“I believe you are mistaken,” he said. “I have a feeling that our positions are not so widely different as they may appear to be. Don’t refuse to listen to me, Miss Trevennon; that would be unjust, and you are not an unjust woman.”
It was a wonderful proof of the hold she had laid upon him that he took such trouble to exonerate himself in her eyes, and he felt it so himself, but he no longer denied the fact that Miss Trevennon’s good opinion was a matter of vast importance to him. The little impulses of anger which her severe words now and then called forth, were always short lived. One glance at the lovely face and figure near him was generally enough to banish them, and now, as he treated himself to a long look at the fair countenance, with its sweet downcast eyes and slightly saddened mouth, the impossibility of quarrelling with this exquisite creature presented itself so strongly, that he grew suddenly so friendly and at ease, that he was able to assume a tone that was pleasant, and almost gay, as he said:
“Now, Miss Trevennon, honor bright! You know perfectly well that you don’t like that man one bit better than I do.”
“I don’t like him at all. I yield that point at once, but I fail to see how that affects the matter. Children and savages regulate their manners according to their tastes and fancies, but I had always supposed that well-bred men and women had a habit of good-breeding that outside objects could not affect.”
“A gentleman’s house is his castle, Miss Trevennon,” said Gaston, with a return to his former tone and manner; “and it is one of the plainest and most sacred of his duties to see that the ladies of his household are protected from all improper contact. In my brother’s absence I stood in the position of the gentleman of the house, and I did right to adopt a line of conduct which would save you from a like intrusion in future. I owed it to you to do so.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Margaret, waving her hand with a pretty little motion of scornful rejection. “You allowed your consideration for me to constrain you too far. I have led a free, unrestricted life, and am accustomed to contact with those who come and go. No man has a finer feeling as to what is fitting for the ladies of his family than my father, but though I should live to reach old age, I shall never see him pay so great a price for my immunity from doubtful association as an act of rudeness to any one whomsoever.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Miss Trevennon,” said Gaston, speaking rather warmly, “if you lived in Washington, you would see things differently. There’s no end to the pushing impertinence of the people who hang about a city—this one especially, and a gentleman does not like to have his friends in danger of meeting these obnoxious creatures at his house. It looks very queer, and people think so, too.”
“Is a gentleman’s position, then, so easily impeached? Now I should have thought that, with your name and prestige, you might weather a good many queer appearances. An annoyance of this sort would not be likely to happen often. That it is an annoyance, I do not deny; but I think there must be a better way of preventing such things than the one you adopted. And oh, Mr. Gaston, while we are on this subject, I wonder how you can ignore one point, the agony that you caused me!”
“That I caused you, Miss Trevennon? It is hard, indeed, to lay at my door the discomfiture you endured last evening.”
“I think it was the most wretched evening I ever passed,” said Margaret, “and it was only your conduct that made it so.”