No doubt
they would be courteous, but you see a half-contemptuous toleration
would gall me."
There was a little smile on Maud Barrington's lips, but it was not in
keeping with the tinge in her cheek and the flash in her eyes.
"I once told you that you were poor at subterfuge, and you know you are
wronging them," she said. "You also know that even if they were
hostile to you, you could stay and compel them to acknowledge you. I
fancy you once admitted as much to me. What has become of the pride of
the democracy you showed me?"
Winston made a deprecatory gesture. "You must have laughed at me. I
had not been long at Silverdale then," he said dryly. "I should feel
very lonely now. One man against long generations. Wouldn't it be a
trifle unequal?"
Maud Barrington smiled again. "I did not laugh, and this is not
England, though what you consider prejudices do not count for so much
as they used to there, while there is, one is told quite frequently, no
limit to what a man may attain to here, if he dares sufficiently."
A little quiver ran through Winston, and he rose and stood looking down
on her, with one brown hand clenched on the table and the veins showing
on his forehead.
"You would have me stay?" he said.
Maud Barrington met his eyes, for the spirit that was in her was the
equal of his. "I would have you be yourself--what you were when you
came here in defiance of Colonel Barrington, and again when you sowed
the last acre of Courthorne's land, while my friends, who are yours
too, looked on wondering.
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