, he was of a naturally optimist temper, and
ever since the night of his first interview with Aldous on the subject,
he had been more and more inclining to take a cheerful view. He liked to
see a young creature of such evident character and cleverness holding
opinions and lines of her own. It was infinitely better than mere
nonentity. Of course, she was now extravagant and foolish, perhaps vain
too. But that would mend with time--mend, above all, with her position
as Aldous's wife. Aldous was a strong man--how strong, Lord Maxwell
suspected that this impetuous young lady hardly knew. No, he thought the
family might be trusted to cope with her when once they got her among
them. And she would certainly be an ornament to the old house.

Her father of course was, and would be, the real difficulty, and the
blight which had descended on the once honoured name. But a man so
conscious of many kinds of power as Lord Maxwell could not feel much
doubt as to his own and his grandson's competence to keep so poor a
specimen of humanity as Richard Boyce in his place. How wretchedly ill,
how feeble, both in body and soul, the fellow had looked when he and
Winterbourne met him!

The white-haired owner of the Court walked back slowly to his library,
his hands in his pockets, his head bent in cogitation. Impossible to
settle to the various important political letters lying on his table,
and bearing all of them on that approaching crisis in the spring which
must put Lord Maxwell and his friends in power. He was over seventy, but
his old blood quickened within him as he thought of those two on this
golden afternoon, among the beech woods. How late Aldous had left all
these experiences! His grandfather, by twenty, could have shown him the
way.

* * * * *

Meanwhile the two in question were walking along the edge of the hill
rampart overlooking the plain, with the road on one side of them, and
the falling beech woods on the other. They were on a woodland path, just
within the trees, sheltered, and to all intents and purposes alone. The
maid, with leisurely discretion, was following far behind them on the
high road.

Marcella, who felt at moments as though she could hardly breathe, by
reason of a certain tumult of nerve, was yet apparently bent on
maintaining a conversation without breaks. As they diverged from the
road into the wood-path, she plunged into the subject of her companion's
election prospects.