Book II

Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Josephine

Paolucci, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg Distributed

Proofreaders

THE CORYSTON FAMILY

A NOVEL

BY

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

ILLUSTRATED BY ELIZABETH SHIPPEN GREEN

1913

TO

G.M.T. AND J.P.T.

ILLUSTRATIONS

"HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN CONCOCTING THIS, MOTHER?" _Frontispiece_

THE CONVERSATION DROPPED, JUST AS THE VOICE OF THE ORATOR ROSE TO HIS

PERORATION

AS SHE SAW MARCIA HER FACE LIT UP

THIS MORNING HE FOUND HER ALL GIRLISH GENTLENESS AND APPEAL

"I DO WISH I COULD HELP YOU"

MARCIA WAS SINGING, IN A LOW VOICE AS SHE CAME

HE SAT STILL, STUDYING HIS MOTHER'S STRONG, LINED FACE

NOW SUDDENLY--HERE WAS A FRIEND--ON WHOM TO LEAN

Book I

LADY CORYSTON

[Greek: turannon einai moria kai tonthelein.]

CHAPTER I

The hands of the clock on the front of the Strangers' Gallery were nearing

six. The long-expected introductory speech of the Minister in charge of the

new Land Bill was over, and the leader of the Opposition was on his feet.

The House of Commons was full and excited. The side galleries were no less

crowded than the benches below, and round the entrance-door stood a compact

throng of members for whom no seats were available. With every sentence,

almost, the speaker addressing the House struck from it assent or protest;

cheers and counter-cheers ran through its ranks; while below the gangway

a few passionate figures on either side, the freebooters of the two great

parties, watched one another angrily, sitting on the very edge of their

seats, like arrows drawn to the string.

Within that privileged section of the Ladies' Gallery to which only the

Speaker's order admits, there was no less agitation than on the floor

below, though the signs of it were less evident. Some half a dozen chairs

placed close against the grille were filled by dusky forms invisible, save

as a dim patchwork, to the House beneath them--women with their faces

pressed against the lattice-work which divided them from the Chamber,

endeavoring to hear and see, in spite of all the difficulties placed in

their way by a graceless Commons. Behind them stood other women, bending

forward sometimes over the heads of those in front, in the feverish effort

to catch the words of the speech. It was so dark in the little room that

no inmate of it could be sure of the identity of any other unless she was

close beside her; and it was pervaded by a constant soft _frou-frou_

of silk and satin, as persons from an inner room moved in and out, or some

lady silently gave up her seat to a new-comer, or one of those in front

bent over to whisper to a friend behind. The background of all seemed

filled with a shadowy medley of plumed hats, from which sometimes a face

emerged as a shaft of faint light from the illumined ceiling of the House

struck upon it.

The atmosphere was very hot, and heavy with the scent of violets, which

seemed to come from a large bunch worn by a slim standing girl. In front

of the girl sat a lady who was evidently absorbed in the scene below. She

rarely moved, except occasionally to put up an eyeglass the better to

enable her to identify some face on the Parliamentary benches, or the

author of some interruption to the speaker. Meanwhile the girl held her

hands upon the back of the lady's chair, and once or twice stooped to speak

to her.

Next to this pair, but in a corner of the gallery, and occupying what

seemed to be a privileged and habitual seat, was a woman of uncouth figure

and strange headgear. Since the Opposition leader had risen, her attention

had wholly wandered. She yawned perpetually, and talked a great deal to a

lady behind her. Once or twice her neighbor threw her an angry glance. But

it was too dark for her to see it; though if she had seen it she would have

paid no attention.

"Lady Coryston!" said a subdued voice. The lady sitting in front of the

girl turned and saw an attendant beckoning.

The girl moved toward him, and returned.

"What is it, Marcia?"

"A note from Arthur, mamma."

A slip of paper was handed to Lady Coryston, who read it in the gloom with

difficulty. Then she whispered to her daughter:

"He hopes to get his chance about seven; if not then, after dinner."

"I really don't think I can stay so long," said the girl, plaintively.

"It's dreadfully tiring."

"Go when you like," said her mother, indifferently. "Send the car back for

me."

She resumed her intent listening just as a smart sally from the speaker

below sent a tumultuous wave of cheers and counter-cheers through his

audience.

"He can be such a buffoon, can't he?" said the stout lady in the corner to

her companion, as she yawned again. She had scarcely tried to lower

her voice. Her remark was, at any rate, quite audible to her next-door

neighbor, who again threw her a swift, stabbing look, of no more avail,

however, than its predecessors.

"Who is that lady in the corner--do you mind telling me?"

The query was timidly whispered in the ear of Marcia Coryston by a veiled

lady, who on the departure of some other persons had come to stand beside

her.

"She is Mrs. Prideaux." said Miss Coryston, stiffly.

"The wife of the Prime Minister!" The voice showed emotion.

Marcia Coryston looked down upon the speaker with an air that said, "A

country cousin, I suppose."

But she whispered, civilly enough: "Yes. She always sits in that corner.

Weren't you here when he was speaking?"

"No--I've not long come in."

The conversation dropped, just as the voice of the orator standing on the

left of the Speaker rose to his peroration.

It was a peroration of considerable eloquence, subtly graduated through a

rising series of rhetorical questions, till it finally culminated and broke

in the ringing sentences:

"Destroy the ordered hierarchy of English land, and you will sweep away a

growth of centuries which would not be where it is if it did not in the

main answer to the needs and reflect the character of Englishmen. Reform

and develop it if you will; bring in modern knowledge to work upon it;

change, expand, without breaking it; appeal to the sense of property,

while enormously diffusing property; help the peasant without slaying the

landlord; in other words, put aside rash, meddlesome revolution, and set

yourselves to build on the ancient foundations of our country what may

yet serve the new time! Then you will have an _English_, a national

policy. It happens to be the Tory policy. Every principle of it is violated

by the monstrous bill you have just brought in. We shall oppose it by every

means and every device in our power!"

[Illustration: THE CONVERSATION DROPPED, JUST AS THE VOICE OF THE ORATOR

ROSE TO HIS PERORATION]

The speaker sat down amid an ovation from his own side. Three men on the

Liberal side jumped up, hat in hand, simultaneously. Two of them subsided

at once. The third began to speak.

A sigh of boredom ran through the latticed gallery above, and several

persons rose and prepared to vacate their places. The lady in the corner

addressed some further remarks on the subject of the speech which had

just concluded to an acquaintance who came up to greet her.

"Childish!--positively childish!"

Lady Coryston caught the words, and as Mrs. Prideaux rose with alacrity

to go into the Speaker's private house for a belated cup of tea, her Tory

neighbor beckoned to her daughter Marcia to take the vacant chair.

"Intolerable woman!" she said, drawing a long breath. "And they're in for

years! Heaven knows what we shall all have to go through."

"Horrible!" said the girl, fervently. "She always behaves like that. Yet of

course she knew perfectly who you were."

"Arthur will probably follow this man," murmured Lady Coryston, returning

to her watch.

"Go and have some tea, mother, and come back."

"No. I might miss his getting up."

There was silence a little. The House was thinning rapidly, and half the

occupants of the Ladies' Galleries had adjourned to the tearooms on the

farther side of the corridor. Marcia could now see her mother's face more

distinctly as Lady Coryston sat in a brown study, not listening, evidently,

to the very halting gentleman who was in possession of the House, though

her eyes still roamed the fast-emptying benches.

It was the face of a woman on the wrong side of fifty. The complexion

was extremely fair, with gray shades in it. The eyes, pale in color but

singularly imperious and direct, were sunk deep under straight brows.

The nose was long, prominent, and delicately sharp in the nostril. These

features, together with the long upper lip and severely cut mouth and chin,

the slightly hollow cheeks and the thin containing oval of the face, set

in pale and still abundant hair, made a harsh yet, on the whole, handsome

impression. There was at Coryston, in the gallery, a picture of Elizabeth

Tudor in her later years to which Lady Coryston had been often compared;

and she, who as a rule disliked any reference to her personal appearance,

did not, it was sometimes remarked, resent this particular comparison. The

likeness was carried further by Lady Coryston's tall and gaunt frame; by

her formidable carriage and step; and by the energy of the long-fingered

hands. In dress also there was some parallel between her and the Queen of

many gowns. Lady Coryston seldom wore colors, but the richest of black

silks and satins and the finest of laces were pressed night and day into

the service of her masterful good looks. She made her own fashions. Amid

the large and befeathered hats of the day, for instance, she alone wore

habitually a kind of coif made of thin black lace on her fair face, the

lappets of which were fastened with a diamond close beneath her chin. For

the country she invented modifications of her London dress, which, while

loose and comfortable, were scarcely less stately. And whatever she wore

seemed always part and parcel of her formidable self.

In Marcia's eyes, her mother was a wonderful being--oppressively

wonderful--whom she could never conveniently forget. Other people's mothers

were, so to speak, furniture mothers. They became the chimney-corner, or

the sofa; they looked well in combination, gave no trouble, and could be

used for all the common purposes of life. But Lady Coryston could never be

used. On the contrary, her husband--while he lived--her three sons, and her

daughter, had always appeared to her in the light of so many instruments of

her own ends. Those ends were not the ends of other women. But did it very

much matter? Marcia would sometimes ask herself. They seemed to cause just

as much friction and strife and bad blood as other people's ends.

As the girl sat silent, looking down on the bald heads of a couple of

Ministers on the Front Bench, she was uneasily conscious of her mother as

of some charged force ready to strike. And, indeed, given the circumstances

of the family, on that particular afternoon, nothing could be more certain

than blows of some kind before long....

"You see Mr. Lester?" said her mother, abruptly. "I thought Arthur would

get him in."

Marcia's dreaminess departed. Her eyes ran keenly along the benches of the

Strangers' Gallery opposite till they discovered the dark head of a man who

was leaning forward on his elbows, closely attentive, apparently, to the

debate.

"Has he just come in?"

"A minute or two ago. It means, I suppose, that Arthur told him he expected

to be up about seven. When will this idiot have done!" said Lady Coryston,

impatiently.

But the elderly gentleman from the Highlands, to whom she thus unkindly

referred, went on humming and hawing as before, while the House lumbered or

fidgeted, hats well over noses and legs stretched to infinity.

"Oh, there is Arthur!" cried Marcia, having just discovered her brother

among the shadows under the gallery to the left. "I couldn't make him out

before. One can see he's on wires."

For while everybody else, after the excitement of the two opening speeches,

which was now running its course through the crowded lobbies outside, had

sunk into somnolence within the House itself, the fair-haired youth on whom

her eyes were bent was sitting erect on the edge of his seat, papers in

hand, his face turned eagerly toward the speaker on the other side of the

House. His attitude gave the impression of one just about to spring to his

feet.

But Marcia was of opinion that he would still have to wait some time before

springing. She knew the humming and hawing gentleman--had heard him often

before. He was one of those plagues of debate who rise with ease and cease

with difficulty. She would certainly have time to get a cup of tea and come

back. So with a word to her mother she groped her way through the dark

gallery across the corridor toward a tearoom. But at the door of the

gallery she turned back. There through the lattice which shuts in the

Ladies' Gallery, right across the House, she saw the Strangers' Gallery at

the other end. The man whose head had been propped on his hands when she

first discovered his presence was now sitting upright, and seemed to be

looking straight at herself, though she knew well that no one in the

Ladies' Gallery was really visible from any other part of the House. His

face was a mere black-and-white patch in the distance. But she imagined the

clear, critical eyes, their sudden frown or smile.

"I wonder what _he_'ll think of Arthur's speech--and whether he's

seen Coryston. I wonder whether he knows there's going to be an awful row

to-night. Coryston's mad!"

Coryston was her eldest brother, and she was very fond of him. But the way

he had been behaving!--the way he had been defying mamma!--it was really

ridiculous. What could he expect?

She seemed to be talking to the distant face, defending her mother and

herself with a kind of unwilling deference.

"After all, do I really care what he thinks?"

She turned and went her way to the tearoom. As she entered it she saw some

acquaintances at the farther end, who waved their hands to her, beckoning

her to join them. She hastened across the room, much observed by the way,

and conscious of the eyes upon her. It was a relief to find herself among a

group of chattering people.

Meanwhile at the other end of the room three ladies were finishing their

tea. Two of them were the wives of Liberal Ministers--by name, Mrs. Verity

and Mrs. Frant. The third was already a well-known figure in London society

and in the precincts of the House of Commons--the Ladies' Gallery, the

Terrace, the dining-rooms--though she was but an unmarried girl of

two-and-twenty. Quite apart, however, from her own qualities and claims,

Enid Glenwilliam was conspicuous as the only daughter of the most

vigorously hated and ardently followed man of the moment--the North

Country miner's agent, who was now England's Finance Minister.

"You saw who that young lady was?" said Mrs. Frant to Miss Glenwilliam. "I

thought you knew her."

"Marcia Coryston? I have just been introduced to her. But she isn't allowed

to know me!" The laugh that accompanied the words had a pleasant childish

chuckle in it.

Mrs. Frant laughed also.

"Girls, I suppose, have to do what they're told," she said, dryly. "But it

_was_ Arthur Coryston, wasn't it, who sent you that extra order for

to-day, Enid?"

"Yes," laughed the girl again; "but I am quite certain he didn't tell his

mother! We must really be civil and go back to hear him speak. His mother

will think it magnificent, anyway. She probably wrote it for him. He's

quite a nice boy--but--"

She shook her head over him, softly smiling to herself. The face which

smiled had no very clear title to beauty, but it was arresting and

expressive, and it had beautiful points. Like the girl's figure and dress,

it suggested a self-conscious, fastidious personality: egotism, with charm

for its weapon.

"I wonder what Lady Coryston thinks of her eldest son's performances in the

papers this morning!" said lively little Mrs. Frant, throwing up hands and

eyes.

Mrs. Verity, a soft, faded woman, smiled responsively.

"They can't be exactly dull in that family," she said. "I'm told they all

talk at once; and none of them listens to a word the others say."

"I think I'll bet that Lady Coryston will make Lord Coryston listen to a

few remarks on that speech!" laughed Enid Glenwilliam. "Is there such a

thing as _matria potestas_? I've forgotten all the Latin I learned

at Cambridge, so I don't know. But if there is, that's what Lady Coryston

stands for. How splendid--to stand for anything--nowadays!"

The three fell into an animated discussion of the Coryston family and their

characteristics. Enid Glenwilliam canvassed them all at least as freely as

her neighbors. But every now and then little Mrs. Frant threw her an odd

look, as much as to say, "Am I really taken in?"

* * * * *

Meanwhile a very substantial old lady, scarcely less deliberate and finely

finished, in spite of her size, than Lady Coryston herself, had taken a

chair beside her in the gallery, which was still very empty.

"My dear," she said, panting a little and grasping Lady Coryston's wrist,

with a plump hand on which the rings sparkled--"My dear! I came to bring

you a word of sympathy."

Lady Coryston looked at her coldly.

"Are you speaking of Coryston?"

"Naturally. The only logical result of those proceedings last night would

be, of course, the guillotine at Hyde Park Corner. Coryston wants our

heads! There's nothing else to be said. I took the speeches for young men's

nonsense--just midsummer madness, but I find people very angry. _Your_

son! one of _us_!"

"I thought the speeches very clever," said Lady Coryston.

"I'm rejoiced you take it so philosophically, my dear Emilia!"--the tone

was a little snappish--"I confess I thought you would have been much

distressed."

"What's the good of being distressed? I have known Coryston's opinions for

a long time. One has to _act_--of course," the speaker added, with

deliberation.

"Act? I don't understand."

Lady Coryston did not enlighten her. Indeed, she did not hear her. She was

bending forward eagerly. The fair-haired youth on the back benches, who had

been so long waiting his turn, was up at last.

It was a maiden speech, and a good one, as such things go. There was enough

nervousness and not too much; enough assurance and not too much. The facts

and figures in it had been well arranged. A modest jest or two tripped

pleasantly out; and the general remarks at the end had been well chosen

from the current stock, and were not unduly prolonged. Altogether a

creditable effort, much assisted by the young man's presence and manner. He

had no particular good looks, indeed; his nose ascended, his chin satisfied

no one; but he had been a well-known bat in the Oxford eleven of his day,

and was now a Yeomanry officer; he held himself with soldierly erectness,

and his slender body, cased in a becoming pale waistcoat under his tail

coat, carried a well-shaped head covered with thick and tumbling hair.

The House filled up a little to hear him. His father had been a member of

Parliament for twenty years, and a popular member. There was some curiosity

to know what his son would make of his first speech. And springing from the

good feeling which always animates the House of Commons on such occasions,

there was a fair amount of friendly applause from both sides when he sat

down.

"Features the father, and takes after the mother!" said a white-haired

listener in the Strangers' Gallery to himself, as the young man ceased

speaking. "She's drilled him! Well, now I suppose I must go and

congratulate her." He rose from his seat and began to make his way out. In

the passage outside the Gallery he overtook and recognized the man whose

entrance into the House Lady Coryston and her daughter had noticed about an

hour earlier.

"Well, what did you think of it, Lester?"

The other smiled good-humoredly.

"Capital! Everybody must make a beginning. He's taken a lot of pains."

"It's a beastly audience!" said Sir Wilfrid Bury, in reply. "Don't I know

it! Well, I'm off to congratulate. How does the catalogue get on?"

"Oh, very well. I sha'n't finish till the summer. There's a good deal still

to do at Coryston. Some of the things are really too precious to move

about."

"How do you get on with her ladyship?" asked the old man, gaily, lowering

his voice.

The young man smiled discreetly.

"Oh, very well. I don't see very much of her."

"I suppose she's pressed you into the service--makes you help Arthur?"

"I looked out a few things for his speech to-day. But he has his own

secretary."

"You're not staying for the rest of the debate?"

