"The speech about Sir Wilfrid—at Latchford."
"What else does he expect?"
"I don't know. But—well, I may as well say, Gertrude—to you, though I wouldn't say it to him—that I—I didn't much admire that speech either!"
Delia was now sitting on the floor with her hands round her knees, looking up. The slight stiffening of her face shewed that it had been an effort to say what she had said.
"So you think that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and whispering humbleness'—just as he is on the point of trampling us and our cause into the dirt?"
"No—certainly not! But why hasn't he as good a right to his opinion as we to ours—without being threatened with personal violence?"
Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement.
"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'—or why you stay with them."
"That's not fair!"—protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. "As for burning stupid villas—that are empty and insured—or boathouses—or piers—or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in mind of us,—that's one thing. But threatening persons with violence—that's—somehow—another thing. And as to villas and piers even—to be quite honest—I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!—I declare, I'm beginning to wonder! And why shouldn't one take up one's policy from time to time and look at it, all round, with a free mind? We haven't been doing particularly well lately."
Gertrude laughed—a dry, embittered sound—as she pushed the Tocsin from her.