He squeezed it, squeezed it as it were between his love for her and the tremendous passion that was consuming him. Contrition at his sharp words to her hammered the upper plate, wrath at the manner of her reception of his news was anvil beneath. The poor fingers horribly suffered.
There are conditions of the male mind--and this George was in the very heart of one--when softness in a woman positively goads to fury. The mind is in an itching fever, and--like a bull against a gate-post--requires hard, sharp corners against which to rub and ease the irritation. Comes the lord and master home sulky or in fury, the wise wife will meet him with a demeanour so spiked that he may scratch his itching at every turn. To be soft and yielding is the most fatal conduct; it is to send the lumbering bull crashing through the gate-post into the lane to seek solace away from the home paddock.
Unversed in these homely recipes, this simple Mary had at least the wit not to cry “Oh!” in pain and move her hand. They found a seat, and for good five minutes this turbulent George sat and threshed in his wrath like a hooked shark--this little hand the rope that held him. Soon its influence was felt. His tuggings and boundings grew weaker. The venom oozed out of him.
He uncovered the crushed fingers; raising, pressed them to his lips.
She patted those brown hands; did not speak.
“You know the awful temper I've got,” he went on. “Uncontrollable--angry even with you--foul brute--”
He flung out an accusatory hand against himself. “How? By being sweet and loving! Why, what a brute I must be!”
She told him: “You shan't call yourself names. In fact, you mustn't. Because that is calling me names too. We belong, Georgie.”
The pretty sentiment tickled him. Gloom flew from his brow before sunshine that took its place. He laughed. “You're a dear, dear old thing.”
She gave a whimsical look at him. “I ought to have said at once what I am going to say now: Did you hurt him much?”
“I bashed him!” George said, revelling in it. “I fairly bashed him!”
She snuggled against this tremendous fellow.
It was a park-keeper who, from that opium drug of sweet silence with which lovers love to dull their senses, recalled them to the urgency for action.
