Laura, with other blood in her veins, stared in her turn.
“But naturally I’ve an opinion! I’m not a fool! Only—” she began to laugh—“I don’t let on.”
“Why?” But Coral looked as if she knew.
“Well, you see,” Laura warmed to her engrossing subject, “he says he thinks that every one ought to stick to their own ideas and be independent. But he always thinks (and you know, Gran’papa’s just the same) that it’s amazing that the people who disagree with him can be so intolerant and impervious to reason. So I always begin by disagreeing and let him argue it out. And then I see his point and he thinks how sensible I am. And if I know beforehand what he’s going to say about a thing I say it quickly first. Then he nods at me, as if anyhow he were always sure of me.”
“Well, of all the hypocrites——”
“It isn’t. Don’t you see?”
Coral looked at her kindly.
“Oh, in a way I suppose, it is—” Laura sighed. “But—but I don’t believe it’s wrong. You see—Justin’s so straight-forward. If he’s in a mood—well, he’s in a mood. He couldn’t suppress himself for the sake of—oh, politeness or amusing people or being pleasant. He wouldn’t know how to. But, my dear, if I started that—being myself—it wouldn’t work. Suppose I were in a depressed mood one day when Justin was cheerful and stuck to my mood instead of slipping into his? Why, he wouldn’t know what was happening. He’d ask if I’d got toothache. He’d be bored to death.”
Coral was looking interested.
“Considering the little fool you can be, you know something about men. Where d’you get it from, Laura?”