CHAPTER III.
Aldous advanced into the inner hall at sight of Marcella, leaving hiscompanions behind in the vestibule taking off their coats. Marcella ranto him.
"Papa is ill!" she said to him hastily. "Mamma has sent for Dr. Clarke.She won't let me go up, and wants us to take no notice and have teawithout her."
"I am so sorry! Can we do anything? The dogcart is here with a fasthorse. If your messenger went on foot--"
"Oh, no! they are sure to have sent the boy on the pony. I don't knowwhy, but I have had a presentiment for a long time past that papa wasgoing to be ill."
She looked white and excited. She had turned back to the drawing-room,forgetting the other guests, he walking beside her. As they passed alongthe dim hall, Aldous had her hand close in his, and when they passedunder an archway at the further end he stooped suddenly in the shadowsand kissed the hand. Touch--kiss--had the clinging, the intensity ofpassion.
They were the expression of all that had lain vibrating at the man'sinmost heart during the dark drive, while he had been chatting with histwo companions.
"My darling! I hope not. Would you rather not see strangers? Shall Isend Hallin and young Leven away? They would understand at once."
"Oh, no! Mr. Wharton is here anyway--staying. Where is Mr. Hallin? Ihad forgotten him."
Aldous turned and called. Mr. Hallin and young Frank Leven, diviningsomething unusual, were looking at the pictures in the hall.
Edward Hallin came up and took Marcella's offered hand. Each looked atthe other with a special attention and interest. "She holds my friend'slife in her hands--is she worthy of it?" was naturally the questionhanging suspended in the man's judgment. The girl's manner was proud andshy, the manner of one anxious to please, yet already, perhaps, on thedefensive.
Aldous explained the position of affairs, and Hallin expressed hissympathy. He had a singularly attractive voice, the voice indeed of theorator, which can adapt itself with equal charm and strength to the mostvarious needs and to any pitch. As he spoke, Marcella was conscious of asudden impression that she already knew him and could be herself withhim at once.
"Oh, I say," broke in young Leven, who was standing behind; "don't yoube bothered with us, Miss Boyce. Just send us back at once. I'm awfullysorry!"
"No; you are to come in!" she said, smiling through her pallor, whichwas beginning to pass away, and putting out her hand to him--the youngEton and Oxford athlete, just home for his Christmas vacation, was agreat favourite with her--"You must come and have tea and cheer me up bytelling me all the things you have killed this week. Is there anythingleft alive? You had come down to the fieldfares, you know, lastTuesday."
He followed her, laughing and protesting, and she led the way to thedrawing-room. But as her fingers were on the handle she once more caughtsight of the maid, Deacon, standing on the stairs, and ran to speak toher.
"He is better," she said, coming back with a face of glad relief. "Theattack seems to be passing off. Mamma can't come down, but she begs thatwe will all enjoy ourselves."
"We'll endeavour," said young Leven, rubbing his hands, "by the help oftea. Miss Boyce, will you please tell Aldous and Mr. Hallin not to talkpolitics when they're taking me out to a party. They should fight a manof their own size. I'm all limp and trampled on, and want you to protectme."
The group moved, laughing and talking, into the drawing-room.
"Jiminy!" said Leven, stopping short behind Aldous, who was aloneconscious of the lad's indignant astonishment; "what the deuce is _he_doing here?"
For there on the rug, with his back to the fire, stood Wharton,surveying the party with his usual smiling _aplomb_.
"Mr. Hallin, do you know Mr. Wharton?" said Marcella.
"Mr. Wharton and I have met several times on public platforms," saidHallin, holding out his hand, which Wharton took with effusion. Aldousgreeted him with the impassive manner, the "three finger" manner, whichwas with him an inheritance--though not from his grandfather--and didnot contribute to his popularity in the neighbourhood. As for youngLeven, he barely nodded to the Radical candidate, and threw himself intoa chair as far from the fire as possible.
"Frank and I have met before to-day!" said Wharton, laughing.
