"I cannot see that I have done her any injury at all; and I really do not know how I can repair it," said the girl, with a cold stateliness which ought to have warned Sir Philip that he was in danger of offending. But Philip was rash and warm-hearted, and he had taken up Janetta's cause.
"Your best way of repairing it," he said, earnestly, "would be to call on Miss Morrison yourself and explain the matter to her, as Miss Colwyn cannot possibly do—unless she is a very different person from the one I take her for. And if that did not avail, go to Miss Polehampton and persuade her to write a letter——"
He stopped somewhat abruptly. The look of profound astonishment on Margaret's face recalled him to a sense of limitations. "Margaret!" he said, pleadingly, "won't you be generous? You can afford to do this thing for your friend!"
"Go to Miss Morrison and explain! Persuade Miss Polehampton!—after the way she treated us! But really it is too ridiculous, Sir Philip. You do not know my friend, Miss Colwyn. She would be the last person to wish me to humiliate myself to Miss Polehampton!"
"I do not see that what she wishes has much to do with it," said Sir Philip, very stiffly. "Miss Colwyn is suffering under an injustice. I ask you to repair that injustice. I really do not see how you can refuse."
Margaret looked as if she were about to make some mutinous reply; then she compressed her lips and lowered her eyes for a few seconds.
"I will ask mamma what she thinks," she said at last, in her usual even tones.
"Why should you ask her?" said Sir Philip, impetuously. "What consultation is needed, when I simply beg you to be your own true self—that noble, generous self that I am sure you are! Margaret, don't disappoint me!"
"I didn't know," said the girl, with proud deliberateness, "that you had any special interest in the matter, Sir Philip."
"I have this interest—that I love you with all my heart, Margaret, and hope that you will let me call you my wife one day. It is this love, this hope, which makes me long to think of you as perfect—always noble and self-sacrificing and just! Margaret, you will not forbid me to hope?"