Page:Far from the Madding Crowd Vol 1.djvu/245

 Whatever Gabriel felt, he coolly echoed her words,―

"Or wishing it either."

A woman may be treated with a bitterness which is sweet to her, and with a rudeness which is not offensive. Bathsheba would have submitted to an indignant chastisement for her levity had Gabriel protested that he was loving her at the same time; the impetuosity of passion unrequited is bearable, even if it stings and anathematizes—there is a triumph in the humiliation, and a tenderness in the strife. This was what she had been expecting, and what she had not got. To be lectured because the lecturer saw her in the cold morning light of openshuttered disillusion was exasperating. He had not finished, either. He continued in a more agitated voice:—

"My opinion is (since you ask it) that you are greatly to blame for playing pranks upon a man like Mr. Boldwood, merely as a pastime. Leading on a man you don't care for is not a praiseworthy action. And even, Miss Everdene, if you seriously inclined towards him, you might have let him discover it in some way of true loving-kindness, and not by sending him a valentine's letter."

Bathsheba laid down the shears.

"I cannot allow any man to—to criticise my