Page:The New Penelope.djvu/284

278 Were heavenly!—so I thought till this

Unlooked for answer to the prayer

My heart was making with its might.

Thus challenged, caught in sudden snare,

Like two clouds meeting on a height,

And, pausing first in short strange lull,

Then bursting into awful storm,

Opposing feelings multiform,

Struggled in silence: and then full

Of our blind woman-wrath, broke forth

In stinging hail of sharp-edged ice,

As freezing as the polar north,

Yet maddening. O, the poor mean vice

We women have been taught to call

By virtue's name! the holy scorn

We feel for lovers left love-lorn

By our own coldness, or by the wall

Of other love 'twixt them and us!

The tempest past, I paused. He stood

Silent,—and yet "Ungenerous!"

Was hurled back, plainer than ere could

His lips have said it, by his eyes

Fire-flashing, and his pale, set face,

Beautiful, and unmarred by trace

Of aught save pain and pained surprise.

—I quailed at last before that gaze,

And even faintly owned my wrong:

I said I "spoke in such amaze

I could not choose words that belong

To such occasions." Here he smiled,

To cover one low, quick-drawn sigh:

"June eves disturb us differently,"

He said, at length; "and I, beguiled

By something in the air, did do

My Lady Maud unmeant offence;