She kindled at the words.
“And what a thing to be a man! Ye think that a woman’s love consists in goods and gear, comfortable beds and fine apparelling!”
“Comfortable beds are not to be lightlied,” said her father; “as ye will find, my lass, or a’ be done.”
She did not heed him, but flashed on with her defiance.
“You, and those like you, think that the way to win a woman is to bide till ye have made all smooth, so that there be not a curl on the rose-leaves, nor yet a bitter drop in the cup. Even Quintin there thought thus, till he learned better.”
She did not so much as pause to smile, though I think her father did—but covertly.
“No!” she cried, “I love, and because I love I will (as you say floutingly) be ready to lie at a dykeback like a tinkler’s wench. I will follow my man through the world because he is my man—yes, all the more because he is injured, despised, one who has had little happiness and no satisfaction in life. And now I will give him these things. I—I only will make it all up to him. With my love I can do it, and I will!”
Her father nodded menacingly.
“Ye shall try the dykebacks this very nicht, my lass! And ye shall e’en see how ye like them, after the fine linen sheets and panelled chambers of the Earlstoun.”
But her mother broke out at last.