His Grace — page 144: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

138 ‘HIS GRACE. made a fool of himself, said several things that he did not mean, had to confess that he had failed to see the logical outcome of his opinions, and was finally driven to appeal to one of the weaker sex for support. “Look here, Miss St. George,” said he, “I put it to you as a disinterested outsider: wasn’t I justified in expecting that a constituency which had always voted Liberal would go on voting Liberal even after one of our family had seen fit to turn his coat? Mind you I’m not saying that this, that, or the other measure ought to be carried; I only ask you whether it wasn’t fair to anticipate that the majority of the electors would stick to the old flag?” Miss St. George roused herself from a fit of abstrac- tion to say, “ Well, you see, I don’t quite know what the old flag was. Wasn’t it the Union Jack that Mr. Gascoigne kept on waving before their eyes?” This question, as it may have been intended to do, cast fresh fuel upon the flames, and the altercation which ensued certainly appeared to show that Hurst- bourne was one of those unpatriotic citizens who are prepared to lend their aid to the gradual disintegration of the Empire. Yet, though he got the worst of the encounter, he might, if he had cared to do so, have plumed himself upon the achievement of a success somewhat akin to that which I myself had accom- plished against Lady Deverell; for he had obviously made his cousin angry. It took a good deal to make Paul Gascoigne angry, and I don’t think that any amount of political heterodoxy on Hurstbourne’s part would have produced that effect upon him. Thus it became rather amusing to watch the demeanor of Miss St.-George, arbitra pugne, and to note the impar- Gomicboo cS (El) m