"No, I'm going back to St. James's Square. I have a heap of arrears to get

through."

"Do they put you up there? I know it's a huge house."

"Yes. I have a bedroom and sitting-room there when I want them, and my own

arrangements."

"Ta-ta."

Sir Wilfrid nodded pleasantly, and vanished into a side passage leading to

the Ladies' Gallery. The young man, Reginald Lester, to whom he had been

chatting, was in some sort a protégé of his own. It was Sir Wilfrid,

indeed, who had introduced him, immediately after he had won an Oxford

historical fellowship, to Lady Coryston, as librarian, for the highly paid

work of cataloguing a superb collection of MSS. belonging to the Corystons.

A generation earlier, Lester's father had been a brother officer of Sir

Wilfrid's, in days when the Lester family was still rich, and before the

crashing failure of the great banking-house of the name.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the House of Commons, Lady Coryston had

been sitting pleasantly absorbed, watching her son, who lay now like a man

relieved, lolling on the half-empty bench, chatting to a friend beside him.

His voice was still in her ears: mingled with the memory of other voices

from old, buried times. For more than twenty years how familiar had she

been with this political scene!--these galleries and benches, crowded or

listless; these opposing Cabinets--the Ins and Outs--on either side of the

historic table; the glitter of the Mace at its farther end; the books, the

old morocco boxes, the tops of the official wigs, the ugly light which

bathed it all; the exhausted air, the dreariness, the boredom! all

worth while, these last, just for the moments, the crises, the play of

personalities, the conflict of giants, of which they were the inevitable

conditions. There, on the second bench above the gangway on the Tory

side, her husband, before he succeeded to the title, had sat through four

Parliaments. And from the same point of vantage above she had watched him

year after year, coming in and out, speaking occasionally, never eloquent

or brilliant, but always respected; a good, worthy, steady-going fellow

with whom no one had any fault to find, least of all his wife, to whom he

had very easily given up the management of their common life, while he

represented her political opinions in Parliament much more than his own.

Until--until?

Well, until in an evil hour, a great question, the only political question

on which he differed and had always differed from his wife, on which he

felt he _must_ speak for himself and stand on his own feet, arose to

divide them. There, in that Gallery, she had sat, with rage and defeat in

her heart, watching him pass along, behind the Speaker's chair, toward the

wrong division lobby, his head doggedly held down, as though he knew and

felt her eyes upon him, but must do his duty all the same. On this one

matter he had voted against her, spoken against her, openly flouted and

disavowed her. And it had broken down their whole relation, poisoned

their whole life. "Women are natural tyrants," he had said to her once,

bitterly--"no man could torment me as you do." And then had come his

death--his swift last illness, with those tired eyes still alive in the

dumb face, after speech and movement were no longer possible--eyes which

were apt to close when she came near.

And yet, after all--the will!--the will which all his relations and friends

had taken as the final expression of his life's weakness, his miserable

failure to play the man in his own household, and in which _she_, his

wife, had recognized with a secret triumph his last effort to propitiate

her, his last surrender to her. Everything left to her, both land and

personalty, everything! save for a thousand a year to each of the children,

and fifteen hundred a year to Coryston, his heir. The great Irish, the

great Devonshire properties, the accumulated savings of a lifetime, they

were all hers--hers absolutely. Her husband had stood last in the entail;

and with a view to her own power, she had never allowed him to renew it.

Coryston had been furiously angry when the terms of his father's will were

revealed. She could never think without shivering of certain scenes, with

Coryston in the past--of a certain other scene that was still to come.

Well, it had been a duel between them; and after apparently sore defeat,

she had won, so far as influence over his father was concerned. And since

his father's death she had given him every chance. He had only to hold his

tongue, to keep his monstrous, _sans-culotte_ opinions to himself, at

least, if he could not give them up; and she would have restored him his

inheritance, would have dealt with him not only justly, but generously. He

had chosen; he had deliberately chosen. Well, now then it was for her--as

she had said to old Lady Frensham--it was for her to reply, but not in

words only.

She fell back upon the thought of Arthur, Arthur, her darling; so manly,

and yet so docile; so willing to be guided! Where was he, that she might

praise him for his speech? She turned, searching the dark doorway with her

eyes. But there was no Arthur, only the white head and smiling countenance

of her old friend, Sir Wilfrid Bury, who was beckoning to her. She

hurriedly bade Marcia, who had just returned to the Gallery, to keep her

seat for her, and went out into the corridor to speak to him.

"Well, not bad, was it? These youngsters have got the trick! I thought it

capital. But I dare say you'll have all sorts of fault to find, you most

exacting of women!"

"No, no; it was good," she said, eagerly. "And he's improving fast."

"Well then"--the wise old eyes beside her laughed kindly into hers--"be

content, and don't take Coryston's escapades too hardly!"

She drew back, and her long face and haughty mouth stiffened in the way he

knew.

"Are you coming to see me on Sunday?" she said, quietly.

He took his snubbing without resentment.

"I suppose so. I don't often miss, do I? Well, I hear Marcia was the beauty

at the Shrewsbury House ball, and that--" he whispered something, laughing

in her ear.

Lady Coryston looked a little impatient.

"Oh, I dare say. And if it's not he, it will be some one else. She'll marry

directly. I always expected it. Well, now I must go. Have you seen Arthur?"

"Mother! Hullo, Sir Wilfrid!"

There was the young orator, flushed and radiant. But his mother could say

very little to him, for the magnificent person in charge of the Gallery and

its approaches intervened. "No talking allowed here, sir, please." Even

Lady Coryston must obey. All she could add to her hurried congratulations

was:

"You're coming in to-night, remember, Arthur?--nine-thirty."

"Yes, I've paired. I'm coming. But what on earth's up, mother?"

Her lips shut closely.

"Remember, nine-thirty!" She turned and went back into the darkness of the

Gallery.

Arthur hesitated a moment in the passage outside. Then he turned back

toward the little entrance-room opposite the entrance to the ordinary

Ladies' Gallery, where he found another attendant.

"Is Miss Glenwilliam here?" he inquired, carelessly.

"Yes, sir, in the front row, with Mrs. Verity and Mrs. Frant. Do you wish

to speak to her, sir? The Gallery's pretty empty."

Arthur Coryston went in. The benches sloped upward, and on the lowest one,

nearest the grille, he saw the lady of his quest, and was presently bending

over her.

"Well," he said, flushing, "I suppose you thought it all bosh!"

"Not at all! That's what you have to say. What else can you say? You did it

excellently."

Her lightly mocking eyes looked into his. His flush deepened.

"Are you going to be at the Frenshams' dance?" he asked her, presently.

"We're not invited. They're too savage with father. But we shall be at the

Opera to-morrow night."

His face lightened. But no more talk was possible. A Minister was up, and

people were crowding back into the Gallery. He hurriedly pressed her hand

and departed.

CHAPTER II

Lady Coryston and her daughter had made a rapid and silent meal. Marcia

noticed that her mother was unusually pale, and attributed it partly to the

fatigue and bad air of the House of Commons, partly to the doings of her

eldest brother. What were they all going to meet for after dinner--her

mother, her three brothers, and herself? They had each received a formal

summons. Their mother "wished to speak to them on important business." So

Arthur--evidently puzzled--had paired for the evening, and would return

from the House at nine-thirty; James had written to say he would come, and

Coryston had wired an hour before dinner--"Inconvenient, but will turn up."

What was it all about? Some business matter clearly. Marcia knew very well

that the family circumstances were abnormal. Mothers in Lady Coryston's

position, when their husbands expire, generally retire to a dower-house,

on a jointure; leaving their former splendors--the family mansion and the

family income--behind them. They step down from their pedestal, and

efface themselves; their son becomes the head of the family, and the

daughter-in-law reigns in place of the wife. Nobody for many years past

could ever have expected Lady Coryston to step down from anything. Although

she had brought but a very modest dowry, such from earliest days had been

the strength and dominance of her character, that her divine right of rule

in the family had never been seriously questioned by any of her children

except Coryston; although James, who had inherited money from his

grandmother, was entirely independent of her, and by the help of a detached

and humorous mind could often make his mother feel the stings of criticism,

when others were powerless. And as for Coryston, who had become a

quasi-Socialist at Cambridge, and had ever since refused to suit his

opinions in the slightest degree to his mother's, his long absences abroad

after taking his degree had for some years reduced the personal friction

between them; and it was only since his father's death, which had occurred

while he himself was in Japan, and since the terms of his father's will had

been known, that Coryston had become openly and angrily hostile.

Why should Coryston, a gentleman who denounced property, and was all for

taxing land and landlords into the Bankruptcy Court, resent so bitterly

his temporary exclusion from the family estates? Marcia could not see that

there was any logical answer. If landlordism was the curse of England, why

be angry that you were not asked to be a landlord?

And really--of late--his behavior! Never coming to see his mother--writing

the most outrageous things in support of the Government--speaking for

Radical candidates in their very own county--denouncing by name some of

their relations and old family friends: he had really been impossible!

Meanwhile Lady Coryston gave her daughter no light on the situation. She

went silently up-stairs, followed by Marcia. The girl, a slight figure in

white, mounted unwillingly. The big, gloomy house oppressed her as she

passed through it. The classical staircase with its stone-colored paint

and its niches holding bronze urns had always appeared to her since her

childhood as the very top of dreariness; and she particularly disliked the

equestrian portrait of her great-grandfather by an early Victorian artist,

which fronted her as she ascended, in the gallery at the top of the

staircase, all the more that she had been supposed from her childhood to be

like the portrait. Brought up as she had been in the belief that family

and heredity are the master forces of life, she resented this teasing

association with the weak, silly fellow on the ill-balanced rocking-horse

whose double chin, button nose, and receding forehead not even the evident

flattery of the artist had been able to disguise. Her hatred of the

picture often led her to make a half-protesting pause in front of the long

Chippendale mirror which hung close to it. She made it to-night.

Indeed, the dim reflection in the glass might well have reassured her. Dark

eyes and hair, a brunette complexion, grace, health, physical strength--she

certainly owed none of these qualities or possessions to her ancestor.

The face reminded one of ripe fruit--so rich was the downy bloom on the

delicate cheeks, so vivid the hazel of the wide black-fringed eyes. A touch

of something heavy and undecided in the lower part of the face made it

perhaps less than beautiful. But any man who fell in love with her would

see in this defect only the hesitancy of first youth, with its brooding

prophecy of passion, of things dormant and powerful. Face and form were

rich--quite unconsciously--in that magic of sex which belongs to only

a minority of women, but that, a minority drawn from all ranks and

occupations. Marcia Coryston believed herself to be interested in many

things--in books, in the Suffrage, in the girls' debating society of which

she was the secretary, in politics, and in modern poetry. In reality her

whole being hung like some chained Andromeda at the edge of the sea of

life, expecting Perseus. Her heart listened for him perpetually--the

unknown!--yearning for his call, his command....

There were many people--witness Sir Wilfrid Bury's remark to her

mother--who had already felt this magic in her. Without any conscious

effort of her own she had found herself possessed, in the course of three

seasons since her coming out, of a remarkable place in her own circle and

set. She was surrounded by a court of young people, men and women; she

received without effort all the most coveted invitations; she was watched,

copied, talked about; and rumor declared that she had already refused--or

made her mother refuse for her--one or more of the men whom all other

mothers desired to capture. This quasi-celebrity had been achieved no one

quite knew how, least of all Marcia herself. It had not, apparently, turned

her head, though those who knew her best were aware of a vein of natural

arrogance in her character. But in manner she remained _nonchalant_

and dreamy as before, with just those occasional leaps to the surface of

passionate, or scornful, or chivalrous feeling which made her interesting.

Her devotion to her mother was plain. She espoused all her mother's

opinions with vehemence, and would defend her actions, in the family or out

of it, through thick and thin. But there were those who wondered how long

the subservience would last, supposing the girl's marriage were delayed.

As to the gossip repeated by Sir Wilfrid Bury, it referred to the latest of

Marcia's adventures. Her thoughts played with the matter, especially with

certain incidents of the Shrewsbury House ball, as she walked slowly into

the drawing-room in her mother's wake.

The drawing-room seemed to her dark and airless. Taste was not the Coryston

strong point, and this high, oblong room was covered with large Italian

pictures, some good, some indifferent, heavily framed, and hung on

wine-colored damask. A feebly false Guido Reni, "The Sacrifice of Isaac,"

held the center of one wall, making vehement claim to be just as well worth

looking at as the famous Titian opposite. The Guido had hung there since

1820, and what was good enough for the Corystons of that date was good

enough for their descendants, who were not going to admit that their

ancestors were now discredited--laughed out of court--as collectors, owing

to the labors of a few middle-aged intellectuals. The floor was held by a

number of gilt chairs and sofas covered also in wine-colored damask, or

by tables holding _objets d'art_ of the same mixed quality as the

pictures. Even the flowers, the stands of splendid azaleas and early roses

with which the room was lavishly adorned, hardly produced an impression

of beauty. Marcia, looking slowly round her with critical eyes, thought

suddenly of a bare room she knew in a Roman palace, some faded hangings in

dull gold upon the walls, spaces of light and shadow on the empty matted

floor, and a great branch of Judas tree in blossom lighting up a corner.

The memory provoked in her a thrill of sensuous pleasure.

Meanwhile Lady Coryston was walking slowly up and down, her hands behind

her. She looked very thin and abnormally tall; and Marcia saw her profile,

sharply white, against the darkness of the wall. A vague alarm struck

through the daughter's mind. What was her mother about to say or do? Till

now Marcia had rather lazily assumed that the meeting would concern some

matter of family property--some selling or buying transaction--which a

mother, even in the abnormally independent position Lady Coryston, might

well desire to communicate to her children. There had been a family meeting

in the preceding year when the Dorsetshire property had been sold under a

recent Act of Parliament. Coryston wouldn't come. "I take no interest in

the estates "--he had written to his mother. "They're your responsibility,

not mine."

And yet of course Coryston would inherit some day. That was taken for

granted among them. What were Tory principles worth if they did not some

time, at some stage, secure an eldest son, and an orthodox succession?

Corry was still in the position of heir, when he should normally have

become owner. It was very trying for him, no doubt. But exceptional women

make exceptional circumstances. And they were all agreed that their mother

was an exceptional woman.

But whatever the business, they would hardly get through without a scene,

and during the past week there had been a number of mysterious interviews

with lawyers going on.... What was it all about? To distract her thoughts

she struck up conversation.

"Did you see Enid Glenwilliam, mother, in Palace Yard?"

"I just noticed her," said Lady Coryston, indifferently. "One can't help

it, she dresses so outrageously."

"Oh, mother, she dresses very well! Of course nobody else could wear that

kind of thing."

Lady Coryston lifted her eyebrows.

"That's where the ill-breeding comes in--that a young girl should make

herself so conspicuous."

"Well, it seems to pay," laughed Marcia. "She has tremendous success.

People on our side--people you'd never think--will do anything to get her

for their parties. They say she makes things go. She doesn't care what she

says."

"That I can quite believe! Yes--I saw she was at Shrewsbury House the

other day--dining--when the Royalties were there. The daughter of that

_man_!"

Lady Coryston's left foot gave a sharp push to a footstool lying in her

path, as though it were Glenwilliam himself.

Marcia laughed.

"And she's very devoted to him, too. She told some one who told me, that he

was so much more interesting than any other man she knew, that she hadn't

the least wish to marry! I suppose you wouldn't like it if I were to make a

friend of her?" The girl's tone had a certain slight defiance in it.

"Do what you like when I'm gone, my dear," said Lady Coryston, quietly.

Marcia flushed, and would have replied, but for the sudden and distant

sound of the hall-door bell. Lady Coryston instantly stopped her pacing and

took her seat beside a table on which, as Marcia now noticed, certain large

envelopes had been laid. The girl threw herself into a low chair behind her

mother, conscious of a distress, a fear, she could not analyze. There was a

small fire in the grate, for the May evening was chilly, but on the other

side of the room a window was open to the twilight, and in a luminous sky

cut by the black boughs of a plane tree, and the roofs of a tall building,

Marcia saw a bright star shining. The heavy drawing-room, with its gilt

furniture and its electric lights, seemed for a moment blotted out. That

patch of sky suggested strange, alien, inexorable things; while all the

time the sound of mounting footsteps on the stairs grew nearer.

In they came, her three brothers, laughing and talking. Coryston first,

then James, then Arthur. Lady Coryston rose to meet them, and they all

kissed their mother. Then Coryston, with his hands on his sides, stood in

front of her, examining her face with hard, amused eyes, as much as to say,

"Now, then, for the scene. Let's get it over!" He was the only one of

the three men who was not in evening dress. He wore, indeed, a shabby

greenish-gray suit, and a flannel shirt. Marcia noticed it with

indignation. "It's not respectful to mother!" she thought, angrily. "It's

all very well to be a Socialist and a Bohemian. But there are decencies!"

In spite, however, of the shabby suit and the flannel shirt, in spite also

of the fact that he was short and very slight, while his brothers were both

of them over six feet and broadly built men, there could be no doubt that,

as soon as he entered, Coryston held the stage. He was one of the mercurial

men who exist in order to keep the human tide in movement. Their opinions

matter principally because without them the opinions of other men would not

exist. Their function is to provoke. And from the time he was a babe in the

nursery Coryston had fulfilled it to perfection.

He himself would have told you he was simply the reaction from his mother.

And indeed, although from the time he had achieved trousers their joint

lives had been one scene of combat, they were no sooner in presence of each

other than the strange links between them made themselves felt no less than

the irreconcilable differences.

