o
got up after me?"

His tone annoyed her. Then suddenly the name suggested to her a
recollection that brought a frown.

"That was the man, then, you attacked in the _Clarion_ this morning!"

"Ah! you read me!" said Wharton, with sudden pleasure. "Yes--that opened
the campaign. As you know, of course, Craven has gone down, and the
strike begins next week. Soon we shall bring two batteries to bear, he
letting fly as correspondent, and I from the office. I enjoyed writing
that article."

"So I should think," she said drily; "all I know is, it made _one_
reader passionately certain that there was another side to the matter!
There may not be. I dare say there isn't; but on me at least that was
the effect. Why is it"--she broke out with vehemence--"that not a single
Labour paper is ever capable of the simplest justice to an opponent?"

"You think any other sort of paper is any better?" he asked her
scornfully.

"I dare say not. But that doesn't matter to me! it is _we_ who talk of
justice, of respect, and sympathy from man to man, and then we go and
blacken the men who don't agree with us--whole classes, that is to say,
of our fellow-countrymen, not in the old honest slashing style,
Tartuffes that we are!--but with all the delicate methods of a new art
of slander, pursued almost for its own sake. We know so much
better--always--than our opponents, we hardly condescend even to be
angry. One is only 'sorry'--'obliged to punish'--like the priggish
governess of one's childhood!"

In spite of himself, Wharton flushed.

"My best thanks!" he said. "Anything more? I prefer to take my drubbing
all at once."

She looked at him steadily.

"Why did you write, or allow that article on the West Brookshire
landlords two days ago?"

Wharton started.

"Well! wasn't it true?"

"No!" she said with a curling lip; "and I think you know it wasn't
true."

"What! as to the Raeburns? Upon my word, I should have imagined," he
said slowly, "that it represented your views at one time with tolerable
accuracy."

Her nerve suddenly deserted her. She bent over the parapet, and, taking
up a tiny stone that lay near, she threw it unsteadily into the river.
He saw the hand shake.

"Look here," he said, turning round so that he too leant over the river,
his arms on the parapet, his voice close to her ear. "Are you always
going to quarrel with me like this? Don't you know that there is no one
in the world I would sooner please if I could