ore. But the principle is always the same.' And mindful of
all those intolerable evenings, when these same Radical nostrums had
been forced down his throat at his own table, he threw a pugnacious look
at his wife, who smiled back serenely in reply. There is small redress
indeed for these things, when out of the common household stock the wife
possesses most of the money, and a vast proportion of the brains.

'And the cynic takes pleasure in observing,' interrupted the squire,
'that the man who effects the change of balance does it in the loftiest
manner, and profits in the vulgarest way. Other trades may fail. The
agitator is always sure of _his_ market.'

He spoke with a harsh contemptuous insistence which was gradually
setting every nerve in Robert's body tingling. He bent forward again,
his long thin frame and boyish bright-complexioned face making an
effective contrast to the squire's bronzed and wrinkled squareness.

'Oh, if you and Mr. Wynnstay are prepared to draw an indictment against
your generation and all its works, I have no more to say,' he said,
smiling still, though his voice had risen a little in spite of himself.
'I should be content to withdraw with my Burke into the majority. I
imagined your attack on enthusiasm had a narrower scope, but if it is to
be made synonymous with social progress I give up. The subject is too
big. Only----'

He hesitated. Mr. Wynnstay was studying him with somewhat insolent
coolness; Lady Charlotte's eyeglass never wavered from his face, and he
felt through every fibre the tender timid admonitions of his wife's
eyes.

'However,' he went on after an instant, 'I imagine that we should find
it difficult anyhow to discover common ground. I regard your
Archbishop's maxim, Mr. Wendover,' and his tone quickened and grew
louder, 'as first of all a contradiction in terms; and in the next
place, to me, almost all enthusiasms are respectable!'

'You are one of those people, I see,' returned Mr. Wendover, after a
pause, with the same nasal emphasis and the same _hauteur_, 'who imagine
we owe civilisation to the heart; that mankind has _felt_ its
way--literally. The school of the majority, of course--I admit it amply.
I, on the other hand, am with the benighted minority who believe that
the world, so far as it has lived to any purpose, has lived by the
_head_,' and he flung the noun at Robert scornfully. 'But I am quite
aware that in a world of claptrap the philosopher gets all the