“Catherine!” said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to struggle from the tight grasp that held her, “Id thank you to adhere to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me beyond expression.”
As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor.
“By no means!” cried Mrs. “I wont be named a dog in the manger again. You shall stay: now then! Isabella swears that the love Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. Im sure she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen? And she has fasted ever since the day before yesterdays walk, from sorrow and rage that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being unacceptable.”
You were not speaking the truth, were you?
“I think you belie her,” said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them. “She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!”
And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. The poor thing couldnt bear that; she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of payday loans Michigan her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainers with crescents of red.
Linton in answer
“Theres a tigress!” exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain. “Begone, for Gods sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him. Cant you fancy the conclusions hell draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution-you must beware of your eyes.”
“Id wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,” he answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. “But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? ”
“I assure you I was,” she returned. “She has been dying for your sake several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But dont notice it further: I wished to punish her sauciness, thats all. I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.”
“And I like her too ill to attempt it,” said he, “except in a very ghoulish fashion. Youd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two: they detestably resemble Lintons.”
“I should be sorry to think so,” returned his companion. “Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbours goods; remember this neighbours goods are mine.”
