loured
face was transformed. In place of easy mirth and mischief, she read an
acute and half contemptuous attention.

"I don't know what you mean," she said slowly, after a pause. "Or
rather--I do know quite well. You told papa--didn't you?--and Mr.
Raeburn says that you are a Socialist--not half-and-half, as all the
world is, but the real thing? And of course you want great changes: you
don't like anything that might strengthen the upper class with the
people. But that is nonsense. You can't get the changes for a long
_long_ time. And, meanwhile, people must be clothed and fed and kept
alive."

She lay back in her high-backed chair and looked at him defiantly. His
lip twitched, but he kept his gravity.

"You would be much better employed in forming a branch of the
Agricultural Union," he said decidedly. "What is the good of playing
Lady Bountiful to a decayed industry? All that is childish; we want _the
means of revolution_. The people who are for reform shouldn't waste
money and time on fads."

"I understand all that," she said scornfully, her quick breath rising
and falling. "Perhaps you don't know that I was a member of the
Venturist Society in London? What you say doesn't sound very new to me!"

His seriousness disappeared in laughter. He hastily put down his cup
and, stepping over to her, held out his hand.

"You a Venturist? So am I. Joy! Won't you shake hands with me, as
comrades should? We are a very mixed set of people, you know, and
between ourselves I don't know that we are coming to much. But we can
make an alderman dream of the guillotine--that is always something. Oh!
but now we can talk on quite a new footing!"

She had given him her hand for an instant, withdrawing it with shy
rapidity, and he had thrown himself into a chair again, with his arms
behind his head, and the air of one reflecting happily on a changed
situation. "Quite a new footing," he repeated thoughtfully. "But it
is--a little surprising. What does--what does Mr. Raeburn say to it?"

"Nothing! He cares just as much about the poor as you or I, please
understand! He doesn't choose my way--but he won't interfere with it."

"Ah! that is like him--like Aldous."

Marcella started.

"You don't mind my calling him by his Christian name sometimes? It drops
out. We used to meet as boys together at the Levens. The Levens are my
cousins. He was a big boy, and I was a little one. But he didn't like
me. You see--I was a little beast!"