acceptable. She squeezed the hand of Madge, and felt a pressure, like a
scream, telling her the girl's heart was with the fight beneath them.
She thought it natural for her. She wished she could continue looking as
intently. She looked because her husband looked. The dark hills and
clouds curtaining the run of the stretch of fields relieved her sight.

The clouds went their way; the hills were solid, but like a blue smoke;
the scene here made them very distant and strange. Those two men were
still hitting, not hating one another; only to gratify a number of
unintelligible people and win a success. But the earth and sky seemed to
say, What is the glory? They were insensible to it, as they are not--
they are never insensible to noble grounds of strife. They bless the
spot, they light lamps on it; they put it into books of history, make it
holy, if the cause was a noble one or a good one.

Or supposing both those men loved the girl, who loved one of them! Then
would Carinthia be less reluctantly interested in their blows.

Her infant logic stumbled on for a reason while she repressed the torture
the scene was becoming, as though a reason could be found by her
submissive observation of it. And she was right in believing that a
reason for the scene must or should exist. Only, like other bewildered
instinctive believers, she could not summon the great universe or a
life's experience to unfold it. Her one consolation was in squeezing the
hand of the girl from time to time.

Not stealthily done, it was not objected to by the husband whose eye was
on all. But the persistence in doing it sank her from the benignity of
her station to the girl's level: it was conduct much too raw, and grated
on the deed of the man who had given her his name.