“It was for my father’s sake, Philip,” said Maggie, imploringly. “Tom threatens to tell my father, and he couldn’t bear it; I have promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without my brother’s knowledge.”
“It is enough, Maggie. I shall not change; but I wish you to hold yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek for anything but good to what belongs to you.”
“Yes,” said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip’s, “you can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek her good before?”
“I did,—at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for life,—who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her affections on.”
“Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I’ll tell you what is my way. I’ll save her from disobeying and disgracing her father; I’ll save her from throwing herself away on you,—from making herself a laughing-stock,—from being flouted by a man like your father, because she’s not good enough for his son. You know well enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her. I’m not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean. Come away, Maggie.”
He seized Maggie’s right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then hurried away.
Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.
“Don’t suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your own petty aims.”
“Certainly,” said Tom, coolly. “I don’t see that your conduct is better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem’s conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known? Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I’ve succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one else?”
“I don’t want to defend myself,” said Maggie, still with vehemence: “I know I’ve been wrong,—often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be the better for, if you had them. If you were in fault ever, if you had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you have always enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel to me; even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!”