The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig; a Novel by David Graham Phillips
page 252 of 308 (81%)
page 252 of 308 (81%)
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gloom upon his brow. "Though," he added, "you don't look at all
well." With an effort: "Margaret, are you glad--or sorry?" "Glad," she answered in a firm, resolute tone. It became a little hard in its practicality as she added: "You were quite right. We took the only course." "You asked me to be a little patient with you," he went on. She trembled; her glance fluttered down. "Well--I--I--you'll have to be a little patient with me, too." He was red with embarrassment. She looked so still and cold and repelling that he could hardly muster voice to go on: "You can't but know, in a general sort of way, that I'm uncouth, unaccustomed to the sort of thing you've had all your life. I'm going to do my best, Margaret. And if you'll help me, and be a little forbearing, I think--I hope--you'll soon find I'm--I'm--oh, you understand." She had given a stealthy sigh of relief when she discovered that he was not making the protest she had feared. "Yes, I understand," replied she, her manner a gentle graciousness, which in some moods would have sent his pride flaring against the very heavens in angry scorn. But he thought her most sweet and considerate, and she softened toward him with pity. It was very, pleasant thus to be looked up to, and, being human, she felt anything but a lessened esteem for her qualities of delicateness and refinement, of patrician breeding, when she saw him thus on his knees before them. He had invited her to look down on him, and she was accepting an invitation which it is not in human nature to |
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