s with the poor and division of goods--it becomes the
great bulwark of property and the feudal state. The Crusades--they set
out to recover the tomb of the Lord!--what they did was to increase
trade and knowledge. And so with Socialism. It talks of a new
order--what it _will_ do is to help to make the old sound!"

Anthony clapped her ironically.

"Excellent! When the Liberty and Property Defence people have got hold
of you--ask me to come and hear!"

Meanwhile, Louis stood behind, with his hands on his sides, a smile in
his blinking eyes. He really had a contempt for what a handsome
half-taught girl of twenty-three might think. Anthony only pretended or
desired to have it.

Nevertheless, Louis said good-bye to his hostess with real, and, for
him, rare effusion. Two years before, for the space of some months, he
had been in love with her. That she had never responded with anything
warmer than liking and comradeship he knew; and his Anna now possessed
him wholly. But there was a deep and gentle chivalry at the bottom of
all his stern social faiths; and the woman towards whom he had once felt
as he had towards Marcella Boyce could never lose the glamour lent her
by that moment of passionate youth. And now, so kindly, so eagerly!--she
had given him his Anna.

When they were all gone Marcella threw herself into her chair a moment
to think. Her wrath with Anthony was soon dismissed. But Louis's thanks
had filled her with delicious pleasure. Her cheek, her eye had a child's
brightness. The old passion for ruling and influencing was all alive and
happy.

"I will see it is all right," she was saying to herself. "I will look
after them."

What she meant was, "I will see that Mr. Wharton looks after them!" and
through the link of thought, memory flew quickly back to that
_tete-a-tete_ with him which had preceded the Cravens' arrival.

How changed he was, yet how much the same! He had not sat beside her for
ten minutes before each was once more vividly, specially conscious of
the other. She felt in him the old life and daring, the old imperious
claim to confidence, to intimacy--on the other hand a new atmosphere, a
new gravity, which suggested growing responsibilities, the difficulties
of power, a great position--everything fitted to touch such an
imagination as Marcella's, which, whatever its faults, was noble, both
in quality and range. The brow beneath the bright chestnut curls had
gained lines that pleased her--lines