Then, suddenly conscious of his host's critical scrutiny, he felt an impulse of shame, felt that his contempt for the man had in it something almost snobbish.

He leaned forward and did his best.

Miller had been a school-board teacher, an exhibitioner at college, and was possessed of a singular though limited intelligence.
He could deal adequately with any one problem presented by itself and affected only by local conditions, yet the more Tallente talked with him, the more he realised his lack of breadth, his curious weakness of judgment when called upon to consider questions dependent upon varying considerations.

As to the right or wrong wording of a clause in the Factory Amendment Act, he could be lucid, explanatory and convincing; as to the justice of the same clause when compared with other forms of legislation, he was vague and unconvincing, didactic and prejudiced.

If Dartrey's object had been to bring these two men into closer understanding of each other, he was certainly succeeding.