: sprang to her. "Mary, darling,
dearest, you know I didn't mean that."
She kept her face from him; her pretty shoulders heaved.
He cried in misery, striving to see her face: "What a brute I am! What
a brute! Mary, Mary, you know I didn't mean that."
She gasped: "You ge-get angry so quick."
"I know, I know. I'm not fit--I couldn't help--Mary, do look up."
She swallowed a sob; gave him her little hand.
He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and
the tremendous passion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp
words to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her
reception of his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly
suffered.
There are conditions of the male mind--and this George was in the very
heart of one--when softness in a woman positively goads to fury. The
mind is in an itching fever, and--like a bull against a gate-post--
requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease the
irritation.
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