ble of a headless trunk. Maggie’s was such an arm as that, and it had the warm tints of life.
A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.
But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and Arizona Cardinals Barn humiliation.
“How dare you?” She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice. “What right have I given you to insult me?”
She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the sofa, panting and trembling.
A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing a moment’s happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Montreal Canadiens Drakter Philip, to her own better soul. That momentary happiness had been smitten with a blight, a leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of her than he did of Lucy.
As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of the conservatory, dizzy with the New York Giants Kvinnor conflict of passions — love, Maillot Autriche Pas CHer rage, and confused despair; despair at his want of self-mastery, and despair that he had offended Maggie.
The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again and entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive for him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly before her. But Maggie’s bitter rage was unspent.
“Leave me to myself, if you please,” she said, with impetuous haughtiness, “and for the future avoid me.”
Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other end of the room. There was the dire necessity of going back into the dancing-room again, and he was beginning to be conscious of that. They had been absent so short a time, that when he went in again the waltz was not ended.
Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of her nature was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had dragged her within reach of this wound to her self-respect had at least wrought its own cure. The thoughts and temptations of the last month should all be flung away into an unvisited chamber of memory. There was nothing to allure her now; duty would be easy, and all the old calm purposes would reign peacefully once more. She re-entered the drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but with a sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate her. She refused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly with every one who addressed her. And when they got home that night, she kissed Lucy with Pantalons Pas CHer a free heart, almost exulting in this scorching moment, which had delivered her from the possibility of another word or look that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle, unsuspicious sister.
The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as she had expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, and household business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs. Tulliver. So Maggie, who had been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to Scarpe Nike Hyperdunk 2016 sit waiting, Vancouver Canucks Barn equipped for the drive, in the garden. L |
