I
mean I have feelings. I must do as they force me--I must, I must. They
would haunt me otherwise," she cried, with vehemence; "they would kill
me!"
"I know what your feelings are: they are superstitions! They are the
feeling that, after all, though I AM a good fellow, I have been
in business; the feeling that your mother's looks are law and your
brother's words are gospel; that you all hang together, and that it's
a part of the everlasting proprieties that they should have a hand in
everything you do. It makes my blood boil. That is cold; you are right.
And what I feel here," and Newman struck his heart and became more
poetical than he knew, "is a glowing fire!"
A spectator less preoccupied than Madame de Cintre's distracted wooer
would have felt sure from the first that her appealing calm of manner
was the result of violent effort, in spite of which the tide of
agitation was rapidly rising. On these last words of Newman's it
overflowed, though at first she spoke low, for fear of her voice
betraying her. "No. I was not right--I am not cold! I believe that if I
am doing what seems so bad, it is not mere weakness and falseness. Mr.
Newman, it's like a religion. I can't tell you--I can't! It's cruel of
you to insist. I don't see why I shouldn't ask you to believe me--and
pity me.
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