The integrity of the empire was assured, and the paid agitator had received a proper rebuff.
“Miserable idiots!” Edwin murmured, with the most extraordinary violence of scorn, as he re-entered the house, and the blare of triumph receded. He was very much surprised. He had firmly expected his own side to win, though he was reconciled to a considerable reduction of the old majority. His lips curled.
It was in his resentment, in the hard setting of his teeth as he confirmed himself in the rightness of his own opinions, that he first began to realise an individual freedom. “I don’t care if we’re beaten forty times,” his thoughts ran. “I’ll be a more out-and-out Radical than ever! I don’t care, and I don’t care!” And he felt sturdily that he was free. The chain was at last broken that had bound together those two beings so dissimilar, antagonistic, and ill-matched—Edwin Clayhanger and his father.
Volume Four--Chapter One.
Book Four — His Start in Life.
The Birthday Visit.
It was Auntie Hamps’s birthday.
“She must be quite fifty-nine,” said Maggie.