"I don't care. Think, Horatio. Think of his sticking up for you like that. He was going to fight them, the dear thing, all those great rough men. To fight them for you. He said he'd behave better than anybody else, and he did."
"Yes, yes. He behaved very well." Now that she put it to him that way he was touched by Horace's behaviour. He could always be touched by the thought of anything you did for him.
But Ralph Bevan could have told Fanny she was mistaken. Young Horace didn't do it altogether for his father; he did it for himself, for an ideal of conduct, an ideal of honour that he had, to let off steam, to make a sensation in the Town Hall, to feel himself magnificent and brave; because he, too, was an egoist, though a delightful one.
Mr. Waddington returned to his speech. "I can't think what made me leave out that bit about the dawn."
"Oh, bother your old dawn," said Fanny. "I'm going to bed."
She went, consoled. "Dear Horry," she thought, "I'm glad he did that."
VIII
1
The Ballinger affair did not end with the demonstration in the Town
Hall. It had unforeseen and far-reaching consequences.
The first of these appeared in a letter which Mr. Waddington received from Mr. Hitchin: