(Olive of course held that
home-culture was perfectly compatible with the widest emancipation.) It
was with a perfectly good conscience that Verena complied with Basil
Ransom's request; but it took her quick sensibility only a moment to
discover that her friend was not pleased. She scarcely knew what had
ruffled her, but at the same instant there passed before her the vision
of the anxieties (of this sudden, unexplained sort, for instance, and
much worse) which intimate relations with Miss Chancellor might entail.
"Now, I want you to tell me this," Basil Ransom said, leaning forward
towards Verena, with his hands on his knees, and completely oblivious to
his hostess. "Do you really believe all that pretty moonshine you talked
last night? I could have listened to you for another hour; but I never
heard such monstrous sentiments, I must protest--I must, as a
calumniated, misrepresented man. Confess you meant it as a kind of
_reductio ad absurdum_--a satire on Mrs. Farrinder?" He spoke in a tone
of the freest pleasantry, with his familiar, friendly Southern cadence.
Verena looked at him with eyes that grew large. "Why, you don't mean to
say you don't believe in our cause?"
"Oh, it won't do--it won't do!" Ransom went on, laughing.
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