"I shall get away as soon as I can," he thought, "and I shall say a word to the Doctor."
He was called from his meditations by Miss Fane. She sat in a low chair with her feet on a stool, and now, tilting the chair back, she fixed her eyes on Mr. Delane, and asked:
No man likes to admit that he is shocked.
"I suppose you don't like meeting those men?"
"Hedger is an honest man in his way of life. I have no great opinion of Johnstone."
"All the houses about here are yours, aren't they?"
The question was put so simply that Mr. Delane could not suspect a sarcastic intent.
"Fancy asking her father! I think Janet a beauty."
"Oh, that'll do. Dale will like her;" and Miss Fane nodded reassuringly. Mr. Delane had not the heart to intimate his indifference to Dale Bannister's opinion of his daughter.
"Do you know this country?" he asked, by way of conversation.
"We've only been here a week, but we've ridden a good deal. We hold Dale on, you know."
Mr. Delane could not help wondering whether their presence was such a matter of course as her tone implied, but before he could probe the matter further, he heard Dale exclaim:
"Oh, it's a wretched thing! Read it yourself, Roberts."
"Mount him on the rostrum," cried the young man who had been presented to Mr. Delane as Arthur Angell, and who had hitherto been engaged in an animated discussion with the Doctor.
Laughing, and only half resisting, the Doctor allowing himself to be hoisted on to the billiard-table, sat down, and announced in a loud voice:
The poem which bore this alarming title was perhaps the most outrageous of the author's works. It held up to ridicule and devoted to damnation every person and every institution which the Squire respected and worshiped. And the misguided young man declaimed it with sparkling eyes and emphasizing gestures, as though every wicked word of it were gospel. And to this man's charge were committed the wives and families of the citizens of Denborough! The Squire's self-respect demanded a protest. He rose with dignity, and went up to his host.
"What? you're not going yet? What? Does this stuff bore you?"
"It does not bore me. But I must add--excuse an old-fashioned fellow--that it does something worse."
"What? Oh, you're on the other side? Of course you are!"