Rose's lip curled a little. 'And Robert,' she cried, bending forward as though something had just occurred to her, 'do tell me—I vowed I would ask—is Mr. Langham a Liberal or a Conservative? He doesn't know!'
Robert laughed, so did Langham.
'Your sister,' he said, flushing, 'will have one so very precise in all one says.'
He turned his handsome olive face towards her, an unwonted spark of animation lighting up his black eyes. It was evident that he felt himself persecuted, but it was not so evident whether he enjoyed the process or disliked it.
'Oh dear, no!' said Rose nonchalantly. 'Only I have just come from a house where everybody either loathes Mr. Gladstone or would die for him to-morrow. There was a girl of seven and a boy of nine who were always discussing "Coercion" in the corners of the schoolroom. So, of course, I have grown political too, and began to catechise Mr. Langham at once, and when he said "he didn't know," I felt I should like to set those children at him! They would soon put some principles into him!'
'It is not generally lack of principle, Miss Rose,' said her brother-in-law, 'that turns a man a doubter in politics, but too much!'
And while he spoke, his eyes resting on Langham, his smile broadened as he recalled all those instances in their Oxford past, when he had taken a humble share in one of the herculean efforts on the part of Langham's friends, which were always necessary whenever it was a question of screwing a vote out of him on any debated University question.
'How dull it must be to have too much principle!' cried Rose. 'Like a mill choked with corn. No bread because the machine can't work!'
'Defend me from my friends!' cried Langham, roused. 'Elsmere, when did I give you a right to caricature me in this way? If I were interested,' he added, subsiding into his usual hesitating ineffectiveness, 'I suppose I should know my own mind.'
And then seizing the muffins, he stood presenting them to Rose as though in deprecation of any further personalities. Inside him there was a hot protest against an unreasonable young beauty whom he had done his miserable best to entertain for two long hours, and who in return had made him feel himself more of a fool than he had done for years. Since when had young women put on all these airs? In his young days they knew their place.