Not time, but experience will show that, although
indeed a simile, this is no hyperbole.
"I will leave your father to deal with you, Hesper," said her
mother, and rose.
Up to this point, Mortimer children had often resisted their
mother; beyond this point, never more than once.
"No, please, mamma!" returned Hesper, in a tone of expostulation.
"I have spoken my mind, but that is no treason. As my father has
referred Mr. Redmain to me, I would rather deal with him."
Lady Malice was herself afraid of her husband. There is many a
woman, otherwise courageous enough, who will rather endure the
worst and most degrading, than encounter articulate insult. The
mere lack of conscience gives the scoundrel advantage
incalculable over the honest man; the lack of refinement gives a
similar advantage to the cad over the gentleman; the combination
of the two lacks elevates the husband and father into an
autocrat. Hesper was not one her world would have counted weak;
she had physical courage enough; she rode well, and without fear;
she sat calm in the dentist's chair; she would have fought with
knife and pistol against violence to the death; and yet, rather
than encounter the brutality of an evil-begotten race
concentrated in her father, she would yield herself to a
defilement eternally more defiling than that she would both kill
and die to escape.
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