Now, indeed, as, after a few bantering remarks to his mother on his recent

political escapades--remarks which she took in complete silence--he settled

himself in a high chair in front of her to listen to what she had to

say, no subtle observer of the scene but must have perceived the

likeness--through all contrast--between mother and son. Lady Coryston was

tall, large-boned, thin to emaciation, imposing--a Lady Macbeth of the

drawing-room. Coryston was small, delicately finished, a whimsical snippet

of a man--on wires--never at ease--the piled fair hair overbalancing the

face and the small, sarcastic chin. And yet the essential note of both

physiognomies, of both aspects, was the same. _Will_--carried to

extremes, absorbing and swallowing up the rest of the personality. Lady

Coryston had handed on the disease of her own character to her son, and it

was in virtue of what she had given him that she had made him her enemy.

Her agitation in his presence, in spite of her proud bearing, was indeed

evident, at least to Marcia. Marcia read her; had indeed been compelled

to read her mother--the movements of hand and brow, the tricks of

expression--from childhood up. And she detected, from various signs of

nervousness, that Lady Coryston expected a rough time.

She led the way to it, however, with deliberation. She took no notice of

Coryston's, "Well, mother, what's up? Somebody to be tried and executed?"

but, waving to him to take a particular chair, she asked the others to

sit, and placed herself beside the table which held the sheets of folded

foolscap. The ugly electric light from overhead fell full upon the pallid

oval of her face, on her lace cap, and shimmering black dress. Only Marcia

noticed that the hand which took up the foolscap shook a little. It was an

old hand, delicately white, with large finger-joints.

"I can't pretend to make a jest of what I'm going to say," she said, with

a look at Coryston. "I wanted to speak to you all on a matter of

business--not very agreeable business, but necessary. I am sure you will

hear me out, and believe that I am doing my best, according to my lights,

by the family--the estates--and the country."

At the last slowly spoken words Lady Coryston drew herself up. Especially

when she said "the country," it was as though she mentioned something

peculiarly her own, something attacked which fled to her for protection.

Marcia looked round on her three brothers: Coryston sunk in a big gilt

chair, one leg cocked over the other, his fingers lightly crossed above his

head; James with his open brow, his snub nose, his charming expression;

and Arthur, who had coaxed Lady Coryston's spaniel on to his lap and was

pulling his ears. He looked, she thought, bored and only half attentive.

And yet she was tolerably certain that he knew no more than she did what

Was going to happen.

"I am quite aware," said Lady Coryston, resuming after a pause, "that in

leaving his estates and the bulk of his fortune to myself your dear father

did an unusual thing, and one for which many persons have blamed him--"

Coryston's cocked leg descended abruptly to the ground. Marcia turned an

anxious eye upon him; but nothing more happened, and the voice speaking

went on:

"He did it, as I believe you have all recognized, because he desired that

in these difficult times, when everything is being called in question, and

all our institutions, together with the ideas which support them, are in

danger, I should, during my lifetime, continue to support and carry out

his ideas--the ideas he and I had held in common--and should remain the

guardian of all those customs and traditions on his estates which he had

inherited--and in which he believed--"

Coryston suddenly sat up, shook down his coat vehemently, and putting his

elbows on his knees, propped his face on them, the better to observe his

mother. James was fingering his watch-chain, with downcast eyes, the

slightest smile on his gently twitching mouth; Arthur was measuring one ear

of the spaniel against the other.

"Two years," said Lady Coryston, "have now passed since your father's

death. I have done my best with my trust, though of course I realize that I

cannot have satisfied _all_ my children." She paused a moment. "I have

not wasted any of your father's money in personal luxury--that none of you

can say. The old establishment, the old ways, have been kept up--nothing

more. And I have certainly _wished_"--she laid a heavy emphasis on

the word--"to act for the good of all of you. You, James, have your own

fortune, but I think you know that if you had wanted money at any time, for

any reasonable purpose, you had only to ask for it. Marcia also has her own

money; but when it comes to her marriage, I desire nothing better than to

provide for her amply. And now, as to Coryston--"

She turned to him, facing him magnificently, though not, as Marcia was

certain, without trepidation. Coryston flung back his head with a laugh.

"Ah, now we come to it!" he said. "The rest was all 'but leather and

prunella.'"

James murmured, "Corry--old man?" Marcia flushed angrily.

"Coryston also knows very well," said Lady Coryston, coldly, "that

everything he could possibly have claimed--"

"Short of the estates--which were my right," put in Coryston, quietly, with

an amused look.

His mother went on without noticing the interruption:

"--would have been his--either now or in due time--if he would only have

made certain concessions--"

"Sold my soul and held my tongue?--quite right!" said Coryston. "I have

scores of your letters, my dear mother, to that effect."

Lady Coryston slightly raised her voice, and for the first time it betrayed

emotion.

"If he would, in simple decent respect to his father's memory and

consideration of his mother's feelings, have refrained from attacking his

father's convictions--"

"What!--you think he still has them--in the upper regions?"

Coryston flung an audacious hand toward the ceiling. Lady Coryston grew

pale. Marcia looked fiercely at her brother, and, coming to her mother's

side, she took her hand.

"Your brothers and sister, Coryston, will not allow you, I think, to insult

your father's memory!" The voice audibly shook.

Coryston sprang up impetuously and came to stand over his mother, his hands

on his sides.

"Now look here, mother. Let's come to business. You've been plotting

something more against me, and I want to know what it is. Have you been

dishing me altogether?--cutting me finally out of the estates? Is that what

you mean? Let's have it!"

Lady Coryston's face stiffened anew into a gray obstinacy.

"I prefer, Coryston, to tell my story in my own words and in my own way--"

"Yes--but please _tell_ it!" said Coryston, sharply. "Is it fair to

keep us on tenter-hooks? What is that paper, for instance? Extracts, I

guess, from your will--which concern me--and the rest of them"--he waved

his hand toward the other three. "For God's sake let's have them, and get

done with it."

"I will read them, if you will sit down, Coryston."

With a whimsical shake of the head Coryston returned to his chair. Lady

Coryston took up the folded paper.

"Coryston guessed rightly. These are the passages from my will which

concern the estates. I should like to have explained before reading them,

in a way as considerate to my eldest son as possible" she looked steadily

at Coryston--"the reasons which have led me to take this course. But--"

"No, no! Business first and pleasure afterward!" interrupted the eldest

son. "Disinherit me and then pitch into me. You get at me unfairly while

I'm speculating as to what's coming."

"I think," said Marcia, in a tone trembling with indignation, "that

Coryston is behaving abominably."

But her brothers did not respond, and Coryston looked at his sister with

lifted brows. "Go it, Marcia!" he said, indulgently.

Lady Coryston began to read.

Before she had come to the end of her first paragraph Coryston was pacing

the drawing-room, twisting his lips into all sorts of shapes, as was his

custom when the brain was active. And with the beginning of the second,

Arthur sprang to his feet.

"I say, mother!"

"Let me finish?" asked Lady Coryston with a hard patience.

She read to the end of the paper. And with the last words Arthur broke out:

"I won't have it, mother! It's not fair on Corry. It's beastly unfair!"

Lady Coryston made no reply. She sat quietly staring into Arthur's face,

her hands, on which the rings sparkled, lightly clasped over the paper

which lay upon her knee. James's expression was one of distress. Marcia sat

dumfoundered.

James approached his mother.

"I think, mother, you will hardly maintain these provisions."

She turned toward him.

"Yes, James, I shall maintain them."

Meanwhile Arthur, deeply flushed, stood running his hand through his fair

hair as though in bewilderment.

"I sha'n't take it, mother! I give you full warning. Whenever it comes to

me I shall hand it back to Corry."

"It won't come to you, except as a life interest. The estates will be in

trust," said Lady Coryston.

Coryston gave a loud, sudden laugh, and stood looking at his mother from a

little distance.

"How long have you been concocting this, mother? I suppose my last speeches

have contributed?"

"They have made me finally certain that your father could never have

intrusted you with the estates."

"How do you know? He meant me to have the property if I survived you. The

letter which he left for me said as much."

"He gave me absolute discretion," said Lady Coryston, firmly.

"At least you have taken it!" said Coryston, with emphasis. "Now let's see

how things stand."

He paused, a thin, wiry figure, under the electric light, checking off the

items on his fingers. "On the ground of my political opinion--you cut me

out of the succession. Arthur is to have the estates. And you propose to

buy me off by an immediate gift of seven thousand a year in addition to my

present fortune--the whole income from the land and the tin-mines being, I

understand, about ten times that; and you intend to sell certain outlying

properties in order to do this. That's your proposal. Well, now, here's

mine. I won't take your seven thousand a year! I will have all--all, that

is, which would have normally come to me--or _nothing_!"

He stood gazing intently at his mother's face, his small features

sparkling.

"I will have all--or nothing!" he repeated. "Of course I don't deny it for

a moment, if the property had come to me I should have made all sorts of

risky experiments with it. I should have cut it up into small holdings. I

should have pulled down the house or made it into a county hospital."

"You make it your business to wound, Coryston."

"No, I simply tell you what I should have done. And I should have been

_absolutely in my right_!" He brought his hand down with passion

on the chair beside him. "My father had his way. In justice I--the next

generation--ought to have mine. These lands were not yours. You have no

moral rights over them whatever. They come from my father, and his father.

There is always something to be said for property, so long as each

generation is free to make its own experiments upon it. But if property

is to be locked in the dead hand, so that the living can't get at it,

_then_ it is what the Frenchman called it, _theft_!--or worse....

Well, I'm not going to take this quietly, I warn you. I refuse the seven

thousand a year! and if I can't possess the property--well!--I'm going to a

large extent to manage it!"

Lady Coryston started.

"Cony!" cried Marcia, passionately.

"I have a responsibility toward my father's property," said Coryston,

calmly. "And I intend to settle down upon it, and try and drum a few sound

ideas into the minds of our farmers and laborers. Owing to my absurd title

I can't stand for our parliamentary division--but I shall look out for

somebody who suits me, and run him. You'll find me a nuisance, mother, I'm

afraid. But you've done your best for your principles. Don't quarrel with

me if I do the best for mine. Of course I know it's hard for you. You would

always have liked to manage me. But I never could be managed--least of all

by a woman."

Lady Coryston rose from her seat.

"James!--Arthur!--" The voice had regained all its strength. "You will

understand, I think, that it is better for me to leave you. I do not wish

that either Coryston or I should say things we should afterward find it

hard to forgive. I had a public duty to do. I have performed it. Try and

understand me. Good night."

"You will let me come and see you to-morrow?" said James, anxiously.

She made no reply. Then James and Arthur kissed her, Marcia threw an arm

round her and went with her, the girl's troubled, indignant eyes holding

Coryston at bay the while.

As Lady Coryston approached the door her eldest son made a sudden rush and

opened it for her.

"Good night, mother. We'll play a great game, you and I--but we'll play

fair."

Lady Coryston swept past him without a word. The door closed on her and

Marcia. Then Coryston turned, laughing, to his brother Arthur, and punched

him in the ribs.

"I say, Arthur, old boy, you talked a jolly lot of nonsense this afternoon!

I slipped into the Gallery a little to hear you."

Arthur grew red.

"Of course it was nonsense to you!"

"What did Miss Glenwilliam say to you?"

"Nothing that matters to you, Corry."

"Arthur, my son, you'll be in trouble, too, before you know where you are!"

"Do hold your tongue, Corry!"

"Why should I? I back you strongly. But you'll have to stick to her. Mother

will fight you for all she's worth."

"I'm no more to be managed than you, if it comes to that."

"Aren't you? You're the darling, at present. I don't grudge you the

estates, Arthur."

"I never lifted a finger to get them," said Arthur, moodily. "And I shall

find a way of getting out of them--the greater part of them, anyway. All

the same, Corry, if I do--you'll have to give guarantees."

"Don't you wish you may get them! Well now"--Coryston gave a great

stretch--"can't we have a drink? You're the master here, Arthur. Just order

it. James, did you open your mouth while mother was here? I don't remember.

You looked unutterable things. But nobody could be as wise as you look. I

tell you, though you are a philosopher and a man of peace, you'll have to

take sides in this family row, whether you like it or not. Ah! Here's the

whisky. Give us a cigar. Now then, we'll sit on this precious paper!"

He took up the roll his mother had left behind her and was soon sipping

and puffing in the highest good humor, while he parodied and mocked at the

legal phraseology of the document which had just stripped him of seventy

thousand a year.

Half an hour later the brothers had dispersed, Coryston and James to their

bachelor quarters, Arthur to the House of Commons. The front door was no

sooner shut than a slender figure in white emerged from the shadows of the

landing overhead. It was Marcia, carrying a book.

She came to the balustrade and looked over into the hall below. Nothing to

be heard or seen. Her brothers, she perceived, had not left the house

from the drawing-room. They must have adjourned to the library, the large

ground-floor room at the back.

"Then Mr. Lester knows," she thought, indignantly. "Just like Corry!"

And her pride revolted against the notion of her brothers discussing her

mother's actions, her mother's decisions, with this stranger in the house.

It was quite true that Mr. Lester had been a friend both of Arthur and of

Coryston at Oxford, and that Arthur in particular was devoted to him. But

that did not excuse the indiscretion, the disloyalty, of bringing him into

the family counsels at such a juncture. Should she go down? She was certain

she would never get to sleep after these excitements, and she wanted the

second volume of _Diana of the Crossways_. Why not? It was only just

eleven. None of the lights had yet been put out. Probably Mr. Lester had

gone to bed.

She ran down lightly, and along the passage leading to the library. As she

opened the door, what had been light just before became suddenly darkness,

and she heard some one moving about.

"Who is that?" said a voice. "Wait a moment."

A little fumbling; and then a powerful reading-lamp, standing on a desk

heaped with books midway down the large room, was relit. The light flashed

toward the figure at the door.

"Miss Coryston! I beg your pardon! I was just knocking off work. Can I do

anything for you?"

The young librarian came toward her. In the illumination from the passage

behind her she saw his dark Cornish face, its red-brown color, broad brow,

and blue eyes.

"I came for a book," said Marcia, rather hurriedly, as she entered. "I know

where to find it. Please don't trouble." She went to the shelves, found her

volume, and turned abruptly. The temptation which possessed her proved too

strong.

"I suppose my brothers have been here?"

Lester's pleasant face showed a certain embarrassment.

"They have only just gone--at least, Arthur and Lord Coryston. James went

some time ago."

Marcia threw her head back defiantly against the latticed bookcase.

"I suppose Corry has been attacking my mother?"

Lester hesitated; then spoke with grave sincerity: "I assure you, he did

nothing of the kind. I should not have let him." He smiled.

"But they've told you--he and Arthur--they've told you what's happened?"

"Yes," he said, reluctantly. "I tried to stop them."

"As if anything could stop Corry!" cried Marcia--"when he wants to do

something he knows he oughtn't to do. And he's told you his precious

plan?--of coming to settle down at Coryston--in our very pockets--in order

to make mother's life a burden to her?"

"A perfectly mad whim!" said Lester, smiling again. "I don't believe he'll

do it."

"Oh yes, he will," said Marcia; "he'll do anything that suits his ideas. He

calls it following his conscience. Other people's ideas and other people's

consciences don't matter a bit."

Lester made no answer. His eyes were on the ground. She broke out

impetuously:

"You think he's been badly treated?"

"I had rather not express an opinion. I have no right to one."

"Mayn't women care for politics just as strongly as men?" cried the girl,

as though arguing the question with herself. "I think it's _splendid_

my mother should care as she does! Corry ought to respect her for it."

Lester made a pretense of gathering up some papers on his desk, by way of

covering his silence. Marcia observed him, with red cheeks.

"But of course you don't, you can't, feel with us, Mr. Lester. You're a

Liberal."

"No!" he protested mildly, raising his eyes in surprise. "I really don't

agree with Coryston at all. I don't intend to label myself just yet, but if

I'm anything I think I'm a Conservative."

"But you think other things matter more than politics?"

"Ah yes," he said, smiling, "that I do. Especially--" He stopped.

"Especially--for women?" The breaking of Marcia's delightful smile answered

his. "You see, I guessed what you meant to say. What things? I think I

know."

"Beauty--poetry--sympathy. Wouldn't you put those first?"

He spoke the words shyly, looking down upon her.

There was something in the mere sound of them that thrilled, that made

a music in the girl's ears. She drew a long breath, and suddenly, as he

raised his eyes, he saw her as a white vision, lit up, Rembrandt-like,

in the darkness, by the solitary light--the lines of her young form, the

delicate softness of cheek and brow, the eager eyes.

She held out her hand.

"Good night. I shall see what Meredith has to say about it!"

She held up her volume, ran to the door, and disappeared.

CHAPTER III

"Her ladyship says she would like to see you, Miss, before you go."

The speaker was Lady Coryston's maid. She stood just within the doorway of

the room where Marcia was dressing for the Opera, delivering her message

mechanically, but really absorbed in the spectacle presented by the young

girl before her. Sewell was an artist in her own sphere, and secretly

envious of the greater range of combination which Marcia's youth and beauty

made possible for the persons who dressed her, as compared with Lady

Coryston. There are all kinds of subtle variants, no doubt, in "black,"

such as Lady Coryston habitually wore; and the costliness of them left

nothing to be desired. But when she saw Marcia clothed in a new Worth or

Paquin, Sewell was sorely tempted to desert her elderly mistress and go in

search of a young one.

"Come in, Sewell," cried Marcia. "What do you think of it?"

The woman eagerly obeyed her. Marcia's little maid, Bellows, did the

honors, and the two experts, in an ecstasy, chattered the language of

their craft, while Marcia, amid her shimmering white and pink, submitted

good-humoredly to being pulled about and twisted round, till after endless

final touches, she was at last pronounced the perfect thing.

Then she ran across the passage to her mother's sitting-room. Lady Coryston

had complained of illness during the day and had not been down-stairs. But

Marcia's experience was that when her mother was ill she was not less, but

more active than usual, and that withdrawal to her sitting-room generally

meant a concentration of energy.

