Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. I, 1866.djvu/224

214 heart. But no sooner did the words "You have brought it on me" rise within her than she heard within also the retort, "You brought it on yourself." Not for all the world beside could she bear to hear that retort uttered from without. What did she do? With strange sequence to all that rapid tumult, after a few moments' silence she said, in a gentle and almost tremulous voice,

"Let me take your arm."

He gave it immediately, putting on his hat and wondering. For more than twenty years Mrs Transome had never chosen to take his arm.

"I have but one thing to ask you. Make me a promise."

"What is it?"

"That you will never quarrel with Harold."

"You must know that it is my wish not to quarrel with him."

"But make a vow—fix it in your mind as a thing not to be done. Bear anything from him rather than quarrel with him."

"A man can't make a vow not to quarrel," said Jermyn, who was already a little irritated by the implication that Harold might be disposed to use him roughly. "A man's temper may get the better of him at any moment. I am not prepared to bear anything."