A Good Fight.
BY CHARLES READE.
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CHAPTER XIII.
When a man misbehaves, the effect is curious on a girl who loves him sincerely. It makes her pity him. This, to some of us males, seems anything but logical. The fault is in our own eye, the logic is too swift for us. The girl argues thus:—“How unhappy, how vexed, poor * * * must be; him to misbehave!”
Margaret was full of this sweet womanly pity, when, to her great surprise, scarce an hour and a half after he left her, Gerard came running back to her with the fragments of a picture in his hand, and panting with anger and grief.
“There, Margaret! see! see! the wretches! Look at their spite! They have cut your portrait to pieces.”
Margaret looked. And, sure enough, some malicious hand had cut her portrait into five pieces. She was a good girl, but she was not ice; she turned red to her very forehead.
“Who did it?”
“Nay, I know not. I dared not ask; for I should hate the hand that did it, ay, till my dying day. My poor Margaret! The beasts! the ruffians! Six months’ work cut out of my life, and nothing to show for it now. See, they have hacked through your very face—the sweet face that everyone loves who knows it. O, heartless, merciless vipers!”
“Never mind, Gerard,” said Margaret, panting. “Since this is how they treat you for my sake—you rob him of my portrait, do you! Well, then I give him the original.”
“O, Margaret!”
“Yes, Gerard; since they are so cruel, I will be the kinder: forgive me for refusing you. I will be your wife—to-morrow, if it is your pleasure.”
CHAPTER XIV.
