"N—o," said Rotha slowly, looking at him,—"I do not think it was."
"And you would fight me now, if I tried to make you do something you thought was wrong."
"Would I?" Rotha said. But her eyes' swift glance said more, which he alone got the benefit of; an innocent glance of such trust and love and such utter scorn of the suggested possibility, that Mr. Southwode did not for a minute or two know very well what he or anybody else was doing.
"We have wandered away from the question," said Mrs. Mowbray.
"What is the question?" he asked.
"Why, the veil! I believe in the value of symbols, for keeping up the ideas of the things symbolized. Don't you?"
"Unquestionably."
"Well—don't you propose, Mr. Southwode, to maintain the Biblical idea of subjection in your family?"
"As well without the veil as with it."
"I see!" said Mrs. Mowbray. "I shall have to succumb; and Rotha will have her own way. But I did want to see her in a veil. We have had a great deal of trouble over that dress, Rotha and I!"