ound it. She took one and let the fur wrap she had thrown about her for
their promenade through the disused rooms drop from her shoulders. It
lay about her in full brown folds, giving special dignity to her slim
height and proud head. Wharton glancing about in his curious inquisitive
way, now at the neglected pictures, now on the walls, now at the old oak
chairs and chests, now at her, said to himself that she was a splendid
and inspiring creature. She seemed to be on the verge of offence with
him too, half the time, which was stimulating. She would have liked, he
thought, to play the great lady with him already, as Aldous Raeburn's
betrothed. But he had so far managed to keep her off that plane--and
intended to go on doing so.

"Well, I meant this," he said, leaning against the old stone chimney
and looking down upon her; "only _don't_ be offended with me, please.
You are a Socialist, and you are going--some day--to be Lady Maxwell.
Those combinations are only possible to women. They can sustain them,
because they are imaginative--not logical."

She flushed.

"And you," she said, breathing quickly, "are a Socialist and a landlord.
What is the difference?"

He laughed.

"Ah! but I have no gift--I can't ride the two horses, as you will be
able to--quite honestly. There's the difference. And the consequence is
that with my own class I am an outcast--they all hate me. But you will
have power as Lady Maxwell--and power as a Socialist--because you will
give and take. Half your time you will act as Lady Maxwell should, the
other half like a Venturist. And, as I said, it will give you power--a
modified power. But men are less clever at that kind of thing."

"Do you mean to say," she asked him abruptly, "that you have given up
the luxuries and opportunities of your class?"

He shifted his position a little.

"That is a different matter," he said after a moment. "We Socialists are
all agreed, I think, that no man can be a Socialist by himself.
Luxuries, for the present, are something personal, individual. It is
only a man's 'public form' that matters. And there, as I said before, I
have no gift!--I have not a relation or an old friend in the world that
has not turned his back upon me--as you might see for yourself
yesterday! My class has renounced me already--which, after all, is a
weakness."

"So you pity yourself?" she said.

"By no means! We all choose the part in life that amuses us--that brings
us most _thrill_