What had come to the young women of this generation! Their grandmothers cared for politics only so far as they advanced the fortunes of their lords--otherwise what was Hecuba to them, or they to Hecuba?
But these women have minds for the impersonal.

Diana was not talking to make an effect on Captain Roughsedge--that was the strange part of it.

Hundreds of women can make politics serve the primitive woman's game; the "come hither in the ee" can use that weapon as well as any other.

But here was an intellectual, a patriotic passion, veritable, genuine, not feigned.
Well!--the spectator admitted it--unwillingly--so long as the debater, the orator, were still desirable, still lovely.

She stole a glance at Captain Roughsedge.