He went up to her again, and touched her arm.
"You and I couldn't have this kind of scene, Letty, could we, if everything was all right?"
Her breast rose and fell hurriedly.
"Oh! I supposed you would want to retaliate—to complain on your side!"
"Yes," he said deliberately, "I think I do want to complain. Why is it that—I began to like going down to see Lady Maxwell—why did I like talking to her at Castle Luton? Well! of course it's pleasant to be with a beautiful person—I don't deny that in the least. But she might have been as beautiful as an angel, and I mightn't have cared twopence about her. She has something much less common than beauty. It's very simple, too—I suppose it's only sympathy—just that. Everybody feels the same. When you talk to her she seems to care about it; she throws her mind into yours. And there's a charm about it—there's no doubt of that."
He had begun his little speech meaning to be perfectly frank and honest—to appeal to her better nature and his own. But something stopped him abruptly, perhaps the sudden perception that he was after playing the hypocrite—perhaps the consciousness that he was only making matters worse.
"It's a pity you didn't say all these things before," she said, with a hard laugh, "instead of denouncing the political woman, as you used to do."
He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her, balancing lightly, with his hands in his pockets.
"Did I denounce the political woman? Well, the Lord knows I'm not in love with her now! It isn't politics, my dear, that are attaching—it's the kind of human being. Ah! well, don't let's talk of it. Let's go back to that point of sympathy. There's more in it than I used to think. Suppose, for instance, you were to try and take a little more interest in my political work than you do? Suppose you were to try and see money matters from my point of view, instead of driving us"—he paused a moment, then went on coolly, lifting his thin, long-chinned face to her as she stood quivering beside him—"driving us into expenses that will, sooner or later, be the ruin of us—that rob us, too, of self-respect. Suppose you were to take a little more account, also, of my taste in people? I am afraid I don't like Harding, though he is your cousin, and I don't certainly see why he should furnish our drawing-rooms and empty our purse for us as he has been doing. Then, as to Lord Cathedine, I'm really not over-particular, but when I hear that fellow's in the house, my impulse is to catch the nearest hansom and drive away from it. I heard him speak to his wife to-night in a way for which he ought to be kicked down Oxford Street—and, in general, I should say that it takes the shine off a person to be much seen with Cathedine."
The calm attitude—the voice, just a shade interrogative, exasperated
Letty still more. She, too, sat down, her cheeks flaming.