"He [Mr Hale] startled Margaret, one evening as she sate at her work, by suddenly asking: 'Margaret! had you… — Elizabeth Gaskell
"He [Mr Hale] startled Margaret, one evening as she sate at her work, by suddenly asking:
'Margaret! had you ever any reason for thinking that Mr. Thornton cared for you?' He almost blushed as he put this question; but Mr. Bell's scouted idea recurred to him, and the words were out of his mouth before he well knew what he was about. Margaret did not answer immediately; but by the bent drooping of her head, he guessed what her reply would be.
'Yes; I believe--oh papa, I should have told you.' And she dropped her work, and hid her face in her hands.
'No, dear; don't think that I am impertinently curious. I am sure you would have told me if you had felt that you could return his regard. Did he speak to you about it?' No answer at first; but by-and-by a little gentle reluctant
'Yes.'
'And you refused him?' A long sigh; a more helpless, nerveless attitude, and another
'Yes.' But before her father could speak, Margaret lifted up her face, rosy with some beautiful shame, and, fixing her eyes upon him, said:
'Now, papa, I have told you this, and I cannot tell you more; and then the whole thing is so painful to me; every word and action connected with it is so unspeakably bitter, that I cannot bear to think of it. Oh, papa, I am sorry to have lost you this friend, but I could not help it--but oh! I am very sorry.' She sate down on the ground, and laid her head on his knees.
'I too, am sorry, my dear. Mr. Bell quite startled me when he said, some idea of the kind--'
'Mr. Bell! Oh, did Mr. Bell see it?'
'A little; but he took it into his head that you--how shall I say it?--that you were not ungraciously disposed towards Mr.Thornton. I knew that could never be. I hoped the whole thing was but an imagination; but I knew too well what your real feelings were to suppose that you could ever like Mr. Thornton in that way. But I am very sorry.' They were very quiet and still for some minutes. But, on stroking her cheek in a caressing way soon after, he was almost shocked to find her face wet with tears. As he touched her, she sprang up, and smiling with forced brightness, began to talk of the Lennoxes with such a vehement desire to turn the conversation, that Mr. Hale was too tender-hearted to try to force it back into the old channel."
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"He [John Thornton] shrank from hearing Margaret's very name mentioned; he, while he blamed her--while he as jealous of her--while he renounced her--he loved her sorely, in spite of himself. He dreamt of her; he dreamt she came dancing towards him with outspread arms, and with a lightness and gaiety which made him loathe her, even while it allured him. But the impression of this figure of Margaret--with all Margaret's character taken out of it, as completely as if some evil spirit had got possession of her form--was so deeply stamped upon his imagination, that when he wakened he felt hardly able to separate the Una from the Duessa; and the dislike he had to the latter seemed to envelope and disfigure the former Yet he was too proud to acknowledge his weakness by avoiding the sight of her. He would neither seek an opportunity of being in her company nor avoid it. To convince himself of his power of self-control, he lingered over every piece of business this afternoon; he forced every movement into unnatural slowness and deliberation; and it was consequently past eight o'clock before he reached Mr. Hale's."
"Mr. Thornton remained in the dining-room, trying to think of the business he had to do at the police-office, and in reality thinking of Margaret. Everything seemed dim and vague beyond--behind--besides the touch of her arms round his neck--the soft clinging which made the dark colour come and go in his cheek as he thought of it."
"Mr. Bell gave her [Margaret Hale] one of his sharp glances from above his spectacles. She stood it quite calmly; but, after she had left the room, he suddenly asked,--
'Hale! did it ever strike you that Thornton and your daughter have what the French call a tendresse for each other?'
'Never!' said Mr. Hale, first startled and then flurried by the new idea. 'No, I am sure you are wrong. I am almost certain you are mistaken. If there is anything, it is all on Mr. Thornton's side. Poor fellow! I hope and trust he is not thinking of her, for I am sure she would not have him.'
'Well! I'm a bachelor, and have steered clear of love affairs all my life; so perhaps my opinion is not worth having. Or else I should say there were very pretty symptoms about her!'
'Then I am sure you are wrong,' said Mr. Hale. 'He may care for her, though she really has been almost rude to him at times. But she!--why, Margaret would never think of him, I'm sure! Such a thing has never entered her head.'
'Entering her heart would do. But I merely threw out a suggestion of what might be. I dare say I was wrong. And whether I was wrong or right, I'm very sleepy; so, having disturbed your night's rest (as I can see) with my untimely fancies, I'll betake myself with an easy mind to my own.'
But Mr. Hale resolved that he would not be disturbed by any such nonsensical idea; so he lay awake, determining not to think about it."
