She rose, and by an emphatic gesture stopped him, and there was a fire in the blue eyes that had been so cold before. She appeared to have grown inches as she stood before him and said, in tones of concentrated scorn: "You are indeed young, yet you speak the calculating words of one so old as to have lost every impulse of youth. Do you know where my father is at this moment?"
"No," he faltered.
"He is taking part, at the risk of his life, in this temporary hurly-burly, as you caricature it. It is he who is swaying me, and the memory of the brave men whom you have met here and to whom you fancied yourself superior. Did not that honored father exist, or those brave friends, I feel within my soul that I have womanhood enough to recognize and feel my country's need in this supreme hour of her peril. You thoughtful beyond your years?—you think for me? What did you think of me the first evening you spent here? What were your thoughts as you came again and again? To what am I indebted for this honor, but the fact that you could only beguile a summer's ennui by a passing flirtation which would leave me you little cared where, after you had joined your aristocratic friends abroad? Now your plans have changed, and, after much deliberation, you have come to lift me to the highest position! Never dream that I can descend to your position!"
He was fairly trembling with anger and mortification, and she was about to leave the apartment.
"Stay!" he said, passing his hand across his brow as if to brush away confusion of mind; "I have not given you reason for such contempt, and it is most unreasonable."
"Why is it unreasonable?" she asked, her scornful self-control passing into something like passion. "I will speak no more of the insult of your earlier motives towards me, now that you think you can afford to marry me. In your young egotism you may think a girl forgets and forgives such a thing easily if bribed by a fortune. I will let all that be as if it were not, and meet you on the ground of what is, at this present hour. I despise you because you have no more mind or manhood—take it as you will—than to think that this struggle for national life and liberty is a mere passing fracas of politicians. Do you think I will tamely permit you to call my noble father little better than a fool? He has explained to me what this war means—he, of twice your age, and with a mind as large as his manhood and courage. You have assumed to be his superior, also, as well as that of Mr. Lane and Mr. Strahan, who are about to peril life in the 'hurly-burly.' What are your paltry thousands to me? Should I ever love, I will love a MAN; and had I your sex and half your inches, I should this hour be in Virginia, instead of defending those I love and honor against your implied aspersions. Had you your mother's sentiments I should at least respect you, although she has no right to be here enjoying the protection of a government that she would destroy."
He was as pale as she had become flushed, and again he passed his hand over his brow confusedly and almost helplessly. "It is all like a horrid dream," he muttered.
"Mr. Merwyn, you have brought this on yourself," she said, more calmly. "You have sought to wrong me in my own home. Your words and manner have ever been an insult to the cause for which my father may die—O God!" she exclaimed, with a cry of agony—"for which he may now be dead! Go, go," she added, with a strong repellent gesture. "We have nothing in common: you measure everything with the inch-rule of self."
As if pierced to the very soul he sprung forward and seized her hand with almost crushing force, as he cried: "No, I measure everything hereafter by the breadth of your woman's soul. You shall not cast me off in contempt. If you do you are not a woman,—you are a fanatic, worse than my mother;" and he rushed from the house like one distraught.
Panting, trembling, frightened by a volcanic outburst such as she had never dreamed of, Marian sunk on a lounge, sobbing like a child.