"
It was said cruelly, for he knew that the one thing Grizel could not
bear now was the implication that she saw his faults only. She always
went down under that blow with pitiful surrender, showing the woman
suddenly, as if under a physical knouting.
He apologized contritely. "But, after all, it proves my case," he
said, "for I could not hurt you in this way, Grizel, if I were not a
pretty well-grown specimen of a monster."
"Don't," she said; but she did not seek to help him by drawing him
away to other subjects, which would have been his way. "What is there
monstrous," she asked, "in your being so good to Elspeth? It is very
kind of you to give her all these things."
"Especially when by rights they are yours, Grizel!"
"No, not when you did not want to give them to me."
He dared say nothing to that; there were some matters on which he must
not contradict Grizel now.
"It is nice of you," she said, "not to complain, though Elspeth is
deserting you. It must have been a blow."
"You and I only know why," he answered. "But for her, Grizel, I might
be whining sentiment to you at this moment."
"That," she said, "would be the monstrous thing."
"And it is not monstrous, I suppose, that I should let Gemmell press
my hand under the conviction that, after all, I am a trump.
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