"Well, why don't you say upset, you horrible old Orangeman," she retorted.
"I'm no Orangeman," he giggled at her. "I wouldn't own the name!"
"You are. You are. You say your prayers every night to King William and Carson!..."
"Ah, you're the tormenting wee tory, so you are! Here, take a hold of these oars and do something for your living!"
She had changed places with Uncle William, and John felt very proud of her as he observed the skilful way in which she handled the oars. Her strokes were clean and strong and deliberate. She did not thrust the oars too deeply into the water nor did she pull them, impotently along the surface nor did she lean too heavily on one oar so that the boat was drawn too much to one side or sent ungainly to this side and to that in an exhausting effort to keep a straight course. He lay back against his mother and regarded Eleanor out of half-shut eyes. She mystified him. Her timidity when he had first spoken to her had seemed to him then to be her chief characteristic and it had caused him to feel tenderly for her: he would be her protector. But she was not always timid. He had discovered courage in her and something uncommonly like obstinacy of mind. She uttered opinions which startled him, less because of the flimsy grounds on which they were built, than because of the queer chivalry that made her utter them. She defended the weak because they were weak, whereas he would have had her defend the truth because it was the truth. The attacked had her sympathy, whether they were in the right or in the wrong, and John demanded that sympathy should be given only to those who were in the right even if they happened also to be the stronger of the contestants. He had seen her behaving with extraordinary calmness at a time when he had been certain that she would show signs of hysteria, and while he was marvelling at her imperturbability, he had heard her screaming with fright at the sight of an ear-wig. He had rushed to her help, imagining that she was in terrible danger, and had found her trembling and shuddering because this pitiful insect had crawled on to her dressing-gown.... He had been very frightened when he heard her screaming to him for help, and he suffered so strange a reaction when he discovered that her trouble was trivial that he lost his temper. "Don't be such a fool," he said, putting his foot on the ear-wig. "You couldn't have made more noise if someone had been murdering you!"
"I hate ear-wigs!" she replied, still shuddering. "I hate all crawly things. Oh-h-h!"
And here was another aspect of her: her skill in doing things that required effort and thought. She handled a boat better than he could handle it. He was more astonished at this feat than he had been when he discovered that she had great skill in managing a house and in cooking food, for he assumed that all women were inspired by Almighty God with a genius for housekeeping and that only a deliberately sinful nature prevented a woman from serving her husband with an excellently-prepared dinner. In a vague way, he had imagined that Eleanor would need instruction in housekeeping, but that she would "soon pick it up." Any woman could "soon pick it up." His mother, he decided, would give tips to Eleanor while they were at Ballyards, and thereafter things would go very smoothly. He had determined that the flat at Hampstead which they had rented should be furnished according to his taste so that there should be no mistake about it; but when they began to choose furniture, he found that Eleanor had better judgment than he had, and he wisely deferred to her opinion. He was inclined, he discovered, to accept things which he disliked or did not want rather than take the trouble to get only the things he desired and appreciated; but Eleanor had no compunction in making a disinterested shop-assistant run about and fetch and carry until she had either obtained the thing for which she wished or was satisfied that it was not in the shop. John always had a sense of shame at leaving a shop without making a purchase when the assistant had been given much bother in their behalf; but Eleanor said that this was silliness. "That's what he's there for," she said of the shop-assistant. "I'm not going to buy things I don't want just because you're afraid of hurting his feelings!"
He began to feel, while they were furnishing their flat, that she knew her own mind at least as well as he knew his, and a fear haunted his thoughts that perhaps this adequacy of knowledge might bring trouble to them. Gradually he found himself consulting her as an equal, even accepting her advice, and seldom instructing her as one instructs a beloved pupil. When she required advice, she asked for it. At Ballyards, he had seen his mother quickening into zestful life because of Eleanor's desire to be informed of things. One evening he had come home from a visit to Mr. Cairnduff to find Eleanor seated on the high stool in the "Counting House" of the shop while Uncle William explained the working of the business to her.
"She's a great wee girl, that!" Uncle William said afterwards to John. "The great wee girl! You've done well for yourself marrying her, my son. She's a well-brought-up girl ... a girl with a family ... and that's more nor you could say for some of the women you might 'a' married. That Logan girl, now!..."
"I'd never have married her," John interrupted.