Lady Coryston was sitting with a writing-board on her knee, and a

reading-lamp beside her, lighting a table covered with correspondence.

Within her reach was a deep cupboard in the wall containing estate and

business letters, elaborately labeled and subdivided. A revolving bookcase

near carried a number of books of reference, and at her elbow, with the

paper-knife inside it, lay a copy of the _Quarterly Review_. The walls

of the room were covered with books--a fine collection of county histories,

and a large number of historical memoirs and biographies. In a corner,

specially lit, a large bust of the late Lord Coryston conveyed to a younger

generation the troubled, interrogative look which in later life had been

the normal look of the original. His portrait by Holl hung over the

mantelpiece, flanked on either side by water-color pictures of his sons and

daughter in their childhood.

There was only one comfortable chair in the room, and Lady Coryston never

sat in it. She objected to flowers as being in the way; and there was not

a sign anywhere of the photographs and small knick-knacks which generally

belitter a woman's sitting--room. Altogether, an ugly room, but

characteristic, businesslike, and not without a dignity of its own.

"Mother!--why don't you rest a little?" cried Marcia, eying the black-robed

figure and the long pale face, marked by very evident fatigue. "You've been

writing letters or seeing people all day. How long did James stay?"

"About an hour."

"And Mr. Page?" Mr. Page was the agent of the main Coryston estate.

"Some time. There was a great deal to settle."

"Did you"--the girl fidgeted--"did you tell him about Coryston?"

"Certainly. He says there is only one house in the neighborhood he could

take--"

"He has taken it." Marcia opened her right hand, in which she crushed a

telegram. "Bellows has just brought me this."

Lady Coryston opened and read it.

"Have taken Knatchett for three years. Tell mother." Lady Coryston's lips

stiffened.

"He has lost no time. He can vex and distress us, of course. We shall have

to bear it."

"Vex and distress us! I should think he can!" cried Marcia. "Has James been

talking to him?"

"I dare say," said Lady Coryston, adding, with a slight, sarcastic laugh,

"James is a little too sure of being always in the right."

From which Marcia guessed that James had not only been talking to Coryston,

but also remonstrating with his mother, which no doubt accounted for Lady

Coryston's worn-out looks. James had more effect upon her than most people;

though never quite effect enough.

Marcia stood with one foot on the fender, her gaze fixed on her mother in

a frowning abstraction. And suddenly Lady Coryston, lifting her eyes,

realized her daughter, and the vision that she made.

"You look very well, Marcia. Have I seen that dress before?"

"No. I designed it last week. Ah!"--the sound of a distant gong made itself

heard--"there's the motor. Well, good night, mother. Take care of yourself

and do go to bed soon."

She stooped to kiss her mother.

"Who's going with you?"

"Waggin and James. Arthur may come in. He thinks the House will be up

early. And I asked Mr. Lester. But he can't come for the first part."

Her mother held her sleeve and looked up, smiling. Lady Coryston's smiles

were scarcely less formidable than her frowns.

"You expect to see Edward Newbury?"

"I dare say. They have their box, as usual."

"Well!--run off and enjoy yourself. Give my love to Miss Wagstaffe."

"Waggin" was waiting in the hall for Marcia. She had been Miss Coryston's

governess for five years, and was now in retirement on a small income,

partly supplied by a pension from Lady Coryston. It was understood that

when she was wanted to act duenna, she came--at a moment's notice. And she

was very willing to come. She lived in an Earl's Court lodging, and these

occasional expeditions with Marcia represented for her the gilt on her

modest gingerbread. She was a small, refined woman, with a figure still

slender, gray hair, and a quiet face. Her dresses were years old, but she

had a wonderful knack of bringing them up-to-date, and she never did Marcia

any discredit. She adored Marcia, and indeed all the family. Lady Coryston

called her "Miss Wagstaffe"--but to the others, sons and daughter, she was

only "Waggin." There were very few things about the Coryston family she did

not know; but her discretion was absolute.

As she saw Marcia running down-stairs her face lit up.

"My dear, what a lovely gown!--and how sweet you look!"

"Don't talk nonsense, Waggin!--and put on this rose I've brought for you!"

Waggin submitted while Marcia adorned her and gave various pats and pulls

to her hair.

"There!--you look ten years younger," said the girl, with her bright look,

stepping back. "But where is James?"

The butler stepped forward.

"Mr. James will meet you at the Opera."

"Oh, good!" murmured Marcia in her companion's ear. "Now we can croon."

And croon they did through the long crowded way to Covent Garden. By the

time the motor reached St. Martin's Lane, Waggin was in possession of all

that had happened. She had long expected it, having shrewdly noted many

signs of Lady Coryston's accumulating wrath. But now that "Corry," her dear

"Corry," with whom she had fought so many a schoolroom fight in the days

of his Eton jackets, was really disinherited, her concern was great. Tears

stood in her kind eyes. "Poor Corry!" alternated in her mouth with "Your

poor mother!" Sinner and judge appealed equally to her pity.

Marcia meanwhile sat erect and fierce.

"What else could he expect? Father _did_ leave the estates to

mother--just because Corry had taken up such views--so that she might keep

us straight."

[Illustration: AS SHE SAW MARCIA HER FACE LIT UP]

"But _afterward_! My dear, he is so young! And young men change."

Lady Coryston's death was not, of course, to be mentioned--except with this

awe and vagueness--scarcely to be thought of. But hotter revolutionists

than Corry have turned Tories by forty. Waggin harped on this theme.

Marcia shook her head.

"He won't change. Mother did not ask it. All she asked was--for her sake

and father's--that he should hold his tongue."

A flush sprang to Waggin's faded cheek.

"A _man_!--a grown man!" she said, wondering--"forbid him to speak

out--speak freely?"

Marcia looked anxiously at her companion. It was very seldom that Waggin

betrayed so much heat.

"I know," said the girl, gloomily--"'Your money or your life'--for I

suppose it sounds like that. Corry would say his convictions are his life.

But why 'a man,' Waggin?" She straightened her pretty shoulders. "I don't

believe you'd mind if it were a woman. You don't believe in a _woman_

having convictions!"

Waggin looked a little bewildered.

"I'm old-fashioned, I suppose--but--"

Marcia laughed triumphantly.

"Why shouldn't Corry respect his mother's convictions? She wants to prove

that women oughtn't to shrink from fighting for what they believe, even--"

"Even with their sons?" said Waggin, tremulously. "Lady Coryston is so

splendid--so splendid!"

"Even with their sons!" cried Marcia, vehemently. "You take it for granted,

Waggin, that they trample on their daughters!"

Waggin protested, and slipped her thin hand into the girl's. The note of

storm in Marcia's mood struck her sharply. She tried, for a moment, to

change the subject. Who, she asked, was a tall, fair girl whom she had seen

with Mr. Arthur, "a week ago" at the National Gallery? "I took my little

niece--and suddenly I turned, and there at the end of the room were Mr.

Arthur--and this lady. Such a remarkable-looking young woman!--not exactly

handsome--but you couldn't possibly pass her over."

"Enid Glenwilliam!" exclaimed Marcia, with a startled voice. "But of

course, Waggin, they weren't alone?"

"Oh no--probably not!--though--though I didn't see any one else. They

seemed so full of talk--I didn't speak to Mr. Arthur. _Who_ do you say

she was?" repeated Waggin, innocently.

Marcia turned upon her.

"The daughter of the man mother hates most in the world! It's too bad of

Arthur! It's abominable! It would kill mother if she knew! I've heard

things said sometimes--but I never believed them for a moment. Oh,

Waggin!--you _didn't_ see them alone?"

The voice changed into what was almost a wail of indignation. "Of course

Enid Glenwilliam would never consider appearances for a moment. She does

exactly what suits her. She never bothers about chaperons, unless

she absolutely must. When she sees what she wants she takes it. But

_Arthur_!"

Marcia leaned back in the car, and as in the crush of the traffic they

passed under a lamp Waggin saw a countenance of genuine distress.

"Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry to have worried you. How stupid of me to mention

it! I'm sure there's nothing in it."

"I've half suspected it for the last month," said Marcia with low-toned

emphasis. "But I wouldn't believe it!--I shall tell Arthur what I think of

him! Though, mind you, I admire Enid Glenwilliam myself enormously; but

that's quite another thing. It's as though mother were never to have any

pleasure in any of us! Nothing but worry and opposition!--behind her back,

too."

"My dear!--it was probably nothing! Girls do just as they like nowadays,

and who notices!" said Waggin, disingenuously. "And as to pleasing your

mother, I know somebody who has only to put out her hand--"

"To please mother--and somebody else?" said Marcia, turning toward her with

perfect composure. "You're thinking of Edward Newbury?"

"Who else should I be thinking of!--after all you told me last week?"

"Oh yes--I like Edward Newbury"--the tone betrayed a curious

irritation--"and apparently he likes me. But if he tries to make me answer

him too soon I shall say No, Waggin, and there will be an end of it!"

"Marcia--dearest!--don't be cruel to him!"

"No--but he mustn't press me! I've given him hints--and he won't take them.

I can't make up my mind, Waggin. I can't! It's not only marrying him--it's

the relations. Yesterday a girl I know described a week-end to me--at

Hoddon Grey. A large, smart party--evening prayers in the private chapel,

_before dinner_!--nobody allowed to breakfast in bed--everybody driven

off to church--and such a _fuss_ about Lent! It made me shiver. I'm

not that sort, Waggin--I never shall be."

And as again a stream of light from a music-hall façade poured into the

carriage, Waggin was aware of a flushed, rebellious countenance, and dark

eyes full of some passionate feeling, not very easy to understand.

"He is at your feet, dear goose!" murmured the little gray-haired

lady--"make your own conditions!"

"No, no!--never. Not with Edward Newbury! He seems the softest,

kindest--and underneath--_iron_! Most people are taken in. I'm not."

There was silence in the car. Waggin was uneasily pondering. Nothing--she

knew it--would be more acceptable to Lady Coryston than this match, though

she was in no sense a scheming mother, and had never taken any special

pains on Marcia's behalf. Her mind was too full of other things. Still

undoubtedly this would suit her. Old family--the young man himself heir

presumptive to a marquisate money--high character--everything that mortal

mother could desire. And Marcia was attracted--Waggin was certain of it.

The mingled feeling with which she spoke of him proved it to the hilt. And

yet--let not Mr. Newbury suppose that she was to be easily run to earth! In

Waggin's opinion he had his work cut out for him.

Covent Garden filled from floor to ceiling with a great audience for

an important "first night"--there is no sight in London, perhaps, that

ministers more sharply to the lust of modern eyes and the pride of modern

life. Women reign supreme in it. The whole object of it is to provide

the most gorgeous setting possible, for a world of women--women old and

young--their beauty or their jewels, their white necks and their gray

heads; the roses that youth wears--divinely careless; or the diamonds

wherewith age must make amends for lost bloom and vanished years.

Marcia never entered the Coryston box, which held one of the most coveted

positions on the grand tier, without a vague thrill of exultation; that

instinctive, overbearing delight in the goods of Vanity Fair, which the

Greek called _hubris_, and which is only vile when it outlives youth.

It meant in her--"I am young--I am handsome--the world is all on my

side--who shall thwart or deny me?" To wealth, indeed, Marcia rarely gave

a conscious thought, although an abundance of it was implied in all her

actions and attitudes of mind. It would have seemed to her, at any rate,

so strange to be without it, that poverty was not so much an object of

compassion as of curiosity; the poverty, for instance, of such a man as Mr.

Lester. But behind this ignorance there was no hardness of heart; only a

narrow inexperience.

The overture had begun--in a shadowy house. But the stream of the audience

was still pouring in from all sides, in spite of the indignant "Hush" of

those who wanted not to lose a note of something new and difficult. Marcia

sat in the front of the box, conscious of being much looked at, and raising

her own opera-glass from time to time, especially to watch the filling up

of two rows of chairs on the floor, just below the lower tier of boxes. It

was there that Mr. Newbury had told her to look for him. James, who had

joined them at the entrance of the theater and was now hanging on the

music, observed her once or twice uneasily. Presently he bent over.

"Marcia--you vandal!--listen!"

The girl started and blushed.

"I don't understand the music, James!--it's so strange and barbarous."

"Well, it isn't Glück, certainly," said James, smiling.

Marcia turned her face toward it. And as she did so there rose from the

crash of its opening tumult, like a hovering bird in a clear space of sky,

a floating song of extraordinary loveliness. It rose and fell--winds caught

it--snatches of tempest overpowered it--shrieking demons rushed upon it and

silenced it. But it persisted; passing finally into a processional march,

through which it was still dimly, mysteriously traceable to the end.

"The song of Iphigenia!" said James. And as the curtain rose, "And here are

the gulfs of Aulis, and the Greek host."

The opera, by a young Bavarian of genius, a follower of Strauss, who had

but recently captured Munich and Berlin, was based on the great play of

Euripides, freely treated by a translator who had known, a hundred and

fifty years after Glück, how to make it speak, through music, to more

modern ears. It was carried through without any lowering of the curtain,

and the splendid story unfolded itself through a music at once sensuous

and heroic, with a swiftness and a passion which had soon gripped Covent

Garden.

There, in a thousand ships, bound motionless by unrelenting winds, lies the

allied host that is to conquer Troy and bring back the stolen Helen. But

at the bidding of Artemis, whose temple crowns the coast, fierce, contrary

blasts keep it prisoner in the harbor. Hellas cannot avenge itself on the

Phrygian barbarians who have carried off a free Greek woman. Artemis holds

back the hunters from the prey. Why? Because, as goddess of the land, she

claims her toll, the toll of human blood. Agamemnon, the leader of the

host, distracted by fears of revolt and of the break-up of the army, has

vowed to Artemis the dearest thing he possesses. The answer is, "Your

daughter!--Iphigenia!"

Under pressure from the other chiefs of the host, and from the priests, the

stricken father consents at last to send a letter to Clytemnestra at Argos,

bidding her bring their young daughter to the camp, on the pretext that

she is to become the bride of the hero Achilles. The letter is no sooner

despatched than, tormented with remorse, he tries to recall it. In vain.

Mother and child arrive, with the babe Orestes; the mother full of exultant

joy in such a marriage, the daughter thinking only of her father, on whose

neck she throws herself with fond home prattle, lifting Orestes to him to

kiss, saying tender, touching things--how she has missed him--how long the

time has been....

The young singer, an American, with a voice and a magic reminding many an

old frequenter of Covent Garden, through all difference, of Giulia Ravogli

in her prime, played this poignant scene as though the superb music in

which it was clothed was her natural voice, the mere fitting breath of the

soul.

Marcia sat arrested. The door of the box opened softly. A young man,

smiling, stood in the doorway. Marcia, looking round, flushed deeply; but

in the darkness only Waggin saw it. The girl beckoned to him. He came in

noiselessly, nodded to James, bowed ceremoniously to Waggin, and took a

seat beside Marcia.

He bent toward her, whispering, "I saw you weren't very full, and I wanted

to hear this--with you."

"She's good!" was all that Marcia could find to whisper in return, with a

motion of her face toward the Iphigenia.

"Yes--but only as part of the poem! Don't mistake it--please!--for the

ordinary 'star'--business."

"But she is the play!"

"She is the _idea_! She is the immortal beauty that springs out of

sorrow. Watch the contrast between the death she shrinks from--and the

death she accepts; between the horror--and the greatness! Listen!--here is

the dirge music beginning."

Marcia listened--with a strange tremor of pulse. Even through the stress of

the music her mind went wandering over the past weeks, and those various

incidents which had marked the growth of her acquaintance with the man

beside her. How long had she known him? Since Christmas only? The Newburys

and the Corystons were now neighbors indeed in the country; but it was not

long since his father had inherited the old house of Hoddon Grey, and of

the preceding three years Edward Newbury had spent nearly two in India.

They had first met at a London dinner party; and their friendship, then

begun, had ripened rapidly. But it was not till the Shrewsbury House ball

that a note of excitement, of uncertain or thrilled expectation, had crept

into what was at first a mere pleasant companionship. She had danced with

him the whole night, reckless of comment; and had been since, it seemed

to her, mostly engaged in trying to avoid him. But to-night there was no

avoiding him. And as his murmured yet eager comments on the opera reached

her, she became more and more conscious of his feelings toward her, which

were thus conveyed to her, as it were, covertly, and indirectly, through

the high poetry and passion of the spectacle on which they both looked.

With every stage of it Newbury was revealing himself; and exploring her.

Waggin smiled to herself in the darkness of the box. James and she once

exchanged glances. Marcia, to both of them, was a dim and beautiful vision,

as she sat with her loosely clasped hands lying on the edge of the box, her

dark head now turned toward the stage, and now toward Newbury.

* * * * *

The ghastly truth had been revealed; Iphigenia, within earshot, almost,

of the baffled army clamoring for her blood, was clinging to her father's

knees, imploring him to save her:

"Tears will I bring--my only cunning--all I have! Round your knees, my

father, I twine this body, which my mother bare you. Slay me not, before

my time! Sweet, sweet is the light!--drive me not down into the halls of

death. 'Twas I first called you father--I, your firstborn. What fault have

I in Paris's sin? Oh, father, why, why did he ever come--to be my death?

Turn to me--give me a look--a kiss! So that at least, in dying, I may have

that to remember--if you will not heed my prayers."

She takes the infant Orestes in her arms:

"Brother!--you are but a tiny helper--and yet--come, weep with me!--come,

pray our father not to slay your sister. Look, father, how--silently--he

implores you! Have pity! Oh, light, light, dearest of all goods to men!

He is mad indeed who prays for death. Better an ill living than a noble

dying!"

The music rose and fell like dashing waves upon a fearful coast--through

one of the most agonizing scenes ever imagined by poet, ever expressed in

art. Wonderful theme!--the terror-stricken anguish of the girl, little more

than a child, startled suddenly from bridal dreams into this open-eyed

vision of a hideous doom; the helpless remorse of the father; the misery

of the mother; and behind it all the pitiless fate--the savage creed--the

blood-thirst of the goddess--and the maddened army howling for its prey.

Marcia covered her eyes a moment. "Horrible!" she said, shivering, "too

horrible!"

Newbury shook his head, smiling.

"No! You'll see. She carries in her hands the fate of her race--of the

Hellenic, the nobler world, threatened by the barbarian, the baser world.

She dies, to live. It's the motive of all great art--all religion. Ah--here

is Achilles!"

There followed the strangest, pitifulest love scene. Achilles, roused to

fury by the foul use made of his great name in the plot against the girl,

adopts the shrinking, lovely creature as his own. She has been called his

bride; she shall be his bride; and he will fight for her--die for her--if

need be. And suddenly, amid the clashing horror of the story, there springs

up for an instant the red flower of love. Iphigenia stands dumb in the

background, while her mother wails, and Achilles, the goddess-born, puts on

his armor and his golden-crested helmet. An exultant sword-song rises from

the orchestra. There is a gleam of hope; and the girl, as she looks at her

champion, loves him.

The music sank into tenderness, flowing like a stream in summer. And the

whole vast audience seemed to hold its breath.

"Marvelous!" The word was Newbury's.

He turned to look at his companion, and the mere energy of his feeling

compelled Marcia's eyes to his. Involuntarily, she smiled an answer.

But the golden moment dies!--forever. Shrieking and crashing, the

vulture-forces of destruction sweep upon it. Messengers rush in, announcing

blow on blow. Achilles' own Myrmidons have turned against him. Agamemnon

is threatened--Achilles--Argos! The murderous cries of the army fill the

distance like the roar of an uncaged beast.

Iphigenia raises her head. The savage, inexorable music still surges and

thunders round her. And just as Achilles is about to leave her, in order to

throw himself on the spears of his own men, her trance breaks.

"Mother!--we cannot fight with gods. I die!--I die! But let me die

gloriously--unafraid. Hellas calls to me!--Hellas, my country. I alone can

give her what she asks--fair sailing, and fair victory. You bore me for the

good of Hellas--not for your own joy only, mother! Shall men brave all for

women and their fatherland?--and shall one life, one little life, stand in

their way? Nay! I give my self to Hellas! Slay me!--pull down the towers of

Troy! This through all time shall be sung of me--this be my glory!--this,

child and husband both. Hellas, through me, shall conquer. It is meet that

Hellenes should rule barbarians, and not barbarians Hellenes. For they are

slave-folk--and _we_ are free!"

Achilles cries out in mingled adoration and despair. Now he knows her for

what she is--now that he has "looked into her soul"--must he lose her?--is

it all over? He pleads again that he may fight and die for her.

But she puts him gently aside.

"Die not for me, kind stranger. Slay no man for me! Let it be _my_

boon to save Hellas, if I may."

And under her sternly sweet command he goes, telling her that he will await

her beside the altar of Artemis, there to give his life for her still, if

she calls to him--even at the last moment.

But she, tenderly embracing her mother, and the child Orestes, forbidding

all thought of vengeance, silencing all clamor of grief--she lifts the song

of glorious death, as she slowly passes from view, on her way to the place

of sacrifice, the Greek women chanting round her.

"Hail, Hellas, Mother-land! Hail, light-giving Day--torch of Zeus!"

"To another life, and an unknown fate, I go! Farewell, dear

light!--farewell!"

"That," said Newbury, gently, to Marcia only, as the music died away, "is

the death--_she accepts_!" The tears stood in the girl's eyes. The

exaltation of great passion, great poetry, had touched her; mingled

strangely with the spell, the resisted spell, of youth and sex. Newbury's

dark, expressive face, its proud refinement, its sensitive feeling; the

growing realization in her of his strong, exacting personality;

the struggle of her weaker will against an advancing master;

fascination--revolt; of all these things she was conscious as they both sat

drowned in the passion of applause which was swelling through the Opera

House, and her eyes were still vaguely following that white figure on the

stage, with the bouquets at its feet....

Bright eyes sought her own; a hand reached out, caught hers, and pressed

it. She recoiled--released herself sharply. Then she saw that Edward

Newbury had risen, and that at the door of the box stood Sir Wilfrid Bury.

* * * * *

Edward Newbury gave up his seat to Sir Wilfrid, and stood against the back

of the box talking to Waggin. But she could not flatter herself he paid

much attention to her remarks. Marcia could not see him; but his eyes were

on her perpetually. A wonderfully handsome fellow, thought Waggin. The

profile and brow perfect, the head fine, the eyes full--too full!--of

consciousness, as though the personality behind burnt with too intense a

flame. Waggin liked him, and was in some sort afraid of him. Never did her

small talk seem to her so small as when she launched it at Edward Newbury.

And yet no one among the young men of Marcia's acquaintance showed so much

courtesy to Marcia's "companion."

"Oh, very fine! very fine!" said Sir Wilfrid; "but I wanted a big

fight--Achilles and his Myrmidons going for the other fellows--and somebody

having the decency to burn the temple of that hag Artemis! I say!" He

spoke, smiling, in Marcia's ear. "Your brother Arthur's in very bad

company! Do you see where he is? Look at the box opposite."

Marcia raised her opera-glass, and saw Enid Glenwilliam sitting in front

of the box to which Sir Wilfrid pointed her. The Chancellor's daughter was

bending her white neck back to talk to a man behind her, who was clearly

Arthur Coryston. Behind her also, with his hands in his pockets, and

showing a vast expanse of shirt-front, was a big, burly man, who stood

looking out on the animated spectacle which the Opera House presented,

in this interval between the opera and the ballet, with a look half

contemptuous, half dreamy. It was a figure wholly out of keeping--in

spite of its conformity in dress--with the splendid opera-house, and the

bejeweled crowd which filled it. In some symbolic group of modern

statuary, it might have stood for the Third Estate--for

Democracy--Labor--personified. But it was a Third Estate, as the modern

world has developed it--armed with all the weapons of the other two!

"The Chancellor himself!" said Sir Wilfrid; "watching 'the little victims

play'! I picture him figuring up all these smart people. 'How much can I

get out of you?--and you?'"

Marcia abruptly put down the glass she held, and turned to Sir Wilfrid. He

was her godfather, and he had been her particular friend since the days

when they used to go off together to the Zoo or the Pantomime.

"Do, please, talk to Arthur!" she said, eagerly, but so as not to be heard

by any one else. "Perhaps he'd listen to you. People are beginning to

notice--and it's too, too dreadful. You know what mother would feel!"

"I do," said Sir Wilfrid, gravely; "if that's what you mean." His eyes

rested a moment on the striking figure of the Chancellor's daughter.

"Certainly--I'll put in a word. But she is a very fascinating young woman,

my dear!"

"I know," said Marcia, helplessly, "I know."

There was a pause. Then Sir Wilfrid asked:

"When do you go down to Coryston?"

"Just before Whitsuntide."

He looked round with a smile, saw that Edward Newbury was still in the box,

and whispered, mischievously:

"Hoddon Grey, too, I think, will not be empty?"

Marcia kept an indifferent face.

"I dare say. You're coming?" Sir Wilfrid nodded. "Oh, _have_ you

heard--?"

She murmured to him behind her fan. Sir Wilfrid knew all their history--had

been her father's most intimate friend. She gave him a rapid account of

Coryston's disinheriting. The old man rose, his humorous eyes suddenly

grave.

"We'll talk of this--at Coryston. Ah, Newbury--I took your chair--I resign.

Hullo, Lester--good evening. Heavens, there's the curtain going up. Good

night!"

He hurried away. Newbury moved forward, his eager look on Marcia. But she

turned, smiling, to the young librarian.

"You haven't seen this ballet, Mr. Lester?--Schumann's 'Carnival'? Oh,

you mustn't stand so far back. We can make room, can't we?" She addressed

Newbury, and before he knew what had happened, the chairs had been so

manipulated that Lester sat between Marcia and Newbury, while Waggin had

drawn back into the shadow. The eyes of Marcia's duenna twinkled. It

pleased her that this magnificent young man, head, it was said, of the

young High Church party, distinguished in many ways, and as good as he was

handsome, was not to have too easy a game. Marcia had clearly lost her head

a little at the Shrewsbury House ball; and was now trying to recover it.

CHAPTER IV

After one of those baffling fortnights of bitter wind and cold, which so

often mark the beginning of an English May, when all that the spring has

slowly gained since March seems to be confiscated afresh by returning

winter, the weather had repented itself, the skies had cleared, and

suddenly, under a flood of sunshine, there were blue-bells in the

copses, cowslips in the fields, a tawny leaf breaking on the oaks, a new

cheerfulness in the eyes and gait of the countryman.

A plain, pleasant-looking woman sat sewing out-of-doors, in front of a

small verandaed cottage, perched high on a hillside which commanded a wide

view of central England. The chalk down fell beneath her into a sheath of

beech woods; the line of hills, slope behind slope, ran westward to the

sunset, while eastward they mounted to a wooded crest beyond which the

cottage could not look. Northward, beginning some six hundred feet below

the cottage, stretched a wide and varied country, dotted with villages and

farms, with houses and woods, till it lost itself in the haze of a dim

horizon.

A man of middle age, gray-headed, spare in figure, emerged from one of the

French windows of the cottage.

"Marion, when did you say that you expected Enid?"

"Between three and four, papa."

"I don't believe Glenwilliam himself will get here at all. There will be a

long Cabinet this afternoon, and another to-morrow probably--Sunday or no

Sunday!"

"Well then, he won't come, father," said the daughter, placidly, thrusting

her hand into a sock riddled with holes, and looking at it with concern.

"Annoying! I wanted him to meet Coryston--who said he would be here to

tea."

Miss Atherstone looked a little startled.

"Will that do, father? You know Enid told me to ask Arthur Coryston, and I

wrote yesterday."

"Do? Why not? Because of politics? They must have got used to that in

the Coryston family! Or because of the gossip that Arthur is to have the

estates? But it's not his fault. I hear the two brothers are on excellent

terms. They say that Arthur has warned his mother that he means to make it

up to Coryston somehow."

"Enid doesn't like Lord Coryston," said Miss Atherstone, slowly.

"I dare say. He finds out her weak points. She has a good many. And he's

not a ladies' man. Between ourselves, my dear, she poses a good deal. I

never know quite where to have her, though I dandled her as a baby."

"Oh, Enid's all right," said Marion Atherstone, taking a fresh needleful of

brown wool. Miss Atherstone was not clever, though she lived with clever

people, and her powers of expressing herself were small. Her father, a

retired doctor, on the other hand, was one of the ablest Liberal organizers

in the country. From his perch on the Mintern hills he commanded half the

midlands, in more senses than one; knew thirty or forty constituencies by

heart; was consulted in all difficulties; was better acquainted with "the

pulse of the party" than its chief agent, and was never left out of count

by any important Minister framing an important bill.

He had first made friends with the man who was now the powerful head of

English finance, when Glenwilliam was the young check-weigher of a large

Staffordshire colliery; and the friendship--little known except to an inner

ring--was now an important factor in English politics. Glenwilliam did

nothing without consulting Atherstone, and the cottage on the hill had been

the scene of many important meetings, and some decisions which would live

in history.

Marion Atherstone, on the other hand, though invaluable to her father, and

much appreciated by his friends, took no intellectual part in his life.

Brilliant creatures--men and women--came and went, to and from the cottage.

Marion took stock of them, provided them with food and lodging, and did not

much believe in any of them. Atherstone was a philosopher, a free-thinker,

and a vegetarian. Marion read the _Church Family Times_, went

diligently to church, and if she had possessed a vote, and cared enough

about it to use it, would probably have voted Tory. All the same she and

her father were on the best of terms and perfectly understood each other.

Among the brilliant creatures, however, who came and went, there was one

who had conquered her. For Enid Glenwilliam, Marion felt the profound

affection that often links the plain, scrupulous, conscientious woman to

some one or other of the Sirens of her sex. When Enid came to the cottage

Marion became her slave and served her hand and foot. But the probability

is that she saw through the Siren--what there was to see through--a good

deal more sharply than her father did.

Atherstone took a garden chair beside her, and lit his pipe. He had just

been engaged in drafting an important Liberal manifesto. His name would

probably never appear in connection with it. But that mattered nothing to

him. What did vex him was that he probably would not have an opportunity of

talking it over with Glenwilliam before it finally left his hands. He was

pleased with it, however. The drastic, or scathing phrases of it kept

running through his head. He had never felt a more thorough, a more

passionate, contempt for his opponents. The Tory party must go! One more

big fight, and they would smash the unclean thing. These tyrants of

land, and church, and finance!--democratic England when it once got to

business--and it was getting to business--would make short work of them.

As he looked out over the plain he saw many things well fitted to stir the

democratic pulse. There among the woods, not a mile from the base of the

hills, lay the great classic pile of Coryston, where "that woman" held

sway. Farther off on its hill rose Hoddon Grey, identified in this hostile

mind with Church ascendancy, just as Coryston was identified with landlord

ascendancy. If there were anywhere to be found a narrower pair of bigots

than Lord and Lady William Newbury, or a more poisonous reactionary than

their handsome and plausible son, Atherstone didn't know where to lay hands

on them.

One white dot in the plain, however, gave him unmixed satisfaction. He

turned, laughing to his daughter.

"Coryston has settled in--with a laborer and his wife to look after him. He

has all sorts of ructions on his hands already."

"Poor Lady Coryston!" said Marion, giving a glance at the classical cupolas

emerging from the woods.

"My dear--she began it. And he is quite right--he _has_ a public duty

to these estates."

"Couldn't he go and stir up people somewhere else? It looks so ugly."

"Oh! women have got to get used to these things, if they play such strong

parts as Lady Coryston. The old kid-glove days, as between men and women,

are over."

"Even between mothers and sons?" said Marion, dubiously.

"I repeat--she began it! Monstrous, that that man should have made such a

will, and that a mother should have taken advantage of it!"

"Suppose she had been a Liberal," said Marion, slyly.

Atherstone shrugged his shoulders--too honest to reply.

He ruminated over his pipe. Presently his eyes flashed.

"I hear Coryston's very servants--his man and wife--were evicted from their

cottage for political reasons."

"Yes, by that Radical miller who lives at Martover," said Marion.

Atherstone stared.

"My dear!--"

"The wife told me," said Marion, calmly, rolling up her socks.

"I say, I must look into that," said Atherstone, with discomposure. "It

doesn't do to have such stories going round--on our side. I wonder why

Coryston chose them."

"I should think--because he hates that kind of thing on both sides." The

slightest twinge of red might have been noticed on Miss Atherstone's cheek

as she spoke. But her father did not notice it. He lifted his head to

listen.

"I think I hear the motor."

"You look tired," said Marion to her guest. The first bout of conversation

was over, and Dr. Atherstone had gone back to his letters.

Enid Glenwilliam took off her hat, accepted the cushion which her hostess

was pressing upon her, and lay at ease in her cane chair.

"You wouldn't wonder, if you could reckon up my week!" she said, laughing.

"Let's see--four dinners, three balls, two operas,--a week-end at Windsor,

two bazars, three meetings, two concerts, and tea-parties galore! What do

you expect but a rag!"

"Don't say you don't like it!"

"Oh yes, I like it. At least, if people don't ask me to things I'm

insulted, and when they do--"

"You're bored?"

"It's you finished the sentence!--not I! And I've scarcely seen father this

week except at breakfast. _That's_ bored me horribly."

"What have you _really_ been doing?"

"Inquisitor!--I have been amusing myself."

"With Arthur Coryston?"

Marion turned her large fresh-colored face and small gray eyes upon her

companion.

"And others! You don't imagine I confine myself to him?"

"Has Lady Coryston found out yet?"

"That we get on? I am sure she has never imagined that Mr. Arthur could so

demean himself."

"But she must find out some day."

"Oh yes, I mean her to," said Miss Glenwilliam, quietly. She reached out

a long hand toward Marion's cat and stroked it. Then she turned her large

eyes of pale hazel set under beautiful dark brows to her companion. "You

see--Lady Coryston has not only snubbed me--she has insulted father."

"How?" exclaimed Marion, startled.

"At Chatton House the other day. She refused to go down to dinner with him.

She positively did. The table had to be rearranged, and little Lady Chatton

nearly had hysterics."

The girl lay looking at her friend, her large but finely cut mouth faintly

smiling. But there was something dangerous in her eyes.

"And one day at lunch she refused to be introduced to me. I saw it happen

quite plainly. Oh, she didn't exactly mean to be insolent. But she thinks

society is too tolerant--of people like father and me."

"What a foolish woman!" said Marion Atherstone, rather helplessly.

"Not at all! She knows quite well that my whole existence is a fight--so

far as London is concerned. She wants to make the fight a little

harder--that's all."

"Your 'whole existence a fight,'" repeated Marion, with a touch of scorn,

"after that list of parties!"

"It's a good fight at present," said the girl, coolly, "and a successful

one. But Lady Coryston gets all she wants without fighting. When father

goes out of office I shall be nobody. _She_ will be always at the top

of the tree."

"I am no wiser than before as to whether you really like Arthur Coryston or

not. You have heard, of course, the gossip about the estates?"

"Heard?" The speaker smiled. "I know not only the gossip--but the

facts--by heart! I am drowned--smothered in them. At present Arthur is the

darling--the spotless one. But when she knows about me!"--Miss Glenwilliam

threw up her hands.

"You think she will change her mind again?"

The girl took up a stalk of grass and nibbled it in laughing meditation.

