He was not in the habit of talking to ladies; and what he did say was a little formal.  To Margaret herself he hardly spoke at all.  She was surprised to think how much she enjoyed this dinner.  She knew enough now to understand many local interests—­nay, even some of the technical words employed by the eager mill-owners.  She silently took a very decided part in the question they were discussing.  At any rate, they talked in desperate earnest,—­not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the old London parties.  She wondered that with all this dwelling on the manufactures and trade of the place, no allusion was made to the strike then pending.  She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by the masters, as having only one possible end.  To be sure, the men were cutting their own throats, as they had done many a time before; but if they would be fools, and put themselves into the hands of a rascally set of paid delegates,’ they must take the consequence.  One or two thought Thornton looked out of spirits; and, of course, he must lose by this turn-out.  But it was an accident that might happen to themselves any day; and Thornton was as good to manage a strike as any one; for he was as iron a chap as any in Milton.  The hands had mistaken their man in trying that dodge on him.  And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the workmen’s discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of what Thornton had decreed.  It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner.  She was glad when the gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father’s eye to brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been talking about.  She liked the exultation in the sense of power which these Milton men had.  It might be rather rampant in its display, and savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection of what had been achieved, and what yet should be.  If in her cooler moments she might not approve of their spirit in all things, still there was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present, in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future time which none of them should live to see.  She was rather startled when Mr. Thornton spoke to her, close at her elbow: 

’I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner,—­were you not, Miss Hale?’

’Certainly.  But then I know so little about it.  I was surprised, however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who thought in so diametrically opposite a manner, as the Mr. Morison he spoke about.  He cannot be a gentleman—­is he?’

’I am not quite the person to decide on another’s gentlemanliness, Miss Hale.  I mean, I don’t quite understand your application of the word.  But I should say that this Morison is no true man.  I don’t know who he is; I merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall’s account.’