"Have you nothing to say?" she cried.
"My dear," he said, "you do not understand."
"Then explain—explain!"
"Conquest means well. He is our friend; a rough diamond, I grant you, but he means well. He is our friend."
He repeated the words, sensible that they were inadequate, yet unable to find others.
"Save us from such friends!"
"I had almost decided to send a refusal."
"Why—why, only last night you were on edge to accept. You gave me a dozen pros against my two or three cons."
"And perhaps," said Archibald, in what Betty sometimes called his "antiseptic" manner, "those cons outweighed the pros, although numerically less. Conquest takes your view of the matter. He feels that I have undertaken a task here in Chelsea, which cannot be abandoned. He——"
"He tells you to reculer pour mieux sauter," said Betty derisively, "to refuse a deanery and accept a bishopric later! He—the apostle of expediency, of diplomacy, of compromise! Well—I do not judge him. But he counts you to be of his own opinion. He brands you as a time-server, a worldling, a parasite. And you let him do it—and shake hands with him! And, on next Saturday—you will read a leader in the Mercury which will warm the cockles of your heart."