"
"Womanly!" I cried. "I wonder what a man's notion of woman is! Some
soft, pulpy thing that thrives all the better for abuse? a spaniel that
loves you more, the more you beat it? a worm that grows and grows in
new rings as often as you cut it asunder? I wonder history has never
taught you better. Look at Judith with Holofernes,--Jael with
Sisera,--or if you want profane examples, Catherine de Medicis,
Mademoiselle de Brinvilliers, Charlotte Corday. There are women who
have formed a purpose, and gone on steadily toward its accomplishment,
even though, like that Roman girl,--Tullia was her name?--they had to
drive over a father's corpse to do it."
"You have known such, perhaps," said Richard.
"Yes," I answered, with, a gentle smile, "I have. They wished no harm,
it might be, to any one, but people stood in their way. It is as if you
were going to the arbor after grapes, and there were a swarm of ants in
the path. You have no malice against the ants, but you want the
grapes,--so you walk on, and they are crushed."
I was thinking of John and of his love, but William did not know that.
"You are a strange being!" he said, looking at me with a mixture of
admiration and distrust.
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