"Perhaps I oughtn't to risk his chances?" she said, looking sidelong.

"Don't think about 'chances,'" said Marion Atherstone, indignantly--"think

about whether you care for each other!"

"What a _bourgeois_ point of view! Well, honestly--I don't know.

Arthur Coryston is not at all clever. He has the most absurd opinions. We

have only known each other a few months. If he were _very_ rich--By

the way, is he coming this afternoon? And may I have a cigarette?"

Marion handed cigarettes. The click of a garden gate in the distance caught

her ear.

"Here they are--he and Lord Coryston."

Enid Glenwilliam lit her cigarette, and made no move. Her slender,

long-limbed body, as it lay at ease in the deep garden chair, the pale

masses of her hair, and the confident quiet face beneath it, made a

charming impression of graceful repose. As Arthur Coryston reached her she

held out a welcoming hand, and her eyes greeted him--a gay, significant

look.

Coryston, having shaken hands with Miss Atherstone, hastily approached her

companion.

"I didn't know you smoked," he said, abruptly, standing before her with his

hands on his sides.

As always, Coryston made an odd figure. His worn, ill-fitting clothes, with

their bulging pockets, the grasshopper slimness of his legs and arms, the

peering, glancing look of his eternally restless eyes, were all of them

displeasing to Enid Glenwilliam as she surveyed him. But she answered him

with a smile.

"Mayn't I?"

He looked down on her, frowning.

"Why should women set up a new want--a new slavery--that costs money?"

The color flew to her cheeks.

"Why shouldn't they? Go and preach to your own sex."

"No good!" He shrugged his shoulders. "But women are supposed to have

consciences. And--especially--_Liberal_ women," he added, slowly, as

his eyes traveled over her dress.

"And pray why should Liberal women be ascetics any more than any other kind

of women?" she asked him, quietly.

"Why?" His voice grew suddenly loud. "Because there are thousands of people

in this country perishing for lack of proper food and clothing--and it is

the function of Liberals to bring it home to the other thousands."

Arthur Coryston broke out indignantly:

"I say, Cony, do hold your tongue! You do talk such stuff!"

The young man, sitting where the whole careless grace of Miss Glenwilliam's

person was delightfully visible to him, showed a countenance red with

wrath.

Coryston faced round upon him, transformed. His frown had disappeared in a

look of radiant good humor.

"Look here, Arthur, you've got the money-bags--you might leave me the

talking. Has he told you what's happened?"

The question was addressed to Miss Glenwilliam, while the speaker shot an

indicating thumb in his brother's direction.

The girl looked embarrassed, and Arthur Coryston again came to the rescue.

"We've no right to thrust our family affairs upon other people, Corry," he

said, resolutely. "I told you so as we walked up."

"Oh, but they're so interesting," was Coryston's cool reply as he took his

seat by Marion Atherstone. "I'm certain everybody here finds them so. And

what on earth have I taken Knatchett for, except to blazon abroad what our

dear mother has been doing?"

"I wish to heaven you hadn't taken Knatchett," said Arthur, sulkily.

"You regard me as a nuisance? Well, I meant to be. I'm finding out such

lots of things," added Coryston, slowly, while his eyes, wandering over the

plain, ceased their restlessness for a moment and became fixed and dreamy.

Dr. Atherstone caught the last words as he came out from his study. He

approached his guests with an amused look at Coryston. But the necessary

courtesies of the situation imposed themselves. So long as Arthur Coryston

was present the Tory son of his Tory mother, an Opposition M.P. for a

constituency, part of which was visible from the cottage garden, and a

comparative stranger to the Atherstones, it was scarcely possible to

let Coryston loose. The younger brother was there--Atherstone perfectly

understood--simply because Miss Glenwilliam was their guest; not for his

own _beaux yeux_ or his daughter's. But having ventured on to hostile

ground, for a fair lady's sake, he might look to being kindly treated.

Arthur, on his side, however, played his part badly. He rose indeed to

greet Atherstone--whom he barely knew, and was accustomed to regard as

a pestilent agitator--with the indifferent good breeding that all young

Englishmen of the classes have at command; he was ready to talk of the

view and the weather, and to discuss various local topics. But it was

increasingly evident that he felt himself on false ground; lured there,

moreover, by feelings he could hardly suppose were unsuspected by his

hosts. Enid Glenwilliam watched him with secret but sympathetic laughter;

and presently came to his aid. She rose from her seat.

"It's a little hot here, Marion. Shall I have time to show Mr. Coryston the

view from the wood-path before tea?"

Marion assented. And the two tall figures strolled away across a little

field toward a hanging wood on the edge of the hill.

"Will she have him?" said Coryston to Marion Atherstone, looking after the

departing figures.

The question was disconcertingly frank. Marion laughed and colored.

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"Because there'll be the deuce to pay if she does," said Coryston, nursing

his knees, and bubbling with amusement. "My unfortunate mother will have to

make another will. What the lawyers have made out of her already!"

"There would be no reconciling her to the notion of such a marriage?" asked

Atherstone, after a moment.

"'If my son takes to him a wife of the daughters of Heth, what good shall

my life be unto me?'" quoted Coryston, laughing. "Good gracious, how handy

the Bible comes in--for most things! I expect you're an infidel, and don't

know." He looked up curiously at Atherstone.

A shade of annoyance crossed Atherstone's finely marked face.

"I was the son of a Presbyterian minister," he said, shortly. "But to

return. After all, you know, Radicals and Tories do still intermarry! It

hasn't quite come to that!"

"No, but it's coming to that!" cried Coryston, bringing his hand down in a

slap on the tea-table. "And women like my mother are determined it shall

come to it. They want to see this country divided up into two hostile

camps--fighting it out--blood and thunder, and devilries galore. Ay,

and"--he brought his face eagerly, triumphantly, close to Atherstone's--"so

do you, too--at bottom."

The doctor drew back. "I want politics to be realities, if that's what you

mean," he said, coldly. "But the peaceful methods of democracy are enough

for me. Well, Lord Coryston, you say you've been finding out a lot of

things in these few weeks you've been settled here. What sort?"

Coryston turned an odd, deliberate look at his questioner.

"Yes, I'm after a lot of game--in the Liberal preserves just as much as the

Tory. There isn't a pin to choose between you! Now, look here!" He checked

the items off on his fingers. "My mother's been refusing land for a Baptist

chapel. Half the village Baptist--lots of land handy--she won't let 'em

have a yard. Well, we're having meetings every week, we're sending her

resolutions every week, which she puts in the waste-paper basket. And on

Sundays they rig up a tent on that bit of common ground at the park gates,

and sing hymns at her when she goes to church. That's No. 1. No. 2--My

mother's been letting Page--her agent--evict a jolly decent fellow called

Price, a smith, who's been distributing Liberal leaflets in some of the

villages. All sorts of other reasons given, of course--but that's the

truth. Well, I sat on Page's doorstep for two or three days--no good. Now

I'm knocking up a shop and a furnace, and all the rest of the togs wanted,

for Price, in my back yard at Knatchett. And we've made him Liberal agent

for the village. I can tell you he's going it! That's No. 2. No. 3--There's

a slight difficulty with the hunt I needn't trouble you with. We've given

'em warning we're going to kill foxes wherever we can get 'em. They've been

just gorging chickens this last year--nasty beasts! That don't matter much,

however. No. 4--Ah-ha!"--he rubbed his hands--"I'm on the track of that old

hypocrite, Burton of Martover--"

"Burton! one of the best men in the country!" cried Atherstone,

indignantly. "You're quite mistaken, Lord Coryston!"

"Am I!" cried Coryston, with equal indignation--"not a bit of it. Talking

Liberalism through his nose at all the meetings round here, and then

doing a thing--Look here! He turned that man and his wife--Potifer's his

name--who are now looking after me--out of their cottage and their bit of

land--why, do you think?--because _the man voted for Arthur_! Why

shouldn't he vote for Arthur? Arthur kissed his baby. Of course he voted

for Arthur. He thought Arthur was 'a real nice gentleman'--so did his wife.

Why shouldn't he vote for Arthur? Nobody wanted to kiss Burton's baby. Hang

him! You know this kind of thing must be put a stop to!"

And, getting up, Coryston stamped up and down furiously, his small face

aflame. Atherstone watched him in silence. This strange settlement of Lady

Coryston's disinherited son--socialist and revolutionist--as a kind of

watchman, in the very midst of the Coryston estates, at his mother's

very gates, might not after all turn out so well as the democrats of the

neighborhood had anticipated. The man was too queer--too flighty.

"Wait a bit! I think some of your judgments may be too hasty, Lord

Coryston. There's a deal to learn in this neighborhood--the Hoddon Grey

estate, for instance--"

Coryston threw up his hands.

"The Newburys--my word, the Newburys! 'Too bright and good'--aren't

they?--'for human nature's daily food.' Such churches--and schools--and

villages! All the little boys patterns--and all the little girls saints.

Everybody singing in choirs--and belonging to confraternities--and carrying

banners. 'By the pricking of my thumbs' when I see a Newbury I feel that

a mere fraction divides me from the criminal class. And I tell you,

I've heard a story about that estate"--the odd figure paused beside the

tea-table and rapped it vigorously for emphasis--"that's worse than any

other villainy I've yet come across. You know what I mean. Betts and his

wife!"

He paused, scrutinizing the faces of Atherstone and Marion with his

glittering eyes.

Atherstone nodded gravely. He and Marion both knew the story. The

neighborhood indeed was ringing with it. On the one hand it involved the

pitiful tale of a divorced woman; on the other the unbending religious

convictions of the Newbury family. There was hot championship on both

sides; but on the whole the Newbury family was at the moment unpopular in

their own county, because of the affair. And Edward Newbury in particular

was thought to have behaved with harshness.

Coryston sat down to discuss the matter with his companions, showing a

white heat of feeling. "The religious tyrant," he vowed, "is the most

hideous of all tyrants!"

Marion said little. Her grave look followed her guest's vehement talk; but

she scarcely betrayed her own point of view. The doctor, of course, was as

angry as Coryston.

Presently Atherstone was summoned into the house, and then Coryston said,

abruptly:

"My mother likes that fellow--Newbury. My sister likes him. From what I

hear he might become my brother-in-law. He sha'n't--before Marcia knows

this story!"

Marion looked a little embarrassed, and certainly disapproving.

"He has very warm friends down here," she said, slowly; "people who admire

him enormously."

"So had Torquemada!" cried Coryston. "What does that prove? Look here!"--he

put both elbows on the table, and looked sharply into Marion's plain and

troubled countenance--"don't you agree with me?"

"I don't know whether I do or not--I don't know enough about it."

"You mustn't," he said, eagerly--"you mustn't disagree with me!" Then,

after a pause, "Do you know that I'm always hearing about you, Miss

Atherstone, down in those villages?"

Marion blushed furiously, then laughed.

"I can't imagine why."

"Oh yes, you can. I hate charity--generally. It's a beastly mess. But the

things you do--are human things. Look here, if you ever want any help,

anything that a fellow with not much coin, but with a pair of strong arms

and a decent headpiece, can do, you come to me. Do you see?"

Marion smiled and thanked him.

Coryston rose.

"I must go. Sha'n't wait for Arthur. He seems to be better employed. But--I

should like to come up here pretty often, Miss Atherstone, and talk to you.

I shouldn't wonder if I agreed with you more than I do with your father. Do

you see any objection?"

He stood leaning on the back of a chair, looking at her with his queer

simplicity. She smiled back.

"Not the least. Come when you like."

He nodded, and without any further farewell, or any conventional message to

her father, he strode away down the garden, whistling.

Marion was left alone. Her face, the face of a woman of thirty-five,

relaxed; a little rose-leaf pink crept into the cheeks. This was the fourth

or fifth time that she had met Lord Coryston, and each time they had

seemed to understand each other a little better. She put aside all foolish

notions. But life was certainly more interesting than it had been.

* * * * *

Coryston had been gone some time, when at last his brother and Miss

Glenwilliam emerged from the wood. The tea-table was now spread in the

shade, and they approached it. Marion tried to show nothing of the

curiosity she felt.

That Arthur Coryston was in no mood for ordinary conversation at least was

clear. He refused her proffered cup, and almost immediately took his leave.

Enid subsided again into her long chair, and Atherstone and Marion waited

upon her. She had an animated, excited look, the reflection, no doubt, of

the conversation which had taken place in the wood. But when Marion and she

were left alone it was a long time before she disclosed anything. At last,

when the golden May light was beginning to fade from the hill, she sat up

suddenly.

"I don't think I can, Marion; I don't think I _can_!"

"Can what?"

"Marry that man, my dear!" She bent forward and took her friend's hands in

hers. "Do you know what I was thinking of all the time he talked?--and he's

a very nice boy--and I like him very much. I was thinking of my father!"

She threw her head back proudly. Marion looked at her in some perplexity.

"I was thinking of my father," she repeated. "My father is the greatest man

I know. And I'm not only his daughter. I'm his friend. He has no one but

me since my mother died. He tells me everything, and I understand him. Why

should I marry a man like that, when I have my father! And yet of course

he touches me--Arthur Coryston--and some day I shall want a home--and

children--like other people. And there is the money, if his mother didn't

strip him of it for marrying me! And there's the famous name, and

the family, and the prestige. Oh yes, I see all that. It attracts me

enormously. I'm no ascetic, as Coryston has discovered. And yet when I

think of going from my father to that man--from my father's ideas to

Arthur's ideas--it's as though some one thrust me into a cave, and rolled

a stone on me. I should beat myself dead, trying to get out! I told him I

couldn't make up my mind yet--for a long, long time."

"Was that kind?" said Marion, gently.

"Well, he seemed to like it better than a final No," laughed the girl, but

rather drearily. "Marion! you don't know, nobody can know but me, what a

man my father is!"

And sitting erect she looked absently at the plain, the clear hardness of

her eyes melting to a passionate tenderness. It was to Marion as though the

rugged figure of the Chancellor overshadowed them; just as, at that moment,

in the political sense, it overshadowed England.

CHAPTER V

Lady Coryston's quarters at Coryston Place were not quite so devoid of all

the lighter touches as her London sitting-room. The view from the windows,

of the formal garden outside, with its rows of white statues, leading to

a winding lake, and parklike slopes beyond it, was certainly cheerful.

Coryston particularly disliked it, and had many ribald things to say about

the statues, which in his mad undergraduate days he had more than once

adorned with caps of liberty, pipes, mustaches, and similar impertinences.

But most people were attracted by the hard brightness of the outlook; and

of light and sunshine--on sunny days--there was, at any rate, no lack.

Marcia had recently chosen a new chintz for the chairs and sofas, and one

small group of photographs, on a table beside the fireplace, were allowed

to remind the spectator that the owner of the room had once been a young

mother, with a maternal pride in a bunch of fine children. Here were

Coryston, aged nine, on pony-back, pompously showing off; James, dreamily

affable, already a personage at seven; Arthur, fondling a cricket-bat, with

a stiff mouth, hastily closed--by order--on its natural grin; and Marcia,

frowning and pouting, in fancy dress as "The Strawberry Girl," just

emerging, it seemed, from one battle-royal with her nurse, and about to

plunge into another.

Lady Coryston had just entered the room. She was alone, and she carried a

pile of letters, which she put down on the central writing-table. Then she

went to one of the windows, which on this May day was open, and stood,

looking out, one long mittened hand resting vaguely on the table that held

the photographs. A commanding figure! She was in black, carrying her only

ornament, an embossed silver girdle and chatelaine, the gift of her husband

in their first year of marriage. As she paused, motionless, in the clear

sunshine, her great height and her great thinness and flatness brought

out with emphasis the masculine carriage of the shoulders and the strong

markings of the face. In this moment of solitude, however, the mistress of

Coryston Place and of the great domain on which she looked, allowed herself

an expression which was scarcely that of an autocrat--at any rate of an

autocrat at ease.

She was thinking of Coryston; and Coryston was giving her a good deal

to think about. Of course she had expected annoyance; but scarcely such

annoyance as Coryston, it seemed, was now bent on causing her. At bottom,

she had always reckoned on her position as mother and woman. Coryston might

threaten, but that he should actually carry out such iniquities as he was

now engaged on, had been--she owned it--beyond her calculations.

For she had come down to find the whole neighborhood in a ferment, and many

pleasant illusions, in the shelter of which she had walked for years, both

before and since her husband's death, questioned, at least, and cracking,

if not shattered. That the Corystons were model landlords, that they

enjoyed a feudal popularity among their tenants and laborers, was for Lady

Coryston one of the axioms on which life was based. She despised people who

starved their estates, let their repairs go, and squeezed the last farthing

out of their tenants. Nor had she any sympathy with people who owned

insanitary cottages. It had been her fond belief that she at least

possessed none. And now here was Coryston, her eldest son, camped in the

very midst of her property, not as her friend and support, but as her enemy

and critic; poking his nose into every corner of the estates, taken in

by every ridiculous complaint, preaching Socialism at full blast to the

laborers, and Land Acts to the farmers, stirring up the Nonconformists

to such antics as the Baptists had lately been playing on Sundays at her

gates; discovering bad cottages, where none were known to exist; and, in

general, holding up his mother to blame and criticism, which, as Lady

Coryston most truly, sincerely, indignantly felt, was wholly undeserved.

This then was the "game" that Coryston had warned her of. He was actually

playing it; though she had never believed for one moment that he would ever

do so. How was she to meet it? With firmness, no doubt, and dignity. As to

the firmness she had no fears; it was the dignity she was anxious about.

Lady Coryston was a woman of conscience; although no doubt she had long ago

harnessed her will to her conscience, which revolved--sometimes heavily--in

the rear. Still there the conscience was, and periodically she had to take

account of it. Periodically, it made her uncomfortable on the subject of

her eldest son. Periodically, it forced her to ask herself--as in this

reverie by the window--"How is it that, bit by bit, and year by year,

he and I have drifted to this pass? Who began it? Is it in any sense my

fault?"