"Yes, I've been trying to undo some of your mischief," said the boy,bluntly. "I found him, Miss Boyce, haranguing a lot of men at thedinner-hour at Tudley End--one of our villages, you know--cramming themlike anything--all about the game laws, and our misdeeds--my father's,of course."
Wharton raised a protesting hand.
"Oh--all very well! Of course it was us you meant! Well, when he'ddriven off, I got up on a cart and had _my_ say. I asked them whetherthey didn't all come out at our big shoots, and whether they didn't havealmost as much fun as we did--why! the schoolmaster and the postman cometo ask to carry cartridges, and everybody turns out, down to thecripples!--whether they didn't have rabbits given them all the yearround; whether half of them hadn't brothers and sons employed somehowabout the game, well-paid, and well-treated; whether any man-jack ofthem would be a ha'porth better off if there were no game; whether manyof them wouldn't be worse off; and whether England wouldn't be a beastlydull place to live in, if people like him"--he pointed to Wharton--"hadthe governing of it! And I brought 'em all round too. I got themcheering and laughing. Oh! I can tell you old Dodgson'll have to takeme on. He says he'll ask me to speak for him at several places. I'm nothalf bad, I declare I'm not."
"I thought they gave you a holiday task at Eton," observed Wharton,blandly.
The lad coloured hotly, then bethought himself--radiant:--
"I left Eton last half, as of course you know quite well. But if it hadonly been last Christmas instead of this, wouldn't I have scored--byJove! They gave us a beastly _essay_ instead of a book. _Demagogues_!' Isat up all night, and screwed out a page and a half. I'd have knownsomething about it _now_."
And as he stood beside the tea-table, waiting for Marcella to entrustsome tea to him for distribution, he turned and made a profound bow tohis candidate cousin.
Everybody joined in the laugh, led by Wharton. Then there was a generaldrawing up of chairs, and Marcella applied herself to making tea, helpedby Aldous. Wharton alone remained standing before the fire, observantand apart.
Hallin, whose health at this moment made all exertion, even a drive,something of a burden, sat a little away from the tea-table, resting,and glad to be silent. Yet all the time he was observing the girlpresiding and the man beside her--his friend, her lover. The moment hada peculiar, perhaps a melancholy interest for him. So close had been thebond between himself and Aldous, that the lover's communication of hisengagement had evoked in the friend that sense--poignant,inevitable--which in the realm of the affections always waits onsomething done and finished,--a leaf turned, a chapter closed. "That sadword, Joy!" Hallin was alone and ill when Raeburn's letter reached him,and through the following day and night he was haunted by Landor'sphrase, long familiar and significant to him. His letter to his friend,and the letter to Miss Boyce for which Raeburn had asked him, had costhim an invalid's contribution of sleep and ease. The girl's answer hadseemed to him constrained and young, though touched here and there witha certain fineness and largeness of phrase, which, if it was to be takenas an index of character, no doubt threw light upon the matter so far asAldous was concerned.
Her beauty, of which he had heard much, now that he was face to facewith it, was certainly striking enough--all the more because of itsimmaturity, the subtlety and uncertainty of its promise._Immaturity_--_uncertainty_--these words returned upon him as heobserved her manner with its occasional awkwardness, the awkwardnesswhich goes with power not yet fully explored or mastered by itspossessor. How Aldous hung upon her, following every movement,anticipating every want! After a while Hallin found himselfhalf-inclined to Mr. Boyce's view, that men of Raeburn's type are neverseen to advantage in this stage--this queer topsy-turvy stage--of firstpassion. He felt a certain impatience, a certain jealousy for hisfriend's dign
ity. It seemed to him too, every now and then, thatshe--the girl--was teased by all this absorption, this deference. He wasconscious of watching for something in her that did not appear; and afirst prescience of things anxious or untoward stirred in his quicksense.
"You may all say what you like," said Marcella, suddenly, putting downher cup, and letting her hand drop for emphasis on her knee; "but youwill never persuade me that game-preserving doesn't make life in thecountry much more difficult, and the difference between classes muchwider and bitterer, than they need be."
