'To keep the world from slipping into chaos?' he inquired genially.
She hadn't heard. Her eyes were fastened on the chairwoman.
'After all, they've got Ernestine,' Vida exulted under her breath.
Borrodaile fell to studying this aspect of the face whose every change he had thought he knew so well. What was the new thing in it? Not admiration merely, not affection alone—something almost fierce behind the half-protecting tenderness with which she watched the chairman's duel with the mob. Borrodaile lifted a hand—people were far too engrossed, he knew, to notice—and he laid it on Vida's, which had tightened on the back of the bench.
'My dear!' he said wondering and low as one would to wake a sleepwalker.
She answered without looking at him, 'What is it?'
He seemed not to know quite how to frame his protest.
'She can carry you along at least!' he grumbled. 'You forget everybody else!'
Vida smiled. It was so plain whom he meant by 'everybody.' Lord Borrodaile gave a faint laugh. He probably knew that would 'bring her round.' It did. It brought her quick eyes to his face; it brought low words.