Yet all the time he said to himself, with inward amusement, that he must take care! They had not talked directly of the Bill at dinner, but they had talked round and about it incessantly. It was clear that the Maxwells were personally very anxious; and George knew well that the public position of the Ministry was daily becoming more difficult. There had been a marked cooling on the subject of the Bill among their own supporters; one or two London members originally pledged to it were even believed to be wavering; and this campaign lately started by Fontenoy and Watton against two of the leading clauses of the measure, in a London "daily," bought for the purpose, had been so far extremely damaging. The situation was threatening indeed, and Maxwell might well look harassed. Yet Tressady had detected no bitterness in Lady Maxwell's mood. Her temper rather seemed to him very strenuous, very eager, and a little sad. Altogether, he had been touched, he knew not exactly why, by his conversation with her. "We are going to win," he said to himself, "and she knows it." Yet to think thus gave him, for the first time, no particular pleasure. As they strolled along they talked a little of some of the topics that had been started at dinner, topics semi-political and semi-social, till suddenly Lady Maxwell said, with a change of voice: "I heard some of your conversation with Sir Philip just now. How differently you talk when you talk of India!" "I wonder what that means," said George, smiling. "It means, at any rate, that when I am not talking of India, but of English labour, or the poor, you think I talk like a brute." "I shouldn't put it like that," she said quietly. "But when you talk of India, and people like the Lawrences or Lord Dalhousie, then it is that one sees what you really admire--what stirs you--what makes you feel." "Well, ought I not to feel? Is there to be no gratitude towards the people that have made one's country?" He looked down, upon her gaily, perfectly conscious of his own tickled vanity. To be observed and analysed by such a critic was in itself flattery. "That have made one's country?" she repeated, not without a touch of irony. Then suddenly she became silent. George thrust his hands into his pockets and waited a little. "Well?" he said presently. "Well? I am waiting to hear you prove that the Dalhousies and the Lawrences have done nothing for the country, compared to--what shall we say?--some trade-union secretary whom you particularly admire."