The remark cut across some rattling talk of Frank Leven's, who was inthe first flush of the sportsman's ardour, and, though by no meanswithout parts, could at the present moment apply his mind to little elsethan killing of one kind or another, unless it were to the chances ofkeeping his odious cousin out of Parliament.
Leven stared. Miss Boyce's speech seemed to him to have no sort of _apropos_. Aldous looked down upon her as he stood beside her, smiling.
"I wish you didn't trouble yourself so much about it," he said.
"How can I help it?" she answered quickly; and then flushed, like onewho has drawn attention indiscreetly to their own personal situation.
"Trouble herself!" echoed young Leven. "Now, look here Miss Boyce, willyou come for a walk with me? I'll convince you, as I convinced thosefellows over there. I know I could, and you won't give me the chance;it's too bad."
"Oh, you!" she said, with a little shrug; "what do you know about it?One might as well consult a gambler about gambling when he is in themiddle of his first rush of luck. I have ten times more right to anopinion than you have. I can keep my head cool, and notice a hundredthings that _you_ would never see. I come fresh into your country life,and the first thing that strikes me is that the whole machinery of lawand order seems to exist for nothing in the world but to protect yourpheasants! There are policemen--to catch poachers; there aremagistrates--to try them. To judge from the newspapers, at least, theyhave nothing else to do. And if _you_ follow your sporting instincts,you are a very fine fellow, and everybody admires you. But if ashoemaker's son in Mellor follows his, he is a villain and a thief, andthe policeman and the magistrate make for him at once."
"But I don't steal his chickens!" cried the lad, choking with argumentsand exasperation; "and why should he steal my pheasants? I paid for theeggs, I paid for the hens to sit on 'em, I paid for the coops to rearthem in, I paid the men to watch them, I paid for the barley to feedthem with: why is he to be allowed to take my property, and I am to besent to jail if I take his?"
"_Property_!" said Marcella, scornfully. "You can't settle everythingnowadays by that big word. We are coming to put the public good beforeproperty. If the nation should decide to curtail your 'right,' as youcall it, in the general interest, it will do it, and you will be left toscream."
She had flung her arm round the back of her chair, and all her litheyoung frame was tense with an eagerness, nay, an excitement, which drewHallin's attention. It was more than was warranted by the conversation,he thought.
"Well, if you think the abolition of game preserving would be popular inthe country, Miss Boyce, I'm certain you make a precious mistake," criedLeven. "Why, even you don't think it would be, do you, Mr. Hallin?" hesaid, appealing at random in his disgust.
"I don't know," said Hallin, with his quiet smile. "I rather think, onthe whole, it would be. The farmers put up with it, but a great many ofthem don't like it. Things are mended since the Ground Game Act, butthere are a good many grievances still left."
"I should think there are!" said Marcella, eagerly, bending forward tohim. "I was talking to one of our farmers the other day whose land goesup to the edge of Lord Winterbourne's woods. '_They_ don't keep theirpheasants, miss,' he said. '_I_ do. I and my corn. If I didn't send aman up half-past five in the morning, when the ears begin to fill,there'd be nothing left for _us_.' 'Why don't you complain to theagent?' I said. 'Complain! Lor' bless you, miss, you may complain tillyou're black in the face. I've allus found--an' I've been here, man andboy, thirty-two year--as how _Winterbournes generally best it.'_ Thereyou have the whole thing in a nutshell. It's a tyranny--a tyranny of therich."
Flushed and sarcastic, she looked at Frank Leven; but Hallin had anuncomfortable feeling that the sarcasm was not all meant for him. Aldouswas sitting with his hands on his knees, and his head bent forward alittle. Once, as the talk ran on, Hallin saw him raise his grey eyes tothe girl beside him, who certainly did not notice it, and was notthinking of him. There was a curious pain and perplexity in theexpression, but something else too--a hunger, a dependence, a yearning,that for an instant gripped the friend's heart.
