"Where?" replied Frank, with a smile which looked real; "why, in my bed, dreaming quiet dreams; a thing I shall never do again."
"Whose fault is that?"
"Yours," said Frank, sternly regarding him, "yours. Is this my place? Would I have been here of my own will? No—you led me step by step from content into this brutal degradation."
"But you had your wits about you," fiercely retorted Gerald; "this is my thanks for condescending to make you my companion; the base blood is in you; ingratitude is the sure sign of the low-born."
Frank's cheeks flushed crimson, his teeth ground together, and the blood rushed to his head with a bound; after a moment's pause, he replied, with a terrible effort to be calm, "Gerald Desmond, I am, as you say, low-born, but not base; a son of toil, but no slave; a poor, but still an independent man; nursed in poverty, I own that I am no fit company for you. My hand would bear no comparison with yours; 'tis labor-hardened, while yours is lady-soft, and yet, if our hearts were put into the scale, I mistake much if the overweight would not make up the difference."
Annoyed by the quiet coolness of his manner, Gerald lost all control.
"You poor, miserable child of beggary," he cried, "avoid my sight. Leave me. Dare to cross my path again, and I shall strike you to my feet."
At these words Frank smiled; it was a small but most expressive smile; Gerald felt its influence in his very brain.
"I'll do it now," he screamed, foaming with rage, and springing full at Frank's throat; but he calmly disengaged himself, and with one effort of his tremendous strength, took Gerald up in his powerful arms, and could have dashed him to the ground, but contented himself with quietly replacing him in the chair, exclaiming—
"Learn to forgive, Gerald Desmond, and condescend to accept a lesson from your inferior. Farewell," and ere the other could reply, maddened as he was by rage and mortification, he was gone.