“But that is very wrong,” she said, almost as if rebuking a child. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What!—dislike your own mother?”
“Dinna say the word, my leddy,” cried Malcolm in a tone of agony, “or ye’ll gar me skirl an’ rin like the mad laird. He’s no a hair madder nor I wad be wi’ sic a mither.”
He would have passed her to leave the room.
But Lady Florimel could not bear defeat. In any contest she must win or be shamed in her own eyes, and was she to gain absolutely nothing in such a passage with a fisher-lad? Was the billow of her persuasion to fall back from such a rock, self-beaten into poorest foam? She would, she must subdue him! Perhaps she did not know how much the sides of her intent were pricked by the nettling discovery that she was not the cause of his unhappiness.
“You’re not going to leave me so!” she exclaimed, in a tone of injury.
“I’ll gang or bide as ye wull, my leddy,” answered Malcolm resignedly.
“Bide then,” she returned. “—I haven’t half done with you yet.”
“Ye maun jist tear my hert oot,” he rejoined—with a sad half smile, and another of his dog-like looks.
“That’s what you would do to your mother!” said Florimel severely.
“Say nae ill o’ my mither!” cried Malcolm, suddenly changing almost to fierceness.