“Well!” he said, “I, of whom you know all this as well as I do myself, I’ve been proud of your birth and your breeding, Paul, because it was all the grander of you to forget them for the cause. I’ve dwelt on these things in my mind. I’ve said, there’s the flower of them all, and he’s following after me! Look here! you’re not going to take it so dreadfully amiss if, after not hearing a word from you, after not knowing what you were going to do, seeing you suddenly opposite to me with your most aggravating look (and you can put on an aggravating look when you like, you know you can, and drive me wild,” Spears said with a deprecating, tender smile, putting his hand, caressingly, on the back of Paul’s chair)--“if I let out a bitter word, a lash of ill-temper against my will, you are not going to make that a quarrel between you and me.” The man’s large mobile features were working, his eyes shining out under their heavy brows. The generous soul in him was moved to its depth. He had, being “wild,” as he said, with sudden passion, accused Paul of having yielded to the seductions of his new rank--but in his heart he did not believe the accusation he had made. He trusted his young disciple with all the doting confidence of a woman. Of a woman! his daughter Janet, though she was a woman, and a young one, had no such enthusiasm of trust in her being. She would have scorned his weakness had she been by--very differently would Janet have dealt with a hesitating lover. But the demagogue had enthroned in his soul an ideal to which, perhaps, his very tenderest affections, the deepest sentiments he was capable of, had clung. He had fallen for the moment into that madness which works in the brain when we are wroth with those we love. And he did not know now how to make sufficient amends for it, how to open wide enough that window into his heart which showed the quivering and longing within. But he had said for the moment all he could say. And for a time there was silence in the little room. Fairfax, who understood him, turned away, and began to stare at a rude-coloured print on the wall in order to leave the others alone. He would himself have held out his hand before half this self-revelation had been made, and perhaps Spears would have but lightly appreciated that naïve response. But Paul was by no means ready to yield. He kept silence for what seemed to the interested spectator ten minutes at least. Then he said, slowly-- “I think it would be wise to inquire into the facts of the case before permitting yourself to use such language, Spears--even if you had not roused your rabble against me.” He said these strident words in the most forcible way, making the r’s roll.