'
Marian reflected. When she raised her eyes again they were
perfectly calm.
'What has led you to think that?'
'Don't I know the type of man? Noscitur ex sociis--have you Latin
enough for that?'
'You'll find that you are misinformed,' Marian replied, and
therewith went from the room.
She could not trust herself to converse longer. A resentment such
as her father had never yet excited in her--such, indeed, as she
had seldom, if ever, conceived--threatened to force utterance for
itself in words which would change the current of her whole life.
She saw her father in his worst aspect, and her heart was shaken
by an unnatural revolt from him. Let his assurance of what he
reported be ever so firm, what right had he to make this use of
it? His behaviour was spiteful. Suppose he entertained suspicions
which seemed to make it his duty to warn her against Milvain,
this was not the way to go about it. A father actuated by simple
motives of affection would never speak and look thus.
It was the hateful spirit of literary rancour that ruled him; the
spirit that made people eager to believe all evil, that blinded
and maddened.
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