'I'm not likely to confess, anyway, that it wasn't as bad as that!—But I will confess that I generally incline to hate my own side,—and to love my adversaries. English Liberals moreover hold the ridiculous opinion that the world is to be governed by intelligence. I couldn't have believed it of any sane men. When I discovered it, I left them. My foreign experience had given the lie to all that. And when I left them, the temptation to throw a paradox in their faces was irresistible.'
She said nothing, but her expression spoke for her.
'You think me mad?'
She turned aside—dumb—plucking at a root of cyclamen beside her.
'Insincere?'
'No. But you like to startle people—to make them talk about you!'
Her eyes were visible again; and he perceived at once her courage and her diffidence.
'Perhaps! English political life runs so smooth, that to throw in a stone and make a splash was amusing.'
'But was it fair?' she said, flushing.
'What do you mean?'