ind of
arguments you will have to meet."

He went through the objections that any economist would be sure to weigh
against a proposal of the kind, as clearly as he could, and at some
length--but without zest. What affected Marcella all through was not so
much the matter of what he said, as the manner of it. It was so
characteristic of the two voices in him--the voice of the idealist
checked and mocked always by the voice of the observer and the student.
A year before, the little harangue would have set her aflame with
impatience and wrath. Now, beneath the speaker, she felt and yearned
towards the man.

Yet, as to the scheme, when all demurs were made, she was "of the same
opinion still"! His arguments were not new to her; the inward eagerness
over-rode them.

"In my own case"--he said at last, the tone passing instantly into
reserve and shyness, as always happened when he spoke of himself--"my
own wages are two or three shillings higher than those paid generally by
the farmers on the estate; and we have a pension fund. But so far, I
have felt the risks of any wholesale disturbance of labour on the
estate, depending, as it must entirely in my case, on the individual
life and will, to be too great to let me go further. I sometimes believe
that it is the farmers who would really benefit most by experiments of
the kind!"

She protested vehemently, being at the moment, of course, not at all in
love with mankind in general, but only with those members of mankind who
came within the eye of imagination. He was enchanted to see the old self
come out again--positive, obstinate, generous; to see the old confident
pose of the head, the dramatic ease of gesture.

Meanwhile something that had to be said, that must, indeed, be said, if
he were to give her serious and official advice, pressed uncomfortably
on his tongue.

"You know," he said, not looking at her, when at last she had for the
moment exhausted argument and prophecy, "you have to think of those who
will succeed you here; still more you have to think--of marriage--before
you pledge yourself to the halving of your income."

Now he must needs look at her intently, out of sheer nervousness. The
difficulty he had had in compelling himself to make the speech at all
had given a certain hardness and stiffness to his voice. She felt a
sudden shock and chill--resented what he had dismally felt to be an
imperative duty.

"I do not think I have any need to think of it--in