There
was no help for it. I was obliged to tell him the truth. Between his
attachment to Rachel, and his attachment to me, he was sorely puzzled
and distressed at the turn things had taken. His opinion, when he
expressed it, was given in his usual downright manner, and was agreeably
redolent of the most positive philosophy I know--the philosophy of the
Betteredge school.
"Miss Rachel has her faults--I've never denied it," he began. "And
riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them. She has been trying
to ride over you--and you have put up with it. Lord, Mr. Franklin, don't
you know women by this time better than that? You have heard me talk of
the late Mrs. Betteredge?"
I had heard him talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge pretty
often--invariably producing her as his one undeniable example of the
inbred frailty and perversity of the other sex. In that capacity he
exhibited her now.
"Very well, Mr. Franklin. Now listen to me. Different women have
different ways of riding the high horse. The late Mrs. Betteredge took
her exercise on that favourite female animal whenever I happened to deny
her anything that she had set her heart on.
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