--as he knows!--have pretty strong opinions by now about
the man."

"Come, come, Anthony!" said Louis, "nobody expects a man of that type to
be the pure-eyed patriot. But neither you nor I can deny that he has
done some good service. Am I asked to take him to my bosom? Not at all!
He proposes a job to me, and offers to pay me. I like the job, and mean
to use him and his paper, both to earn some money that I want, and do a
bit of decent work."

"_You_--use Harry Wharton!" said the cripple, with a sarcasm that
brought the colour to Louis's thin cheek and made Marcella angrier than
before. She saw nothing in his attack on Wharton, except personal
prejudice and ill-will. It was natural enough, that a man of Anthony
Craven's type--poor, unsuccessful, and embittered--should dislike a
popular victorious personality.

"Suppose we leave Mr. Wharton alone?" she said with emphasis, and
Anthony, making her a little proud gesture of submission, threw himself
back in his chair, and was silent.

It had soon become evident to Marcella, upon the renewal of her
friendship with the Cravens, that Anthony's temper towards all men,
especially towards social reformers and politicians, had developed into
a mere impotent bitterness. While Louis had renounced his art, and
devoted himself to journalism, unpaid public work and starvation, that
he might so throw himself the more directly into the Socialist battle,
Anthony had remained an artist, mainly employed as before in decorative
design. Yet he was probably the more fierce Venturist and anticapitalist
of the two. Only what with Louis was an intoxication of hope, was on the
whole with Anthony a counsel of despair. He loathed wealth more
passionately than ever; but he believed less in the working man, less in
his kind. Rich men must cease to exist; but the world on any terms would
probably remain a sorry spot.

In the few talks that he had had with Marcella since she left the
hospital, she had allowed him to gather more or less clearly--though
with hardly a mention of Aldous Raeburn's name--what had happened to her
at Mellor. Anthony Craven thought out the story for himself, finding it
a fit food for a caustic temper. Poor devil--the lover! To fall a victim
to enthusiasms so raw, so unprofitable from any point of view, was hard.
And as to this move to London, he thought he foresaw the certain end of
it. At any rate he believed in her no more than before. But her beauty
was more marked than