How was it, in the first place, that neither she nor his father had ever

had any real influence over this incorrigible spirit; that even in Corry's

childish days, when his parents had him at their mercy, they might punish,

and thwart, and distress him, but could never really conquer him? Lady

Coryston could recall struggles with her son, whether at home or at school,

which turned her sick to think of.

Corry--for instance--at his preparatory school, taking a loathing to his

head master, demanding to be withdrawn, and stubbornly refusing to say why;

the master's authority upheld by Corry's parents; vindictive punishment;

followed by sudden illness on the boy's part in the midst of the commotion,

and his return home, white-faced, silent, indomitable. It made her shiver

to remember how he had refused to be nursed by her or by any one but the

old housekeeper at Coryston; how for weeks he had scarcely spoken to his

father or mother. Then had come the lad's justification--a hideous cruelty

charge against the head master; and on a quasi-apology from his father,

Corry had consented to forgive his parents.

And again--at Cambridge--another recollection clutched at memory; Corry,

taking up the case of a youth who had been sent down, according to

him, unjustly--furious attacks on the college authorities--rioting in

college--ending of course in the summary sending down of Coryston also. She

and his father in their annoyance and disappointment had refused to listen

to his explanations, to let him defend himself indeed at all. His mother

could see still Corry's strange hostile look at her, on his first arrival

at home, as much as to say, "Nothing to expect from _you_!" She could

still hear the hall door closing behind him as he went off on wanderings

abroad and in the East for what proved to be an absence of three years.

Yet there were some things she could remember on the other side, dating

also from Corry's Cambridge years. When her old father died, one Easter

vacation, and she, who was deeply attached to him, had arrived at Coryston

after the funeral, worn out by misery and grief, there, suddenly, were

Corry's arms open to her, and his--almost timid--kiss on her cheek. The

thought of those few weeks when he had been so tender to her, and she had

been too tired and sad for anything except to lie still and accept the

kindness of her husband and sons, was embittered to her by the remembrance

of all the fierce jars which had come after; but, at the moment, they were

halcyon days. As she thought of them now beside the open window, she was

suddenly aware of a catch in the throat, which she must instantly restrain.

It was really too late for any such melting between herself and Corry!

As to the scene which had taken place in the drawing-room of the St.

James's Square house on Coryston's hurried return home after his father's

death, and the explanation to him of the terms of his father's will, she

had expected it, and had prepared for it. But it had been none the less

a terrible experience. The fierceness of Corry's anger had been indeed

quietly expressed--he had evidently schooled himself; but the words and

phrases used by him had bitten into her mind. His wrath had taken the form

of a long summing up of the relations between himself and her since his

boyhood, of a final scornful attack on her supposed "principles," and a

denunciation of her love of power--unjustified, unwarranted power--as the

cause of all the unhappiness in their family life. He had not said it in so

many words, but she knew very well that what he meant was "You have refused

to be the normal woman, and you have neither mind enough nor knowledge

enough to justify you. You have sacrificed everything to politics, and you

don't understand a single political problem. You have ruined your own life

and ours for a barren intellectualism, and it will leave you in the end a

lonely and unhappy woman."

Well, well, she had borne with him--she had not broken with him, after

all that. She would have found a dozen ways of improving his position, of

giving him back his inheritance, if he had shown the smallest disposition

to meet her, to compromise with her. But he had gone from extravagance to

extravagance, from outrage to outrage. And finally she had gathered up all

her strength and struck, for the family traditions, for the party's,

the country's interests. And of course she had been right--she had been

abundantly right.

Drawing herself unconsciously erect, she looked out over the wide Coryston

domain, the undulations of the great estate as it stretched northward to

the hills. Politics! She had been in politics from her childhood; she had

been absorbed in them through all her married life; and now, in her later

years, she was fairly consumed by the passion of them, by the determination

to win and conquer. Not for herself!--so at least her thoughts, judged in

her own cause, vehemently insisted; not for any personal motive whatever,

but to save the country from the break-up of all that made England great,

from the incursions of a venomous rabble, bent on destroying the upper

class, the landed system, the aristocracy, the Church, the Crown. Woman as

she was, she would fight revolution to the last; they should find her body

by the wall, when and if the fortress of the old English life went down.

_Glenwilliam_!--in that name all her hatreds were summed up.

For there had arisen, during these latter years, a man of the people, to

lead what Lady Coryston called the "revolution"--a man who had suffered

cruelties, so it was said, at the hands of the capitalist and employing

class; who, as a young miner, blacklisted because of the part he had taken

in a successful strike, had gone, cap in hand, to mine after mine, begging

vainly for work, his wife and child tramping beside him. The first wife and

her child had perished, so the legend ran, at any rate, of hardship and

sheer lack of food. That insolent conspicuous girl who was now the mistress

of his house was the daughter of a second wife, a middle-class woman,

married when he was already in Parliament, and possessed of a small

competence which had been the foundation of her husband's political

position. On that modest sum he had held his ground; and upon it, while

England was being stirred from end to end by his demagogue's gift, he had

built up a personal independence and a formidable power which had enabled

him to bargain almost on equal terms with the two great parties.

"We refused to pay his price," was the way in which Lady Coryston was

accustomed to put it, "so the Liberals bought him--_dear_!"

And he was now exacting from that luckless party the very uttermost

farthing! Destruction of the Church; conscription, with a view, no doubt,

to turning a workman-led army, in case of need, upon the possessing class;

persecution of the landed interests; criminally heavy taxation--these were

Apollyon's weapons. And against such things even a weak woman must turn to

bay--must fight even her own heart, in the interests of her country.

"Did I choose my post in life for myself?--its duties, its

responsibilities? It was as much given to me as a soldier's place in the

line of battle! Am I to shirk it because I am a woman? The women have no

more right to run away than the men--vote or no vote! Haven't we eyes to

see this ruin that's coming, and minds to baffle it with? If I make Corry

rich?--and help thereby to throw England to the dogs? Am I to give him what

he says he hates--land and money--to use for what _I_ hate--and what

his father hated? Just because he is my son--my flesh and blood? He would

scorn the plea himself--he has scorned it all his life. Then let him

respect his mother--when she does the same."

But meanwhile the "game," as Coryston was playing it?--what was to be done

as to this episode and that?

She sat down to her writing-table, still busily thinking, and reminding

herself that her agent Mr. Page was to come and see her at twelve. She had

hoped to get some counsel and help out of Arthur, now that the House was up

for a fortnight. But Arthur had really been very inconsiderate and tiresome

so far. He had arrived so late for dinner on the Saturday that there had

been no time for talk, especially as there was a large party in the house.

On Sunday he had taken a motor, and had been away all day, paying--he

said--some constituency visits. And now this morning with the earliest

train he was off to London, though there was really no occasion for him

whatever to go up there. He seemed rather unlike himself. His mother

wondered if he was ill. And she fell into some indignant reflections on the

stuffy atmosphere and bad lighting of the House of Commons. But ever since

he knew that he was to have the estates his manner seemed to have changed;

not certainly in the direction of triumph or satisfaction. On the contrary,

he had once or twice said irritably to his mother that the will was

ridiculous and ought not to stand. She had been obliged to make it clear to

him that the matter was _not_ to be discussed.

Suddenly, as she sat there, distress seized her at the bare thought of any

shadow between herself and Arthur--Arthur, her darling, who was upholding

his father's principles and hers in Parliament with so much zeal and good

feeling; who had never all his life--till these latter weeks--given her so

much as a cross word. Yet now that she could no longer chase the thought

quite away, she admitted, more and more frankly, that she was anxious. Was

he in any money difficulties? She must get James to find out. In love? She

smiled. There were very few maidens in England, whatever their pretensions,

who would be likely to refuse Arthur Coryston. Let him only throw the

handkerchief, and his mother would soon do the rest. And indeed it was high

time he set up house for himself. There is a restlessness in a man which

means--marriage; and a mother soon becomes aware of it.

* * * * *

Recalling her thoughts to the letters before her, Lady Coryston perceived

among them a note from Lady William Newbury asking her and Marcia to spend

a week-end at Hoddon Grey. Lady Coryston rather wearily reflected that she

must no doubt accept. That young man was clearly in pursuit of Marcia. What

Marcia's own views were, her mother had not yet discovered. She seemed

sometimes glad to see him; sometimes entirely indifferent; and Lady

Coryston thought she had observed that her daughter's vacillations tried

Edward Newbury's pride sorely, at times. But it would end in a match--it

was pretty certain to end in a match. Marcia was only testing her power

over a strong-willed man, who would capture her in the end. That being so,

Lady Coryston acknowledged that the necessary tiresome preliminaries must

be gone through.

She hastily scrawled a note of acceptance, without any of the fond

imaginings that would have accompanied the act in the ordinary mother. Like

all imperious women she disliked staying in other people's houses, where

she could not arrange her hours. And she had a particularly resentful

memory of a visit which she had paid with her husband to Lord and Lady

William Newbury when they were renting a house in Surrey, before they had

inherited Hoddon Grey, and while Marcia was still in the schoolroom. Never

in her life had she been so ordered about. The strict rules of the house

had seemed to her intolerable. She was a martinet herself, and inclined to

pay all due attention to the observances of religion; but they must be her

own observances, or at least approved by her. To be expected to follow

other people's observances set her aflame. To make such a fuss, also, about

your religion seemed to her indecorous and absurd. She remembered with a

satisfaction which was half ashamed, that she--who was always down at

home to a half-past-eight breakfast, and was accustomed to walk a mile to

church--had insisted on breakfasting in her own room, on Sunday, under the

Newburys' roof, and had quite enjoyed Lady William's surprised looks when

they met at luncheon.

Well, now the thing had to be done again--for the settling of Marcia.

Whether the atmosphere of the family or the house would suit Marcia, her

mother did not inquire. In the matters of birth and money, nothing could be

more appropriate. Lady Coryston, however, was mostly concerned in getting

it through quickly, lest it should stand in the way of things more

important. She was fond of Marcia; but her daughter occupied, in truth,

only the fringe of her thoughts.

However, she duly put up her letter, and was addressing the envelope, when

the door opened to admit the head agent of the estate, Mr. Frederick Page.

Mr. Page was, in Lady Coryston's eyes, a prince of agents. Up till now she

had trusted him entirely, and had been more largely governed by his advice

than her pride of rule would ever have allowed her to confess. Especially

had she found reason to be grateful to him for the large amount of money he

had lately been able to provide her with from the savings of the Coryston

estates, for political purposes. Lady Coryston was one of the largest

subscribers to the party funds in the kingdom; the coming election demanded

an exceptional effort, and Page's economies had made it almost easy. She

greeted him with a peculiarly gracious smile, remembering perhaps the

letter of thanks she had received only the day before from the party

headquarters.

The agent was still a young man, not much over forty, ruddy, good-looking,

inclined to be plump, and possessed of a manner calculated to win the

confidence of any employer. He looked the pink of discretion and capacity,

and Lady Coryston had never discovered in him the smallest flaw with regard

to any of the orthodoxies she required, political or religious. He was a

widower, with two girls, who had often been allowed to play with Marcia.

It was clear to Lady Coryston's eyes at once that Mr. Page was much

disturbed and upset. She had expected it, of course. She herself was

disturbed and upset. But she had perhaps hoped that he would reassure

her--make light of the situation.

He did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, the effects of an encounter

he had just had with Lord Coryston himself in the village street, before

entering the park, were plainly visible in the agent's bearing. He plunged

at once into the subject.

"I fear, Lady Coryston, there is great trouble brewing on this estate!"

"You will stop it," she said, confidently; "you always have stopped it

before--you and I together."

He shook his head.

"Ah, but--you see what makes the difference!"

"That Coryston is my son?--and has always been regarded as my heir?

Certainly that makes a difference," she admitted, unwillingly. "But his

proceedings will soon disgust people--will soon recoil on himself!"

Page looked up to see her pale profile, with its marked hollows in cheek

and temple, outlined on the white paneling of the room like some strong,

hawkish face of the Renaissance. But, in awe of her as he always was,

she seemed to him a foolish woman. Why had she driven matters to this

extremity?

He poured out his budget of troubles. All the smoldering discontent which

had always existed on the estate had been set alight by Lord Coryston. He

was trying to form a union among the laborers, and the farmers were up

in arms. He was rousing the dissenters against the Church school of the

estate. He was even threatening an inquiry into the state of some of his

mother's cottages.

Lady Coryston interrupted. Her voice showed annoyance. "I thought, Mr.

Page, there were no insanitary cottages on this property!"

Page hemmed and hawed. He had not the courage to say that if a landowner

insists on spending the reserve fund of an estate on politics, the estate

suffers. He had found Lady Coryston large sums for the party war-chest;

but only a fool could expect him to build new cottages, and keep up a high

level of improvements, at the same time.

"I am doing what I can," he said, hurriedly. "There are certain things that

must be done. I have given orders."

"My son seems to have caught us napping," said Lady Coryston, rather

grimly.

The agent passed the remark by. He inquired whether her ladyship was still

determined to refuse land for the Baptist chapel.

"Certainly! The minister they propose is a most mischievous person, I have

no intention whatever of extending his influence."

Page acquiesced. He himself would have made the Baptists happy with a half

an acre, long since, and so, in his belief, scotched a hornet's nest. But

he had never breathed any suggestion of the kind to Lady Coryston.

"I have done my best--believe me--to stop the Sunday disturbances," he

said, "but in vain. They are chiefly got up, however, by people from a

distance. Purely political!"

"Of course. I am not to be intimidated by them," said Lady Coryston,

firmly.

The agent's inner mind let loose a thought to the effect that the

increasing influence of women in politics did not seem to be likely to lead

to peaceable living. But he merely remarked:

"I much regret that Lord Coryston should have addressed them himself last

Sunday. I ventured to tell his lordship so when I met him just now in the

village."

Lady Coryston stiffened on her chair.

"He defended himself?"

"Hotly. And I was to tell you that with your leave he will call on you

himself this afternoon about the affair."

"My house is always open to my son," said Lady Coryston, quietly. But Page

perceived the tremor of battle that ran through her.

"As to his support of that blacksmith from Ling, whom he is actually

setting up in business at Knatchett itself--the man is turning out a

perfect firebrand!--distributing Socialist leaflets over the whole

neighborhood--getting up a quarrel between some of the parents here in

this very village and our schoolmaster, about the punishment of a

child--perfectly legitimate!--everything in order!--and enrolling more

members of Mr. Glenwilliam's new Land League--within a stone's-throw of

this house!--than I like to think of. I won't answer for this village,

Lady Coryston, at the next election, if Lord Coryston goes on with these

proceedings!"

Lady Coryston frowned. She was not accustomed to be addressed in

so pessimistic a tone, and the mere mention of her

arch-enemy--Glenwilliam--had put defiance into her. With some dryness,

she preached energy, watchfulness, and a hopeful mind. The agent grasped

the situation with the quickness born of long acquaintance with her, and

adroitly shifted his ground. He remarked that at any rate Lord Coryston

was making things uncomfortable all round; and he described with gusto the

raids upon some of the Radical employers and small cottage-owners of the

district, in the name of political liberty and decent housing, by which

Coryston had been lately bewildering the Radical mind. Lady Coryston

laughed; but was perhaps more annoyed than amused. To be brought down to

the same level with Radical millers and grocers--and by her own son--was no

consolation to a proud spirit.

"If our cottages can be reasonably attacked, they must be put in order, and

at once," she said, with dignity. "You, Mr. Page, are my eyes and ears. I

have been accustomed to trust you."

The agent accepted the implied reproach with outward meekness, and an

inward resolve to put Lady Coryston on a much stricter financial regime for

the future.

A long conversation followed, at the end of which Mr. Page rose, with the

remark:

"Your ladyship will be sorry to hear that Mr. Glenwilliam is to speak at

Martover next month,--and that it is already rumored Lord Coryston will be

in the chair."

He had kept this bombshell to the last, and for various reasons he closely

watched its effect.

Lady Coryston paled.

"We will have a Tory meeting here the same night, and my son Arthur shall

speak," she said, with vivacity.

Some odd thoughts arose in the mind of Mr. Page as he met the angry fire in

the speaker's look.

"By all means. By the way, I did not know Mr. Arthur was acquainted

with those strange people the Atherstones?" he said, in a tone of easy

interrogation, looking for his hat.

Lady Coryston was a little surprised by the remark.

"I suppose an M.P. must be acquainted with everybody--to some extent," she

said, smiling. "I know very well what his opinion of Mr. Atherstone is."

"Naturally," said Page, also smiling. "Well, good-by, Lady Coryston. I hope

when you see Lord Coryston this afternoon you will be able to persuade him

to give up some of these extravagances."

"I have no power with him," she said, sharply.

"Why did you give up what you had?" thought the agent, as he took his

departure. His long experience of Lady Coryston, able as she was, and as he

admitted her to be, in many respects, had in the end only increased in him

a secret contempt for women, inbred in all but a minority of men. They

seemed to him to have so little power of "playing the game"--the old, old

game of success that men understand so well; through compromise, cunning,

give and take, shrewd and prudent dealing. A kind of heady blundering, when

caution and a few lies would have done all that was wanted--it was this he

charged them with--Lady Coryston especially.

And as to that nice but rather stupid fellow Arthur, what on earth could

he be doing at the Atherstones'? Had he--Page--come by chance on a

secret,--dramatic and lamentable!--when, on the preceding Saturday, as he

was passing along the skirts of the wood bounding the Atherstones' little

property, on his way to one of the Coryston hill-farms, he had perceived in

the distance--himself masked by a thin curtain of trees--two persons in the

wood-path, in intimate or agitated conversation. They were Arthur Coryston

and Miss Glenwilliam. He recognized the lady at once, had several times

seen her on the platform when her father spoke at meetings, and the

frequent presence of the Glenwilliams at the Atherstones' cottage was well

known to the neighborhood.

