"No, I don't," answered father, in the same way.
The squire paused a moment, then he said, unable to keep it in, "Are you going to support him too?"
The color went out of father's face; I knew he was angry.
"Well, Mr. Broderick, I don't know what sort of a candidate it'll be," said he, in a provoking manner. "There's Radicals and Radicals."
The squire smacked his boot with his walking-stick and did not answer. Captain Forrester came forward, for mother had gone to the table to make the tea.
"Did I hear you say that you were a Radical, Mr. Maliphant?" asked the young man, looking at father.
"I am not a Tory," answered father, without looking up. I thought his tone was cruelly curt.
"Well, I am a Socialist," answered Frank Forrester, with an air that would have been defiant had it not been too pleasant-spoken. Father smiled. The words must have provoked that—would have provoked more if the speaker had not been so good-tempered.
"Ah, I know what you young fellows mean by a Socialist," he murmured.
"I should say I went about as far as most men in England," said Frank, looking at him in that open-eyed fixed way that he used towards men as well as towards women.