The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900 ... - Gredos

The Salamanca Corpus: Yeoman Fleetwood (1900)
“Sir!" cried the lady, rising in her turn, and drawing up to its full height a figure which,
though not very tall, conveyed at times an impression of dignity and majesty, and never
more so than at this moment. "Sir! you forget to whom you are speaking; you insult me.
Knowing as you do my circumstances, do you dare to speak thus of the Prince in my
hearing?"
“The Prince!" ejaculated Simon, gazing at her in amazement. "Nay, madam, I was not
speaking of the Prince."
"Of whom, then?" she burst forth, her colour still coming and going quickly, and her
eyes aflame.
“Madam," said Simon, dropping his eyes, "I spoke of myself."
The surprised revulsion of feeling, was so great that Mrs. Fitzherbert laughed outright;
then, composing her features, she gazed incredulously at the yeoman.
“You!" she cried. "Nay, friend, your face belies you if you have ever wilfully wronged a
woman."
“Oh, madam," cried he, "is not a woman wronged by being urged into an unequal
marriage? I gauged her nature by my own — I withheld the truth from her — my love
was so great I thought it made all between us even; but I see now that I was wrong."
At the first impetuous words Mrs. Fitzherbert had started as though stung; she now
looked at Simon, with the colour deepening in her face, in a manner which would have
seemed to him inexplicable had he not been wholly occupied with his own concerns.
"She was such a child," he went on in a voice of passionate regret; "she did not
understand the nature of the contract into which she was entering. I should have opened
her eyes; I should have made sure that she knew
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what she was doing, that she realised the consequences. Oh, she should never have been
suffered to take such a step — there should have been no irregularity about her
marriage."
He seemed to have forgotten Mrs. Fitzherbert's presence, but she now recalled it to him
by touching him lightly on the arm.