"
"I am gratified that you add the last clause, Miss Scudder; I might not
otherwise recognize the gentle being whom I have always regarded as the
impersonation of all that is softest in woman. I have not the honor of
understanding in the least the reason of this apparently capricious
sentence, but I bow to it in submission."
"Mr. Burr," said Mary, walking up to him, and looking him full in the
eyes, with an energy that for the moment bore down his practised air of
easy superiority, "I wish to speak to you for a moment, as one immortal
soul should to another, without any of those false glosses and deceits
which men call ceremony and good manners. You have done a very great
injury to a lovely lady, whose weakness ought to have been sacred in
your eyes. Precisely because you are what you are,--strong, keen,
penetrating, and able to control and govern all who come near
you,--because you have the power to make yourself agreeable,
interesting, fascinating, and to win esteem and love,--just for that
reason you ought to hold yourself the guardian of every woman, and
treat her as you would wish any man to treat your own daughter. I leave
it to your conscience, whether this is the manner in which you have
treated Madame de Frontignac.
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