This unconventional usage on the part of Jerome, a man who wore self-possession and correct manners as an every day coat of mail, not only surprised Mell, but terrified and subdued her. In undertaking to “break up” Jerome by stirring up the green-eyed monster, Mell had neglected to take into account the well-established fact, that no jealous man stands long upon ceremony. Panting for breath, she awoke unpleasantly to a full comprehension 299 of a madman’s possibilities, and ignoring all those impassioned inquiries with which he had interlarded the severer measures of corporeal punishment, she remarked in a spirit of meekness and a very faint voice:
“Jerome, let me go, please; you are hurting me.”
“But how much more you are hurting me,” said Jerome, harshly.
He released her, however, and felt ashamed. No man with real manliness in him, but does feel ashamed after he has hurt a woman. She may have deserved it, and yet he feels ashamed.
One would think that now after this ungentlemanly conduct on Jerome’s part, Mell the high spirited will not only be full of a tremendous indignation, but be willing, and more than willing, to give him up for good and all.
How little you know a woman, you who think that! A harmless man never does anywhere so little harm as in a woman’s affections. The rod of empire sways the world and a woman’s mind—all women, to a great or less degree; all women are sisters.
In other words, it is very necessary for a man to be capable of shaking up a woman for past offences, and present naughtiness, when she needs it, or else he must make up his mind to take a back seat and give up the supremacy. Some of the fair sex never come to terms without a shaking—there may be one or two, here and there among them, who never come to terms, even with a shaking!
Mell did not belong to this small minority; she was completely subdued. Contrite, and submissive, she now approached her audacious antagonist; approached him timidly, where he stood a little apart, and with his back turned to her, feeling, as we have said, quite ashamed of himself, and said gently:
“Jerome, I will break with Rube if you will break with Clara.”
“An honorable man cannot leave a woman in the lurch,” answered he, in a manner indicative of a strong protest under the existing law.