"Well, I know Aldous doesn't agree with you, Miss Boyce," cried Leven,looking about him in his indignation for some argument that should befinal. "You don't, do you, Aldous? You don't think the country would bethe better, if we could do away with game to-morrow?"
"No more than I think it would be the better," said Aldous, quietly, "ifwe could do away with gold-plate and false hair to-morrow. There wouldbe too many hungry goldsmiths and wig-makers on the streets."
Marcella turned to him, half defiant, half softened.
"Of course, your point lies in _to-morrow,"_ she said. "I accept that.We can't carry reform by starving innocent people. But the question is,what are we to work towards? Mayn't we regard the game laws as one ofthe obvious crying abuses to be attacked first--in the greatcampaign!--the campaign which is to bring liberty and self-respect backto the country districts, and make the labourer feel himself as much ofa man as the squire?"
"What a head! What an attitude!" thought Hallin, half repelled, halffascinated. "But a girl that can talk politics--hostile politics--to herlover, and mean them too--or am I inexperienced?--and is it merely thatshe is so much interested in him that she wants to be quarrelling withhim?"
Aldous looked up. "I am not _sure_," he said, answering her. "That isalways my difficulty, you know," and he smiled at her. "Game preservingis not to me personally an attractive form of private property, but itseems to me bound up with other forms, and I want to see where theattack is going to lead me. But I would protect your farmer--mind!--aszealously as you."
Hallin caught the impatient quiver of the girl's lip. The tea had justbeen taken away, and Marcella had gone to sit upon an old sofa near thefire, whither Aldous had followed her. Wharton, who had so far saidnothing, had left his post of observation on the hearth-rug, and wassitting under the lamp balancing a paper-knife with great attention ontwo fingers. In the half light Hallin by chance saw a movement ofRaeburn's hand towards Marcella's, which lay hidden among the folds ofher dress--quick resistance on her part, then acquiescence. He felt asudden pleasure in his friend's small triumph.
"Aldous and I have worn these things threadbare many a time," he said,addressing his hostess. "You don't know how kind he is to my dreams. Iam no sportsman and have no landowning relations, so he ought to bid mehold my tongue. But he lets me rave. To me the simple fact is that _gamepreserving creates crime_. Agricultural life is naturally simpler--mightbe, it always seems to me, so much more easily moralised and fraternisedthan the industrial form. And you split it up and poison it all by theemphasis laid on this class pleasure. It is a natural pleasure, you say.Perhaps it is--the survival, perhaps, of some primitive instinct in ournorthern blood--but, if so, why should it be impossible for the rich toshare it with the poor? I have little plans--dreams. I throw them outsometimes to catch Aldous, but he hardly rises to them!"
"Oh! I _say_," broke in Frank Leven, who could really bear it no longer."Now look here, Miss Boyce,--what do you think Mr. Hallin wants? It isjust sheer lunacy--it really is--though I know I'm impertinent, and he'sa great man. But I do declare he wants Aldous to give up a big commonthere is--oh! over beyond Girtstone, down in the plain--on LordMaxwell's estate, and make a _labourers'_ shoot of it! Now, I ask you!And he vows he doesn't see why they shouldn't rear pheasants if theychoose to club and pay for it. Well, I will say that much for him,Aldous di
dn't see his way to _that_, though he isn't the kind ofConservative _I_ want to see in Parliament by a long way. Besides, it'ssuch stuff! They say sport brutalises _us_, and then they want to go andcontaminate the labourer. But we won't take the responsibility. We'vegot our own vices, and we'll stick to them; we're used to them; but wewon't hand them on: we'd scorn the action."
The flushed young barbarian, driven to bay, was not to be resisted.Marcella laughed heartily, and Hallin laid an affectionate hand on theboy's shoulder, patting him as though he were a restive horse.
"Yes, I remember I was puzzled as to the details of Hallin's scheme,"said Aldous, his mouth twitching. "I wanted to know who was to pay forthe licences; how game enough for the number of applicants was to begot without preserving; and how men earning twelve or fourteen shillingsa week were to pay a keeper. Then I asked a clergyman who has a livingnear this common what he thought would be the end of it. 'Well,' hesaid, 'the first day they'd shoot every animal on the place; the secondday they'd shoot each other. Universal carnage--I should say that wouldbe about the end of it.' These were trifles, of course--details."
