my pleasure what pleasure do
_you_ give me? Look at the way I take it, Laura. You ought to do me
justice. Haven't I sacrificed my home? and what more can a man do?'

'I don't think you care any more for your home than Selina does. And
it's so sacred and so beautiful, God forgive you! You are all blind and
senseless and heartless and I don't know what poison is in your veins.
There is a curse on you and there will be a judgment!' the girl went on,
glowing like a young prophetess.

'What do you want me to do? Do you want me to stay at home and read the
Bible?' her companion demanded with an effect of profanity, confronted
with her deep seriousness.

'It wouldn't do you any harm, once in a while.'

'There will be a judgment on _her_--that's very sure, and I know where
it will be delivered,' said Lionel Berrington, indulging in a visible
approach to a wink. 'Have I done the half to her she has done to me? I
won't say the half but the hundredth part? Answer me truly, my dear!'

'I don't know what she has done to you,' said Laura, impatiently.

'That's exactly what I want to tell you. But it's difficult. I'll bet
you five pounds she's doing it now!'

'You are too unable to make yourself respected,' the girl remarked, not
shrinking now from the enjoyment of an advantage--that of feeling
herself superior and taking her opportunity.

Her brother-in-law seemed to feel for the moment the prick of this
observation. 'What has such a piece of nasty boldness as that to do with
respect? She's the first that ever defied me!' exclaimed the young man,
whose aspect somehow scarcely confirmed this pretension. 'You know all
about her--don't make believe you don't,' he continued in another tone.
'You see everything--you're one of the sharp ones. There's no use
beating about the bush, Laura--you've lived in this precious house and
you're not so green as that comes to. Besides, you're so good yourself
that you needn't give a shriek if one is obliged to say what one means.
Why didn't you grow up a little sooner? Then, over there in New York, it
would certainly have been you I would have made up to. _You_ would have
respected me--eh? now don't say you wouldn't.' He rambled on, turning
about the room again, partly like a person whose sequences were
naturally slow but also a little as if, though he knew what he had in
mind, there were still a scruple attached to it that he was trying to
rub off.

'I take it that isn't what I must sit up t