 read an article so eloquent.
And what is the Conservative misdemeanour which the one man of honour in the
party is to pay for?«
    »I 'll talk to you about it by-and-by,« said Nevil.
    He seemed to Cecilia too trusting, too simple, considering his cousin's
undisguised tone of banter. Yet she could not put him on his guard. She would
have had Mr. Culbrett do so. She walked on the terrace with him near upon
sunset, and said, »The position Captain Beauchamp is in here is most unfair to
him.«
    »There 's nothing unfair in the lion's den,« said Stukely Culbrett; adding,
»Now, observe, Miss Halkett; he talks for effect. He discovers that Lespel is a
Torified Whig; but that does not make him a bit more alert. It 's to say smart
things. He speaks, but won't act, as if he were among enemies. He 's getting too
fond of his bow-wow. Here he is, and he knows the den, and he chooses to act the
innocent. You see how ridiculous? That trick of the ingénu, or peculiarly
heavenly messenger, who pretends that he ought never to have any harm done to
him, though he carries the lighted match, is the way of young Radicals.
Otherwise Beauchamp would be a dear boy. We shall see how he takes his
thrashing.«
    »You feel sure he will be beaten?«
    »He has too strong a dose of fool's honesty to succeed - stands for the game
laws with Radicals, for example. He 's loaded with scruples and crotchets, and
thinks more of them than of his winds and his tides. No public man is to be made
out of that. His idea of the Whigs being dead shows a head that can't read the
country. He means himself for mankind, and is preparing to be the benefactor of
a country parish.«
    »But as a naval officer?«
    »Excellent.«
    Cecilia was convinced that Mr. Culbrett underestimated Beauchamp.
Nevertheless the confidence expressed in Beauchamp's defeat reassured and
pleased her. At midnight she was dancing with him in the midst of great matronly
country vessels that raised a wind when they launched on the waltz, and exacted
an anxious pilotage on the part of gentlemen careful of their partners; and why
I cannot say, but contrasts produce quaint ideas in excited spirits, and a
dancing politician appeared to her so absurd that at one moment she had to bite
her