Hallin shook his head serenely.
"I still maintain," he said, "that a little practical ingenuity mighthave found a way."
"And I will support you," said Wharton, laying down the paper-knife andbending over to Hallin, "with good reason. For three years and a fewmonths just such an idea as you describe has been carried out on my ownestate, and it has not worked badly at all."
"There!" cried Marcella. "There! I knew something could be done, ifthere was a will. I have always felt it."
She half turned to Aldous, then bent forward instead as though listeningeagerly for what more Wharton might say, her face all alive, andeloquent.
"Of course, there was nothing to shoot!" exclaimed Frank Leven.
"On the contrary," said Wharton, smiling, "we are in the middle of afamous partridge country."
"How your neighbours must dote on you!" cried the boy. But Wharton tookno notice.
"And my father preserved strictly," he went on. "It is quite a simplestory. When I inherited, three years ago, I thought the whole thingdetestable, and determined I wouldn't be responsible for keeping it up.So I called the estate together--farmers and labourers--and we workedout a plan. There are keepers, but they are the estate servants, notmine. Everybody has his turn according to the rules--I and my friendsalong with the rest. Not everybody can shoot every year, but everybodygets his chance, and, moreover, a certain percentage of all the gamekilled is public property, and is distributed every year according to aregular order."
"Who pays the keepers?" interrupted Leven.
"I do," said Wharton, smiling again. "Mayn't I--for the present--do whatI will with mine own? I return in their wages some of my ill-gottengains as a landowner. It is all makeshift, of course."
"I understand!" exclaimed Marcella, nodding to him--"you could not be aVenturist and keep up game-preserving?"
Wharton met her bright eye with a half deprecating, reserved air.
"You are right, of course," he said drily. "For a Socialist to beletting his keepers run in a man earning twelve shillings a week forknocking over a rabbit would have been a little strong. No one can beconsistent in my position--in any landowner's position--it isimpossible; still, thank Heaven, one can deal with the most glaringmatters. As Mr. Raeburn said, however, all this game business is, ofcourse, a mere incident of the general land and property system, as youwill hear me expound when you come to that meeting you promised me tohonour."
He stooped forward, scanning her with smiling deference. Marcella feltthe man's hand that held her own suddenly tighten an instant. ThenAldous released her, and rising walked towards the fire.
"You're _not_ going to one of his meetings, Miss Boyce!" cried Frank, inangry incredulity.
Marcella hesitated an instant, half angry with Wharton. Then shereddened and threw back her dark head with the passionate gesture Hallinhad already noticed as characteristic.
"Mayn't I go where I belong?" she said--"where my convictions lead me?"
There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Hallin got up.
"Miss Boyce, may we see the house? Aldous has told me much of it."
* * * * *
Presently, in the midst of their straggling progress through thehalf-furnished rooms of the garden front, preceded by the shy footmancarrying a lamp, which served for little more than to make darknessvisible, Marcella found herself left behind with Aldous. As soon as shefelt that they were alone, she realised a jar between herself and him.His manner was much as usual, but there was an underlying effort anddifficulty which her sensitiveness caught at once. A sudden wave ofgirlish trouble--remorse--swept over her. In her impulsiveness she movedclose to him as they were passing through her mother's littlesitting-room, and put her hand on his arm.
"I don't think I was nice just now," she said, stammering. "I didn'tmean it. I seem to be always driven into opposition--into a feeling ofwar--when you are so good to me--so much too good to me!"
Aldous had turned at her first word. With a long breath, as it were ofunspeakable relief, he caught her in his arms vehemently, passionately.So far she had been very shrinking and maidenly with him in theirsolitary moments, and he had been all delicate chivalry and respect,tasting to the full the exquisiteness of each fresh advance towardsintimacy, towards lover's privilege, adoring her, perhaps, all the morefor her reserve, her sudden flights, and stiffenings. But to-night heasked no leave, and in her astonishment she was almost passive.
