Page:Gaskell - North and South, vol. I, 1855.djvu/317

 "Yes!" said she, with recovered dignity. "I do feel offended; and, I think, justly. You seem to fancy that my conduct of yesterday"—again the deep carnation blush, but this time with eyes kindling with indignation rather than shame—“was a personal act between you and me; and that you may come and thank me for it, instead of perceiving, as a gentleman would—yes! a gentleman," she repeated, in allusion to their former conversation about that word, "that any woman, worthy of the name of woman, would come forward to shield, with her reverenced helplessness, a man in danger from the violence of numbers."

"And the gentleman thus rescued is forbidden the relief of thanks!" he broke in contemptuously. "I am a man. I claim the right of expressing my feelings."

And I yielded to the right; simply saying that you gave me pain by insisting upon it," she replied proudly. "But you seem to have imagined; that I was not merely guided by womanly instinct, but "—and here the passionate tears (kept down for long— struggled with vehemently) came up into her eyes, and choked her voice—"but that I was prompted by some particular feeling for you—you! Why, there was not a man—not a poor desperate man in all that crowd—for whom I had not more sympathy—for whom I should not have done what little I could more heartily."

"You may speak on, Miss Hale. I am aware of all these misplaced sympathies of yours. I now believe that it was only your innate sense of oppression—(yes; I, though a master, may be oppressed)—