III
She listened to him, however, while he told her about the inquest he had that day attended. She had volunteered an inquiry, and when he said in mild surprise, “My dear, it never occurred to me to mention it, because I know you don’t care much for the factory,” she replied, “You may as well tell me,” thinking how little discrimination he showed between the things that might interest her and those that could not possibly be expected to do so, “Emma said something about it while I was dressing.” “Gossip, of course,” he said, restrained but displeased, and she shrugged and murmured, “Prig....”
In the end he told her, though without enthusiasm; and the story stirred the rather stagnant pool of her curiosity. One or two of his phrases, pronounced meditatively, had put her on the scent of something unusual, something that might while away a portion of the dreary time, though calling for very little effort on her part,—she could not endure the idea of effort. “He speaks like an educated man,” her husband had said of the blind factory-hand, “or a great deal better than most educated men speak, and I believe he is entirely self-taught. It appears that he has a hunger for books.... And a born speaker, like some of those ranting parsons one hears sometimes talking to a crowd from a tub. All the makings of a demagogue. I should like to assist at one of his performances at the debating society; Calthorpe gives me to understand that they’re remarkable. He’s full of ideas—Utopian mostly—exposes them ably, works them out in both scope and detail, convinces his audience, or at any rate stirs them—and then demolishes the whole fabric—out of pure devilry. I wonder what the fellow’s mind is like inside? A black business, I should fancy!”
“I have heard of him before,” said Lady Malleson.
“I dare say he is merely a disgruntled Socialist,” said Malleson, who was already ashamed of having been led away into such speculative wordiness.