“Look here,” said Edwin, with an air of resentment as to which he himself could not have decided whether it was assumed or genuine, “what earthly right have you to suppose that I’m like all the rest?”
“I’m very sorry,” she surrendered. “I knew all the time you weren’t.” With her face still bent downwards, she looked up at him, smiling sadly, smiling roguishly.
“Father’s against them,” he proceeded, somewhat deflated. And he thought of all his father’s violent invective, and of Maggie’s bland acceptance of the assumption that workmen on strike were rascals—how different the excellent simple Maggie from this feverish creature on the sofa! “Father’s against them, and most people are, because they broke the last arbitration award. But I’m not my father. If you ask me, I’ll tell you what I think—workmen on strike are always in the right; at bottom I mean. You’ve only got to look at them in a crowd together. They don’t starve themselves for fun.”
He was not sure if he was convinced of the truth of these statements; but she drew them out of him by her strange power. And when he had uttered them, they appeared fine to him.
“What does your father say to that?”
“Oh!” said Edwin uneasily. “Him—and me—we don’t argue about these things.”
“Why not?”
“Well, we don’t.”
“You aren’t ashamed of your own opinions, are you?” she demanded, with a hint in her voice that she was ready to be scornful.
“You know all the time I’m not.” He repeated the phrase of her previous confession with a certain acrimonious emphasis. “Don’t you?” he added curtly.