"I've done it, Blanche," he said defiantly.
"Done what?"
"Beaten him. I knew I should some day."
His wife gave quite a sharp little cry. "Oh, George! and I trusted you. I trusted you so entirely, because you knew it was wrong. And now it can never be undone--never! You have ruined everything--all the confidence, and the love--Oh! George, how could you?"
The man's face was a study, but it was one which few women could understand, for there is something in a righteous disregard of weakness which seems brutal to most of them; for to them justice, like everything else, is an emotion.
"The little beggar bit me," he began, rather sheepishly, and then suddenly he laughed. "He was awfully quiet, you know, and I thought he was really getting hungry; so I went in, and by Jove! Blanche, he had eaten nearly a whole dog biscuit! Paul keeps them there, you know, for the puppy. Well, I felt he had me on the hip as it were, and if it hadn't been for your face, I'd have given in--like a fool. So I sate down and talked to him--like--like a father. And then he suddenly slipped off my knee like an eel, and bit me on the calf. Got tired, I suppose, and upon my soul, I don't wonder--we had been at it for hours, remember. And then--I don't think I lost my temper, Blanche--I don't, indeed; but it seemed to come home to me that it was he or I--a sort of good fight, you know. So I told him that I wasn't going to be bothered by him any more. He had had his fun, and must pay for it, as he would have to do till the day of his death. And then I gave him a regular spanking--yes! I did--and he deserved it."
There was the oddest mixture of remorse, defiance, pain, and pride in her husband's honest face, but Lady George could see nothing, think of nothing, save the overthrow of her system, her belief.
"I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourself!" she cried, quite passionately. "It isn't as if he could reason about it as you can--it isn't as if he understood--it is brute force to him, nothing more----"
"That's just it, you see," protested the culprit, feebly, "if he could reason."
"And now the memory must be between you two always, and it isn't as it used to be in the old barbarous days. Parents nowadays care for something more than the old tyranny. We have a respect for our children as for human beings like ourselves. And now you will never be--or at least you ought never to be able to look him in the face again! Just think what it means, George!" Blanche, as she stood there with disclaiming hands and eloquent voice, felt herself no mean exponent of the new order of things, and rose to the occasion. "If he had been a man, you dared not have beaten him, so it was mean, brutal, unworthy. How can you expect the child to forget it? Would you, if you were in his place? No! He will never forget it, and the memory must come between you----"