“Blowed if that ain't a bit of pluck!” he said to himself, and therewith fell into a reverie.
Tom talked of temperance work, about which he was very eager, all the way to Guilford Terrace. Erica, on reaching home, went at once to her father's room. She found him propped up with pillows in his arm chair; he was still only well enough to attempt the lightest of light literature, and was looking at some old volumes of “Punch” which the Osmonds had sent across.
“You look tired, Eric!” he exclaimed. “Was there a good attendance?”
“Very,” she replied, but so much less brightly than usual that Raeburn at once divined that something had annoyed her.
“Was Mr. Masterman dull?”
“Not dull,” she replied, hesitatingly. Then, with more than her usual vehemence, “Father, I can't endure him! I wish we didn't have such men on our side! He is so flippant, so vulgar!”
“Of course he never was a model of refinement,” said Raeburn, “but he is effective very effective. It is impossible that you should like his style; he is, compared with you, what a theatrical poster is to a delicate tete-de-greuze. How did he specially offend you tonight?”
“It was all hateful from the very beginning,” said Erica. “And sprinkled all through with doubtful jests, which of course pleased the people. One despicable one about the Entry into Jerusalem, which I believe he must have got from Strauss. I'm sure Strauss quotes it.”
“You see what displeases an educated mind, wins a rough, uncultured one. We may not altogether like it, but we must put up with it. We need our Moodys and Sankeys as well as the Christians.”
“But, father, he seems to me so unfair.”