‘But do we not owe the grandeur of the country to the Tories?’ she said, with a lovely air of conviction.  ’Papa has told me how false the Whigs played the Duke in the Peninsula:  ruining his supplies, writing him down, declaring, all the time he was fighting his first hard battles, that his cause was hopeless—­that resistance to Napoleon was impossible.  The Duke never, never had loyal support but from the Tory Government.  The Whigs, papa says, absolutely preached submission to Napoleon!  The Whigs, I hear, were the Liberals of those days.  The two Pitts were Tories.  The greatness of England has been built up by the Tories.  I do and will defend them:  it is the fashion to decry them now.  They have the honour and safety of the country at heart.  They do not play disgracefully at reductions of taxes, as the Liberals do.  They have given us all our heroes.  Non fu mai gloria senza invidia.  They have done service enough to despise the envious mob.  They never condescend to supplicate brute force for aid to crush their opponents.  You feel in all they do that the instincts of gentlemen are active.’

Beauchamp bowed.

‘Do I speak too warmly?’ she asked.  ’Papa and I have talked over it often, and especially of late.  You will find him your delighted host and your inveterate opponent.’

‘And you?’

‘Just the same.  You will have to pardon me; I am a terrible foe.’

’I declare to you, Cecilia, I would prefer having you against me to having you indifferent.’

’I wish I had not to think it right that you should be beaten.  And now—­can you throw off political Nevil, and be sailor Nevil?  I distinguish between my old friend, and my . . .our . . .’

‘Dreadful antagonist?’

’Not so dreadful, except in the shock he gives us to find him in the opposite ranks.  I am grieved.  But we will finish our sail in peace.  I detest controversy.  I suppose, Nevil, you would have no such things as yachts? they are the enjoyments of the rich!’

He reminded her that she wished to finish her sail in peace; and he had to remind her of it more than once.  Her scattered resources for argumentation sprang up from various suggestions, such as the flight of yachts, mention of the shooting season, sight of a royal palace; and adopted a continually heightened satirical form, oddly intermixed with an undisguised affectionate friendliness.  Apparently she thought it possible to worry him out of his adhesion to the wrong side in politics.  She certainly had no conception of the nature of his political views, for one or two extreme propositions flung to him in jest, he swallowed with every sign of a perfect facility, as if the Radical had come to regard stupendous questions as morsels barely sufficient for his daily sustenance.  Cecilia reflected that he must be playing, and as it was not a subject for play she tacitly reproved him by letting him be the last to speak of it.  He may not have been susceptible to the delicate chastisement,