Lady Strife did not speak, but her eyes were wide open. As for Sir Gambier, an unheard-of thing happened—he became sarcastic.
"Oh, you liked him, did you? Found him a nice-mannered young fellow?—well-informed? I didn't know you were interested in the inner life of his Majesty's prisons."
"Father!" cried Tony sharply.
"Now, listen to me, dear," said her mother; "you are very young, and consequently very inexperienced. A grown-up person would at once have realised that this man's friendship for you could not be disinterested."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that he's not the type of man who would naturally want to be the friend of a young and innocent girl like you. He must have had some ulterior motive in seeking your friendship. You have possibly seen no signs of that so far, but it would have been plain enough later."
"I don't believe it."
"Hush, dear. Your impertinence disconcerts me. I am trying to view the matter from the standpoint of pure thought, and how am I to do that if you keep on rudely interrupting me and dragging me down into the surge of human annoyance? You must take it from those older and more experienced than yourself that this man's motives in seeking your friendship could not have been disinterested. Besides, even suppose for the sake of argument that they were, don't you think you've been acting most disloyally to your father and me in associating with a man you know we disapprove of?"
"Mother, I've told you I'd no idea who he really was. Why, I thought the other man was Furlonger. Besides, I didn't know you disapproved of him. When all the others were letting fly at him, you said something about his having a beautiful soul and sinning more divinely than many people pray."
There is nothing more irritating to the Magus than to have his early philosophies cast in his teeth by some one with a better memory than his own. Lady Strife descended deep into the surge of human annoyance.