"Oh, do let me go!" she cried at last, trying to disengage herselfcompletely.
"No!" he said with emphasis, still holding her hand firmly. "Come andsit down here. They will look after themselves."
He put her, whether she would or no, into an arm-chair and knelt besideher.
"Did you think it was hardly kind," he said with a quiver of voice hecould not repress, "to let me hear for the first time, in public, thatyou had promised to go to one of that man's meetings after refusingagain and again to come to any of mine?"
"Do you want to forbid me to go?" she said quickly. There was a feelingin her which would have been almost relieved, for the moment, if he hadsaid yes.
"By no means," he said steadily. "That was not our compact. But--guessfor yourself what I want! Do you think"--he paused a moment--"do youthink I put nothing of myself into my public life--into these meetingsamong the people who have known me from a boy? Do you think it is all aconvention--that my feeling, my conscience, remain outside? You can'tthink that! But if not, how can I bear to live what is to be so large apart of my life out of your ken and sight? I know--I know--you warned meamply--you can't agree with me. But there is much besides intellectualagreement possible--much that would help and teach us both--if only weare together--not separated--not holding aloof--"
He stopped, watching all the changes of her face. She was gulfed in adeep wave of half-repentant feeling, remembering all his generosity, hisforbearance, his devotion.
"When are you speaking next?" she half whispered. In the dim light hersoftened pose, the gentle sudden relaxation of every line, were anintoxication.
"Next week--Friday--at Gairsly. Hallin and Aunt Neta are coming."
"Will Miss Raeburn take me?"
His grey eyes shone upon her, and he kissed her hand.
"Mr. Hallin won't speak for you!" she said, after the silence, with areturn of mischief.
"Don't be so sure! He has given me untold help in the drafting of myBill. If I didn't call myself a Conservative, he would vote for meto-morrow. That's the absurdity of it. Do you know, I hear them comingback?"
"One thing," she said hastily, drawing him towards her, and thenholding him back, as though shrinking always from the feeling she couldso readily evoke. "I must say it; you oughtn't to give me so much money,it is too much. Suppose I use it for things you don't like?"
"You won't," he said gaily.
She tried to push the
subject further, but he would not have it.
"I am all for free discussion," he said in the same tone; "but sometimesdebate must be stifled. I am going to stifle it!"
And stooping, he kissed her, lightly, tremulously. His manner showed heronce more what she was to him--how sacred, how beloved. First it touchedand shook her; then she sprang up with a sudden disagreeable sense ofmoral disadvantage--inferiority--coming she knew not whence, and undoingfor the moment all that buoyant consciousness of playing themagnanimous, disinterested part which had possessed her throughout thetalk in the drawing-room.
The others reappeared, headed by their lamp: Wharton first, scanning thetwo who had lingered behind, with his curious eyes, so blue andbrilliant under the white forehead and the curls.
"We have been making the wildest shots at your ancestors, Miss Boyce,"he said. "Frank professed to know everything about the pictures, andturned out to know nothing. I shall ask for some special coachingto-morrow morning. May I engage you--ten o'clock?"
Marcella made some evasive answer, and they all sauntered back to thedrawing-room.
"Shall you be at work to-morrow, Raeburn?" said Wharton.
"Probably," said Aldous drily. Marcella, struck by the tone, lookedback, and caught an expression and bearing which were as yet new to herin the speaker. She supposed they represented the haughtiness natural inthe man of birth and power towards the intruder, who is also theopponent.
Instantly the combative critical mood returned upon her, and the impulseto assert herself by protecting Wharton. His manner throughout the talkin the drawing-room had been, she declared to herself, excellent--modest,and self-restrained, comparing curiously with the boyish egotism andself-abandonment he had shown in their _tete-a-tete_.
* * * * *
"Why, there is Mr. Boyce," exclaimed Wharton, hurrying forward as theyentered the drawing-room.
