"I venture to think," he continued, his heavy, lustreless eyes coming to a stand-still upon her, "that though I accept in all reverence the position of woman as the equal of man, as promulgated in The Princess, by our lion-hearted Laureate, nevertheless I advance beyond him in that respect. I hold"—in a voice calculated to impress the whole table—"that woman is man's superior, and that she degrades herself when she endeavors to place herself on an equality with him."
There was a momentary silence, like that which travellers tell us succeeds the roar of the lion in his primeval forest, silencing even the twitter of the birds.
"How true that is!" said Sybell, awed by the lurid splendor of Mr. Harvey's genius. "Woman is man's superior, not his equal. I have felt that all my life, but I never quite saw how until this moment. Don't you think so, too, Miss Barker?"
"I have never lost an opportunity of asserting it," said the Apostle, her elbow on Mr. Tristram's bread, looking at Mr. Harvey with some asperity for poaching on her manor.
"All sensible women have been agreed for years on that point."
CHAPTER XXIII
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone,
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 'twere done!
Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.
—MATTHEW ARNOLD.
It was Sunday morning. The night was sinking out of the sky to lean faint unto death upon the bosom of the earth. The great forms of the trees, felt rather than seen, were darkness made visible. Among the night of high elms round Warpington a single yellow light burned in an upper window. It had been burning all night. And now, as the night waned, the little light waned with it. At least, it was suddenly blown out.
Hester came to the window and looked out. There was light, but there was no dawn as yet. In the gray sky over the gray land the morning-star, alone and splendid, kept watch in the east.