"Miss Granger, I look upon it as an honour done to me by one whom
henceforth I must reverence among all women. The life you gave back to
me, and the intelligence which directs it, are in duty bound to you, and
I shall not forget the debt."
Beatrice listened to his words, spoken in that deep and earnest voice,
which in after years became so familiar to Her Majesty's judges and to
Parliament--listened with a new sense of pleasure rising in her heart.
She was this man's equal; what he could dare, she could dare; where he
could climb, she could follow--ay, and if need be, show the path, and
she felt that he acknowledged it. In his sight she was something more
than a handsome girl to be admired and deferred to for her beauty's
sake. He had placed her on another level--one, perhaps, that few women
would have wished to occupy. But Beatrice was thankful to him. It was
the first taste of supremacy that she had ever known.
It is something to stir the proud heart of such a woman as Beatrice,
in that moment when for the first time she feels herself a conqueror,
victorious, not through the vulgar advantage of her sex, not by the
submission of man's coarser sense, but rather by the overbalancing
weight of mind.
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