"Did you really give father some drink, Mr. Tressider?" Esther asked presently.
Bert smiled and looked down at his lovely companion. She didn't appear to be the least bit annoyed.
"Yes—a drop. Why?"
"Mother will never forgive you. She has such a horror of the drink."
"So has your father, I assure you. He took quite a lot of persuading at first; but after he'd drowned his conscience in the preliminary gulp, he became quite partial to it. What is your own standpoint on the drink question?"
"I'm not rabidly prejudiced. In fact, I think a good spree would do some temperance fanatics good."
"For a Band of Hope lecturer's daughter you are a trifle advanced, aren't you?"
"Oh, I don't know. Even the daughters of temperance lecturers can have opinions, I suppose—not to say tolerant ones. Some people are so occupied with their neighbours' failings that they entirely overlook their own. I don't for the life of me see what right anyone who is full of envy, and spite, and cant, and who eats as much as a pig, has to talk about a man who occasionally drinks a drop too much."
"By Jove! you're something of a philosopher. That's rather unusual for a woman, isn't it?—a young, good-looking one, at any rate."
"Am I good-looking then?" laughed Esther carelessly.