why they are decried is, that
it is too great a trouble for a lazy world to meet them. And, he said,
the reason why the honest factions agitate is because they encounter
sneers until they appear in force. If they were met earlier, and
fairly--I am only quoting him--they would not, I think he said, or would
hardly, or would not generally, fall into professional agitation.'

'Austin's a speculative Tory, I know; and that's his weakness,' observed
the colonel. 'But I'm certain you misunderstood him. He never would have
called us a lazy people.'

'Not in matters of business: in matters of thought.'

'My dear Cecilia! You've got hold of a language!... a way of speaking!
.... Who set you thinking on these things?'

'That I owe to Nevil Beauchamp!

Colonel Halkett indulged in a turn or two up and down the room. He threw
open a window, sniffed the moist air, and went to his daughter to speak
to her resolutely.

'Between a Radical and a Tory, I don't know where your head has been
whirled to, my dear. Your heart seems to be gone: more sorrow for us!
And for Nevil Beauchamp to be pretending to love you while carrying on
with this Frenchwoman!'

'He has never said that he loved me.'

The splendour of her beauty in humility flashed on her father, and he
cried out: 'You are too good for any man on earth! We won't talk in the
dark, my darling. You tell me he has never, as they say, made love to
you?'

'Never, papa.'

'Well, that proves the French story. At any rate, he 's a man of honour.
But you love him?'

'The French story is untrue, papa.'

Cecilia stood in a blush like the burning cloud of the sunset.'

'Tell me frankly: I'm your father, your old dada, your friend, my dear
girl! do you think the man cares for you, loves you?'

She replied: 'I know, papa, the French story is untrue.'

'But when I tell you, silly woman, he confessed it to me out of his own
mouth!'

'It is not true now.'

'It's not going on, you mean? How do you know?'

'I know.'

'Has he been swearing it?'

'He has not spoken of it to me.'

'Here I am in a woman's web!' cried the colonel. 'Is it your instinct
tells you it's not true? or what? what? You have not denied that you
love the man.'

'I know he is not immoral.'

'There you shoot again! Haven't you a yes or a no for your father?'

Cecilia cast her arms round his neck, and sobbed.

She could not bring it to her lips to say (she would have shunned the
hearing) that her defe