Mrs. Wyner did not observe that look. She had felt Marmaduke's eyes were upon her, and affecting not to know it, threw an extra expression of sensibility into her face.
When Cecil fairly caught a sight of Violet's face, he saw on it the last faint traces of that contempt which she had expressed for her mother, but which he attributed to her unfeminine delight in field-sports, and her contempt for his sensibility.
He was glad when luncheon was concluded, and the party rose to ramble about the grounds. As they were walking through the garden, he managed to bring up the subject, and frankly asked her if she did not feel something like disdain at his chicken-heartedness.
"Disdain!" she exclaimed, "how could you imagine it? Knowing you to be so little effeminate that it could not spring but from a kind and affectionate nature, I assure you I look upon it as the very best feather you have stuck in your cap—at least in my presence. I have only contempt for the affectation of sensibility."
"It was what your father said——"
"My poor father understands me about as little as he understands mama. Less he could not. Fond as I am of hunting and everything like exercise in the open air, I have seen too much of the mere Nimrods not to value them at their just ratio. Good in the field: detestable everywhere else."
"I'm delighted to hear you say it."
"I must confess to prizing manliness so high, that I prefer even brutality to cowardice. There is nothing to me so contemptible in a man or woman as moral weakness, and therefore I prefer even the outrages of strength to the questionable virtues of a weak, yielding, coddling mind."
"What do you mean by the questionable virtues of such a mind?" he asked.
"They are questionable, because not stable: the ground from which they spring being treacherous. A man who is weak will yield to good arguments; but he will also yield to bad arguments; and he will, moreover, yield against his conviction. A man who is timid will be cruel out of his very timidity, for there is nothing so cruel as cowardice."