“I tell no lies of you or anyone,” he said; “I warn you--”
“Warn me! of what? that I shall have a way of showing whether I’m true or not,” she said, “whether I’m good or not; and you think that will frighten _me_! Mr. Durant, if his mother sent you, you may go back and tell her what I say. You’ve dared me to give him up, and I won’t give him up; and if I were to give him up a hundred times it would make no difference, for he would not give up me. You can tell her all that. He can do without her, but he can’t do without me.”
“Do you think that is a kind thing to tell a mother?”
“I don’t care,” said Nancy, “you have said worse to me; and it’s true--and so it’s always true. I’d tell my own mother the same. What’s a mother? they didn’t choose to have us; they didn’t pick us out of the world; and now that we’re here we’ve got to do the best we can for ourselves. You may go where you like upon your missions, Mr. Durant, but not here--you shan’t come here; and if you come till doomsday you wouldn’t do any good, for they put more trust in me--and so they ought--than in a cunning lawyer like you. We know what lawyer means,” said the excited girl, once more shaking her small clenched fist in his face, “liar! and that’s seen in you.”
With this she turned and walked suddenly away, turning the corner of the high garden wall, and disappearing in a whirlwind of excitement and emotion, while he stood thunderstruck, staring after her. Durant stood still and stared, with his mouth open in the extremity of his surprise. He was too much startled even to be angry; but he was discomfited, there was no mistaking that sensation. As he stood looking after the excited girl, a sense of smallness, almost of baseness, came over him. He had wanted to save Arthur, but he had not taken the other human creature into consideration, who was just as important as Arthur to the world; and he had not realized the kind of being he had to deal with, when he had drawn up his own brief, as it were, and instructed himself in the line of argument to be pursued. Lawyer, liar! that was a sharp thorn. He was able to smile feebly at it, as he picked himself up and went slowly back to his inn; but he could not shake off the sense of failure--the sense of smallness and meanness that had come over him. Not only had he found a foeman worthy of his steel, but she had baffled him and put him to shame even in his own eyes.