They both laughed softly at this, and Rose forgot her momentary embarrassment. “I should try to be just!” she said.
He shook his head with that rare smile of his which seemed half mocking, half caressing. “You couldn’t be!” he retorted provokingly, “you are a little Puritan, narrow, firm, righteous; I begin to be more and more afraid of you!”
She lifted her chin. “You think me too narrow to be just? Isn’t that the charge that you worldlings always bring against—against—”
“The righteous?” he supplied quickly.
They laughed again. “You convict me out of my own mouth; I shall dare no more arguments!”
“Ah, now you know how I feel under your criticisms!” he flashed back at her.
His manner wore its happiest aspect, it was delightful to be with her; through all contradictions he began to feel the temperamental sympathy, and she, too young to understand these subtleties, was aware of the glow and warmth of his presence, the sweetness of his manner which could be, when he was neither stern nor angry nor self-absorbed, one of a delicacy and sentiment uncommon in a man; with all his egotism, his spoiled acceptance of the world’s homage, he retained qualities that were inherently noble and lovable.
“But I have more reason,” she declared with warmth, “it’s unworthy of you to espouse any cause for the mere sake of party, ‘to stand pat’ when your heart is against the issue; I don’t believe in it!”
“You have been reading revolutionary documents; you are full of this new heresy,” he retorted, still laughing softly; “you are like some of the new politicians; they pull down the pillars of the temple on their own heads.”
She leaned forward eagerly, her eyes sparkling. “Do you know what this party worship reminds me of?” she said, “this devotion in a man to his party? The tomb of Rosicrucius and the statue which crushed the worshipper who entered there! So your party’s graven image crushes out a man’s originality.”