sitting with his hands on his knees, and his head bent forward a
little. Once, as the talk ran on, Hallin saw him raise his grey eyes to
the girl beside him, who certainly did not notice it, and was not
thinking of him. There was a curious pain and perplexity in the
expression, 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 be
final. "You don't, do you, Aldous? You don't think the country would be
the better, if we could do away with game to-morrow?"

"No more than I think it would be the better," said Aldous, quietly, "if
we could do away with gold-plate and false hair to-morrow. There would
be 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 of
the obvious crying abuses to be attacked first--in the great
campaign!--the campaign which is to bring liberty and self-respect back
to the country districts, and make the labourer feel himself as much of
a man as the squire?"

"What a head! What an attitude!" thought Hallin, half repelled, half
fascinated. "But a girl that can talk politics--hostile politics--to her
lover, and mean them too--or am I inexperienced?--and is it merely that
she is so much interested in him that she wants to be quarrelling with
him?"

Aldous looked up. "I am not _sure_," he said, answering her. "That is
always my difficulty, you know," and he smiled at her. "Game preserving
is not to me personally an attractive form of private property, but it
seems to me bound up with other forms, and I want to see where the
attack is going to lead me. But I would protect your farmer--mind!--as
zealously as you."

Hallin caught the impatient quiver of the girl's lip. The tea had just
been taken away, and Marcella had gone to sit upon an old sofa near the
fire, whither Aldous had followed her. Wharton, who had so far said
nothing, had left his post of observation on the hearth-rug, and was
sitting under the lamp balancing a paper-knife with great attention on
two fingers. In the half light Hallin by chance saw a movement of
Raeburn's hand t