Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/93

 but I wish his voice was not quite so silvery," demurred the General.

"Why," said Margaret, "his most ordinary remark when he speaks to a woman is like a caress."

"I don't know, Margaret; it does n't seem quite manly to me to be so soft-spoken."

"To treat women as he does? Oh, papa, I think it is the most manly thing in the world to be gentle to women!"

She was a little indignant at her father.

"But do you not think him a little weak?" he persisted.

"Yes, and no. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred he might pass a duty by or shirk a responsibility through indolence; but there is the stuff of which martyrs are made in Philip Rondelet. He would go to the stake without a tremor for—for—"

"For the sake of the woman he loved?"

"For conscience' sake!"

Brave words these, pleasant, one might think, to the ears of any man when pronounced by such a firm, sweet voice, words that might make many a man lift his head high with conscious pride at having inspired the belief they expressed in so true a woman.

Philip Rondelet, passing the rear of the house on his way to Jackson Square, caught their