There, indeed, on the sofa was the master of the house, more ghastlyblack and white than ever, and prepared to claim to the utmost thetragic pre-eminence of illness. He shook hands coldly with Aldous, whoasked after his health with the kindly brevity natural to the man whowants no effusions for himself in public or personal matters, andconcludes therefore that other people desire none.
"You _are_ better, papa?" said Marcella, taking his hand.
"Certainly, my dear--better for morphia. Don't talk of me. I have got mydeath warrant, but I hope I can take it quietly. Evelyn, I _specially_asked to have that thin cushion brought down from my dressing-room. Itis strange that no one pays any attention to my wants."
Mrs. Boyce, almost as white, Marcella now saw, as her husband, movedforward from the fire, where she had been speaking to Hallin, took acushion from a chair near, exactly similar to the one he missed, andchanged his position a little.
"It is just the feather's weight of change that makes the difference,isn't it?" said Wharton, softly, sitting down beside the invalid.
Mr. Boyce turned a mollified countenance upon the speaker, and being nowfree from pain, gave himself up to the amusement of hearing his guesttalk. Wharton devoted himself, employing all his best arts.
"Dr. Clarke is not anxious about him," Mrs. Boyce said in a low voice toMarcella as they moved away. "He does not think the attack will returnfor a long while, and he has given me the means of stopping it if itdoes come back."
"How tired you look!" said Aldous, coming up to them, and speaking inthe same undertone. "Will you not let Marcella take you to rest?"
He was always deeply, unreasonably touched by any sign of stoicism, ofdefied suffering in women. Mrs. Boyce had proved it many times already.On the present occasion she put his sympathy by, but she lingered totalk with him. Hallin from a distance noticed first of all her tallthinness and fairness, and her wonderful dignity of carriage; then thecordiality of her manner to her future son-in-law. Marcella stood bylistening, her young shoulders somewhat stiffly set. Her consciousnessof her mother's respect and admiration for the man she was to marry was,oddly enough, never altogether pleasant to her. It brought with it acertain discomfort, a certain wish to argue things out.
Hallin and Aldous parted with Frank Leven at Mellor gate, and turnedhomeward together under a starry heaven already whitening to the comingmoon.
"Do you know that man Wharton is getting an extraordinary hold upon theLondon working men?" said Hallin. "I have heard him tell that story ofthe game-preserving before. He was speaking for one of the Radicalcandidates at Hackney, and I happened to be there. It brought downthe house. The _role_ of your Socialist aristocrat, of yourland-nationalising landlord, is a very telling one."
"And comparatively easy," said Aldous, "when you know that neitherSocialism nor land-nationalisation will come in your time!"
"Oh! so you think him altogether a windbag?"
Aldous hesitated and laughed.
"I have certainly no reason to suspect him of principles. His conscienceas a boy was of pretty elastic stuff."
"You may be unfair to him," said Hallin, quickly. Then, after a pause:"How long is he staying at Mellor?"
"About a week, I believe," said Aldous, shortly. "Mr. Boyce has taken afancy to him."
They walked on in silence, and then Aldous turned to his friend indistress.
"You know, Hallin, this wind is much too cold for you. You are the mostwilful of men. Why would you walk?"
"Hold your tongue, sir, and listen to me. I think your Marcella isbeautiful, and as interesting as she is beautiful. There!"
Aldous started, then turned a grateful face upon him.
"You must get to know her well," he said, but with some constraint.
"Of course. I wonder," said Hallin, musing, "whom she has got hold ofamong the Venturists. Shall you persuade her to come out of that, do youthink, Aldous?"
"No!" said Raeburn, cheerfully. "Her sympathies and convictions go withthem."
Then, as they passed through the village, he began to talk of quiteother things--college friends, a recent volume of philosophical essays,and so on. Hallin, accustomed and jealously accustomed as he was to bethe one person in the world with whom Raeburn talked freely, would notto-night have done or said anything to force a strong man's reserve. Buthis own mind was full of anxiety.