It is certain that if Sir George Soane had borne any other name, the
girl, after the conversation which had taken place between them on the
dingy staircase at Oxford, must have hated him. There is a kind of
condescension from man to woman, in which the man says, 'My good girl,
not for me--but do take care of yourself,' which a woman of the least
pride finds to be of all modes of treatment the most shameful and the
most humiliating.
The masterful overtures of such a lover as Dunborough,
who would take all by storm, are still natural, though they lack
respect; a woman would be courted, and sometimes would be courted in the
old rough fashion. But, for the other mode of treatment, she may be a
Grizel, or as patient--a short course of that will sharpen not only her
tongue, but her fingernails.
Yet this, or something like it, Julia, who was far from being the most
patient woman in the world, had suffered at Sir George's hands;
believing at the time that he was some one else, or, rather, being
ignorant then and for just an hour afterwards that such a person as Sir
George Soane existed.
Enlightened on this point and on some others
connected with it (which a sagacious reader may divine for himself) the
girl's first feeling in face of the astonishing future opening before
her had been one of spiteful exultation. She hated him, and he would
suffer. She hated him with all her heart and strength, and he would
suffer. There were balm and sweet satisfaction in the thought.