“To bombard Alexandria?” asked Mr. Lyon, with a look of asperity.
“That was a mistake to be expected of a Tory, but not of Mr. Gladstone, who seems always seeking the broadest principles of justice in his statesmanship.”
“Yes, we regard Mr. Gladstone as a very great man, Miss Forsythe. He is broad enough. You know we consider him a rhetorical phenomenon. Unfortunately he always 'muffs' anything he touches.”
“I suspected,” Miss Forsythe replied, after a moment, “that party spirit ran as high in England as it does with us, and is as personal.”
Mr. Lyon disclaimed any personal feeling, and the talk drifted into a comparison of English and American politics, mainly with reference to the social factor in English politics, which is so little an element here.
In the midst of the talk Margaret came in. The brisk walk in the rosy twilight had heightened her color, and given her a glowing expression which her face had not the night before, and a tenderness and softness, an unworldliness, brought from the quiet hour in the church.
“My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither,
Her modest eyes downcast.”
She greeted the stranger with a Puritan undemonstrativeness, and as if not exactly aware of his presence.
“I should like to have gone to vespers if I had known,” said Mr. Lyon, after an embarrassing pause.
“Yes?” asked the girl, still abstractedly. “The world seems in a vesper mood,” she added, looking out the west windows at the red sky and the evening star.