Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/45

 habits, and with considerable knowledge of the world; and that she was timid and gentle, unused to any violence of manner or language, and unequal to cope with it. He alarmed her, first by the eagerness with which he poured out his affection, and then by the bitterness of his reproaches because, as he averred, it was not returned.

She tried to satisfy him; but when he had frightened away her playfulness, he had deprived her of her greatest charm, and she herself felt that her manner became daily colder and more repulsive. His prediction that she would be happier anywhere than with him seemed likely, by repetition, to insure its own fulfilment. Even their reconciliations—for what is the use of a quarrel but to bring on a reconciliation?—were unsatisfactory. She wished that he loved her less, or would say less about it; and he thought that the gentle willingness with which she met his excuses was only a fresh proof that his love or his anger were equally matters of indifference to her. No French actor with a broken voice, quivering hands, a stride, and a shrug, could have given half the emphasis to the sentiment, J'aimerais mieux être haï qu'aimé faiblement, than Lord Teviot did to the upbraidings with which he diversified the monotony of love-making. This very morning he had persuaded himself that Helen would have preferred riding with her brother. She found the sun hot, and proposed to return. This was a fresh offence, and he declared that it was only a desire to avoid him that made her wish to shorten their ride. Then he worked himself up by a repetition of his wrongs to a degree of violence that would have surprised himself at another moment. At first she laughed at his accusations, then she was shocked at his bitterness, and at last, gay and giddy as she was, her spirits gave way; and when he helped her to dismount from her horse, he saw that her cheeks were pale, and that big tears were rolling over them. To his entreaties that she would