"She says it will take a great deal of precious time. She thinks that your razor would be better applied to my head."
"Than to what other object?"
"Than to its legitimate use and application. She wants me to get you to let your beard grow, and to cut off my hair. 'It's unekal'—as Sam Weller says."
Eleanor was laughing; she could not see Mr. Rhys's face very well; it was somewhat bent over his papers; but the side view was of unprovokable gravity. A gravity however which she had learned to know covered a wealth of amusement or of mischief, as the case might be. She knelt down to bring herself within better speaking and seeing distance.
"Rowland, what sort of people are your coadjutors?"
"They are the Lord's people," he answered.
Eleanor felt somewhat checked; the gravity of this answer was of a different character; but she could not refrain from carrying the matter further; she could not let it rest there.
"Do you mean," she said a little timidly, but persistently, "that you are not willing to speak of them as they are, to me?"
He was quite silent half a minute, and Eleanor grew increasingly sober.
He said then, gently but decidedly,
"There are two persons in the field, of whose faults I am willing to talk to you; yours and my own."