"You have made the difficulties for her," said Dick.
"Well; I paved the way perhaps. That was only justice. Did she think that she was going to hit me and that she wasn't to be hit in return?"
"A woman," growled Dick.
"Women are human beings the same as men, and when they make themselves beasts have got to be punished. You can't horsewhip a woman; but if you look at it all round I don't see that she ought to get off so much better than a man. She is a human creature and ought to be made to feel as a man feels."
But this did not suit Dick's morality or his sense of chivalry. According to his thinking a woman in such matters ought to be allowed to do as she pleased, and the punishment, if punishment there is to be, must come from the outside. "I shouldn't like to have done it; that's all."
"You've always treated women well; haven't you?"
"I don't say that. I don't know that I've ever treated anybody particularly well. But I never set my wits to work to take my revenge on a woman."
"Look here, old fellow," said Sir Francis. "You had better contrive to make yourself less disagreeable or else you and I must part. If you think that I am going to be lectured by you, you're mistaken."
"You ask me, and how can I help answering you? It was a shabby trick. And now you may bluster as much as you please." Then the two sat together, smoking in silence for five minutes. It was after breakfast on a rainy day, such as always made Dick Ross miserable for the time. He had to think of creditors whom he could not pay, and of his future life which did not lie easily open before him, and of all the years which he had misused. Circumstances had lately thrown him much into the power of this man whom he heartily disliked and despised, but at whose hands he had been willing to accept many of the luxuries of his life. But still he resolved not to be put down in the expression of his opinions, although he might in truth be turned off at a moment's notice. "You are corresponding with that old woman now?"
"What do you know about my correspondence?"