By George!--if that _did_ mean anything!

CHAPTER VI

Meanwhile on this May morning Marcia was reading in the park, not far from

a footpath--a right of way--leading from the village to the high road

running east and west along the northern boundary of the Coryston property.

Round her the slopes were white with hawthorn under a thunderous sky of

blue and piled white cloud. The dappled forms of deer glanced through the

twisted hawthorn stems, and at her feet a trout-stream, entrancingly clear

and clean, slipped by over its chalk bottom--the gray-green weeds swaying

under the slight push of the water. There was a mist of blossom, and

everywhere the fragrance of a bountiful earth, young once more.

Marcia, it must be confessed, was only pretending to read. She had some

reason to think that Edward Newbury might present himself at Coryston for

lunch that day. If so, and if he walked from Hoddon Grey--and, unlike

most young men of his age, he was a great walker, even when there was no

question of grouse or golf--he would naturally take this path. Some strong

mingled impulse had placed her there, on his road. The attraction for her

of his presence, his smile, his character was irresistibly increasing.

There were many days when she was restless and the world was empty till he

came. And yet there were other days when she was quite cold to him; when

the thought of giving her life into his hands made her cry "impossible";

when it seemed to her, as she had said to Waggin, that she rather feared

than loved him.

Edward Newbury indeed belonged to a type not common in our upper class, yet

always represented there, and in its main characteristics to be traced back

at least to the days of Laud and the Neoplatonists. It is a spiritual, a

mystical type, developed under English aristocratic conditions and shaped

by them. Newbury had been brought up in a home steeped in high Anglican

tradition. His grandfather, old Lord Broadstone, had been one of the first

and keenest supporters of the Oxford movement, a friend of Pusey, Keble,

and Newman, and later on of Liddon, Church, and Wilberforce. The boy had

grown up in a religious hothouse; his father, Lord William, had been

accustomed in his youth to make periodical pilgrimages to Christchurch

as one of Pusey's "penitents," and his house became in later life a

rallying-point for the High Anglican party in all its emergencies. Edward

himself, as the result of an intense travail of mind, had abandoned

habitual confession as he came to manhood, but he would not for the world

have missed the week of "retreat" he spent every year, with other Anglican

laymen, under the roof of the most spiritual of Anglican bishops. He was a

joyous, confident, devoted son of the English church; a man governed by the

most definite and rigid beliefs, held with a pure intensity of feeling, and

impervious to any sort of Modernism.

At the same time his handsome person, his ardent and amiable temper, his

poetic and musical tastes, made him a very general favorite even in the

most miscellaneous society. The enthusiastic Christian was also a popular

man of the world; and the esoteric elements in his character, though

perfectly well known to all who were in any degree his intimates, were

jealously hidden from the multitude, who welcomed him as a good-looking

fellow and an agreeable companion. He had been four years in the Guards,

and some years in India, as private secretary to his uncle, the Viceroy. He

was a good shot, a passionate dancer, a keen musician; and that mysterious

note in him of the unbending and the inexorable only made him--in

general--the more attractive both to men and women, as it became apparent

to them. Men scoffed at him, yet without ever despising him. Perhaps the

time was coming when, as character hardened, and the glamour of youth

dropped away, many men might hate him. Men like Coryston and Atherstone

were beginning indeed to be bitterly hostile. But these were possibilities

which were only just emerging.

Marcia was well aware of Newbury's distinction; and secretly very proud of

his homage. But rebellion in her was still active. When, however, she asked

herself, with that instinct for self-analysis bred in the woman of to-day

by the plays she sees, and half the tales she reads--"Why is it he likes

me?"--the half-sarcastic reply would still suggest itself--"No doubt just

because I am so shapeless and so formless--because I don't know myself what

I want or what I mean to be. He thinks he'll form me--he'll save my soul.

Shall he?"

A footstep on the path made her look up, annoyed that she could not control

a sudden burning of the cheek. But the figure she expected was not there.

"Coryston!" she cried.

Her brother approached her. He seemed to be reciting verse, and she thought

she caught some words from a Shelley chorus which she knew, because he had

made her learn it when she was a child in the schoolroom. He threw himself

down beside her.

"Well?"

Brother and sister had only met twice since Coryston's settlement at

Knatchett--once in the village street, and once when Marcia had invaded his

bachelor quarters at Knatchett. On that occasion she had discharged upon

him all the sarcasm and remonstrance of which she was capable. But she only

succeeded in reminding herself of a bullfight of which she had once seen

part at San Sebastian. Her shafts stuck glittering in the bull's hide, but

the bull barely shook himself. There he stood--good-humored, and pawing.

To-day also Coryston seemed to be in high spirits. Marcia, on the other

hand, gave him a look half troubled, half hostile.

"Corry!--I wanted to speak to you. Are you really going to see mother this

afternoon?"

"Certainly. I met Page in the village half an hour ago and asked him to

announce me."

"I don't want to talk any more about all the dreadful things you've been

doing," said Marcia, with sisterly dignity. "I know it wouldn't be any

good. But there's one thing I must say. I do beg of you, Corry, not to say

a word to mamma about--about Arthur and Enid Glenwilliam. I know you were

at the Atherstones on Saturday!"

The anxiety in the girl's face seemed to give a softer shade to its strong

beauty. She went on, appealingly:

"Arthur's told me a lot. He's quite mad. I've argued--and argued with

him--but it's no good. He doesn't care for anything--Parliament, mamma, the

estates, anything--in comparison with that girl. At present she's playing

with him, and he's getting desperate. But I'm simply in _terror_ about

mamma!"

Corry whistled.

"My dear, she'll have to know some time. As you say, he's in it, head over

ears. No use your trying to pull him back!"

"It'll kill her!" cried Marcia, passionately; "what's left of her, after

you've done!"

Coryston lifted his eyebrows and looked long and curiously at his sister.

Then he slowly got up from the grass and took a seat beside her.

"Look here, Marcia, do you think--do you honestly think--that I'm the

aggressor in this family row?"

"Oh, I don't know--I don't know what to think!"

Marcia covered her face with her hands. "It's all so miserable!--" she went

on, in a muffled voice. "And this Glenwilliam thing has come so suddenly!

Why, he hardly knew her, when he made that speech in the House six weeks

ago! And now he's simply demented! Corry, you must go and argue with

him--you _must_! Persuade him to give her up!"

She laid her hand on his arm imploringly.

Coryston sat silent, but his eyes laughed a little.

"I don't believe in her," he said at last, abruptly. "If I did, I'd back

Arthur up through thick and thin!"

"_Corry_!--how on earth can Arthur be happy if he marries her--how can

he live in that set--the son-in-law of _that man_! He'll have to give

up his seat--nobody here would ever vote for him again. His friends would

cut him--"

"Oh come, come, my dear, we're not as bad as that!" said Coryston,

impatiently.

But Marcia wailed on:

"And it isn't as if he had ideas and theories--like you--"

"Not a principle to his back!--I know," said Coryston, cheerfully. "I

tell you again, I'd not dissuade him; on the contrary, I'd shove him into

it!--if she were the right sort. But she's not. She's ruined by the luxury

she's been living in. I believe--if you ask me--that she'd accept Arthur

for his money--but that she doesn't care one brass farthing about him. Why

should she?"

"Corry!"

"He's a fool, my dear, though a jolly one--and she's not been accustomed to

living with fools. She's got wits as sharp as gimlets. Well, well"--he got

up from the seat--"can't talk any more now. Now what is it exactly you want

me to do? I repeat--I'm coming to see mother this afternoon."

"Don't let her guess anything. Don't tell her anything. She's a little

worried about Arthur already. But we must stop the madness before she knows

anything. Promise!"

"Very well. For the present--I'm mum."

"And talk to him!--tell him it'll ruin him!"

"I don't mind--from my own point of view," said Coryston, surveying her

with his hands on his sides. Then suddenly his face changed. A cloud

overshadowed it. He gave her a queer, cold look.

"Perhaps I have something to ask you," he said, slowly.

"What?" The tone showed her startled.

"Let _me_ come and talk to _you_ about that man whom all the

world says you're going to marry!"

She stared at him, struck dumb for the moment by the fierceness of his

voice and expression. Then she said, indignantly:

"What do you mean, Corry!"

"You are deceived in him. You can't marry him!" he said, passionately. "At

least let me talk to you."

She rose and stood facing him, her hands behind her, her dark face as full

of energy and will as his own.

"You are thinking of the story of Mrs. Betts. I know it."

"Not as I should tell it!"

A moving figure in a distant field caught her attention. She made a great

effort to master her excitement.

"You may tell me what you like. But I warn you I shall ask _him_ for

his version, too."

Corry's expression changed. The tension relaxed.

"That's only fair," he said, indifferently. Then, perceiving the advancing

man: "Ah, I see!--here he is. I'm off. It's a bargain. I say nothing to

mother--and do my best to make Arthur hang himself. And I have it out with

you--my small sister!--when we next meet."

He paused, looking at her, and in his strangely penetrating eyes there

dawned, suddenly, the rare expression that Marcia remembered--as of a grave

yet angry tenderness. Then he turned away, walking fast, and was soon

invisible among the light shadows of a beech avenue, just in leaf. Marcia

was left behind, breathing quick, to watch the approach of Edward Newbury.

* * * * *

As soon as he perceived Marcia under the shade of the hawthorns Newbury

quickened his pace, and he had soon thrown himself, out of breath, on the

grass beside her.

"What a heavenly spot!--and what a morning! How nice of you to let me find

you! I was hoping Lady Coryston would give me lunch."

Radiant, he raised his eyes to her, as he lay propped on his elbows, the

spring sun, slipping through the thin blossom-laden branches overhead,

dappling his bronzed face.

Marcia flushed a little--an added beauty. As she sat there in a white hat

and dress, canopied by the white trees, and lit by a warm reflected light,

she stirred in Newbury's senses once more a thrilling delight made all the

keener perhaps by the misgiving, the doubts which invariably accompanied

it. She could be so gracious; and she could be so dumb and inaccessible.

Again and again he had been on the point of declaring himself during the

last few weeks, and again and again he had drawn back, afraid lest the

decisive word from him should draw the decisive word from her, and it

should be a word of denial. Better--better infinitely--these doubts and

checks, than a certainty which would divide him from her.

This morning indeed he found her all girlish gentleness and appeal. And

it made his own task easier. For he also had matters on his mind. But she

anticipated him.

"I want to talk to you about Corry--my brother!" she said, bending toward

him.

[Illustration: THIS MORNING HE FOUND HER ALL GIRLISH GENTLENESS AND APPEAL]

There was a child in Marcia, and she could evoke it when she pleased. She

evoked it now. The young man before her hungered, straightway, to put out

his arms to her--gathering her to him caressingly as one does with the

child that clings and confides. But instead he merely smiled at her with

his bright conscious eyes.

"I, too, want to talk to you about Coryston," he said, nodding.

"We know he's behaving dreadfully--abominably!" laughed Marcia, but with a

puckered brow.

"Mr. Lester tells me there was a great attack on Lord and Lady William

yesterday in the Martover paper. Mother hasn't seen it yet--and I don't

want to read it--"

"Don't!" said Newbury, smiling.

"But mother will be so ashamed, unhappy, when she knows! So am I. But I

wanted to explain. We suffer just as much. He's stirring up the whole place

against mother. And now that he's begun to attack you, I thought perhaps

that if you and I--"

"Took counsel! Excellent!"

"We might perhaps think of some way of stopping it."

"He's much more acutely angry with us at present than with anything your

mother does," said Newbury, gravely! "Has he told you?"

"No, but--he means to," said the girl, hesitating.

"It is not unfair I think I should anticipate him. You will have his

version afterward. I got an extraordinary letter from him this morning. It

is strange that he cannot see we also plead justice and right for what we

do--that if we satisfied his conscience we should wound our own."

He rose from the grass as he spoke, and took a seat on a stone a little way

from her. And as she looked at him Marcia had a strange, sudden feeling

that here was quite another man from the wooer who had just been lying on

the grass at her feet. _This_ was the man of whom she had said to

Waggin--"he seems the softest, kindest!--and underneath--_iron_!"

A shade of some habitual sternness had crept over the features. A noble

sternness, however; and it had begun to stir in her, intermittently, the

thrill of an answering humility.

"It is difficult for me--perhaps impossible--to tell you all the story,"

he said, after a pause, "but I will try and tell it shortly--in its broad

outlines."

"I have heard some of it."

"So I supposed. But let me tell it in order--so far as I can. It concerns a

man whom a few weeks ago we all regarded--my father and mother--myself--as

one of our best friends. You know how keen my father is about experimenting

with the land? Well, when we set up our experimental farm here ten years

ago we made this man--John Betts--the head of it. He has been my father's

right hand--and he has done splendidly--made the farm, indeed, and himself,

famous. And he seemed to be one with us in other respects." He paused a

moment, looked keenly into her face, and then said, gravely and simply: "We

looked upon him as a deeply religious man. My mother could not say enough

of his influence on the estate. He took a large men's class on Sundays.

He was a regular communicant; he helped our clergyman splendidly. And

especially"--here again the speaker hesitated a moment. But he resumed with

a gentle seriousness--"he helped us in all our attempts to make the people

here live straight--like Christians--not like animals. My mother has very

strict rules--she won't allow any one in our cottages who has lost their

character. I know it sounds harsh. It isn't so--it's merciful. The villages

were in a terrible state when we came--as to morals. I can't of course

explain to you--but our priest appealed to us--we had to make changes--and

my father and mother bravely faced unpopularity--"

He looked at her steadily, while his face changed, and the sudden red of

some quick emotion invaded it.

"You know we are unpopular!"

"Yes," said Marcia, slowly, his perfect sincerity forbidding anything else

in her.

"Especially"--there was a touch of scorn in the full voice--"owing to

the attacks on my father and mother of that Liberal agitator--that man

Atherstone--who lives in that cottage on the hill--your mother knows all

about him. He has spread innumerable stories about us ever since we came to

live here. He is a free-thinker and a republican--we are church people and

Tories. He thinks that every man--or woman--is a law unto themselves. We

think--but you know what we think!"

He smiled at her.

"Well--to return to Betts. This is May. Last August he had an attack of

influenza, and went off to North Wales, to the sea, to recruit. He was away

much longer than any one expected, and after about six weeks he wrote to

my father to say that he should return to Hoddon Grey--with a wife. He had

found a lady at Colwyn Bay, whom he had known as a girl. She was a widow,

had just lost her father, with whom she lived, and was very miserable and

forlorn. I need not say we all wrote the most friendly letters. She came, a

frail, delicate creature, with one child. My mother did all she could

for her, but was much baffled by her reserve and shrinking. Then--bit by

bit--through some extraordinary chances and coincidences--I needn't go

through it all--the true story came out."

He looked away for a moment over the reaches of the park, evidently

considering with himself what he could tell, and how far.

"I can only tell you the bare facts," he said, at last. "Mrs. Betts was

divorced by her first husband. She ran away with a man who was in his

employment, and lived with him for two years. He never married her, and

after two years he deserted her. She has had a wretched life since--with

her child. Then Betts came along, whom she had known long ago. She threw

herself on his pity. She is very attractive--he lost his head--and married

her. Well now, what were we to do?"

"They _are_ married?" said Marcia.

"Certainly--by the law. But it is a law which matters nothing to us!"

The voice had taken to itself a full challenging note.

Marcia looked up.

"Because--you think--divorce is wrong?"

"Because--'What God has joined together let no man put asunder!'"

"But there are exceptions in the New Testament?"

The peach bloom on Marcia's cheek deepened as she bent over the daisy chain

she was idly making.

"Doubtful ones! The dissolution of marriage may itself be an open question.

But, for all churchmen, the remarriage of divorced persons--and trebly,

when it is asked for by the person whose sin caused the divorce!--is an

absolutely closed one!"

Marcia's mind was in a ferment. But her girlish senses were keenly alive to

the presence beside her--the clean-cut classical face, the spiritual beauty

of the eyes. Yet something in her shivered.

"Suppose she was very unhappy with her first husband?"

"Law cannot be based on hard cases. It is made to help the great multitude

of suffering, sinning men and women through their lives." He paused a

little, and then said, "Our Lord 'knew what was in man.'"

The low tone in which the last words were spoken affected Marcia deeply,

not so much as an appeal to religion, for her own temperament was not

religious, as because they revealed the inner mystical life of the man

beside her. She was suddenly filled again with a strange pride that he

should have singled her out--to love her.

But the rise of feeling was quickly followed by recoil.

She looked up eagerly.

"If I had been very miserable--had made a hideous mistake--and knew it--and

somebody came along and offered to make me happy--give me a home--and care

for me--I couldn't and I shouldn't resist!"

"You would," he said, simply, "if God gave you strength."

Nothing so intimate had yet been said between them. There was silence. That

old, old connection between the passion of religion--which is in truth a

great romanticism--and the passion of sex, made itself felt; but in its

most poetic form. Marcia was thrillingly conscious of the debate in

herself--of the voice which said, "Teach me, govern me, love me--be my

adored master and friend!" and the voice which replied, "I should be his

slave--I will not!"

At last she said:

"You have dismissed Mr. Betts?"

He sighed.

"He is going in a month. My father offered all we could. If--Mrs.

Betts"--the words came out with effort--"would have separated from him we

should have amply provided for her and her child. The Cloan Sisters would

have watched over her. She could have lived near them, and Betts could have

seen her from time to time--"

"They refused?"

"Absolutely. Betts wrote my father the fiercest letters. They were married,

he said, married legally and honestly--and that was an end of it. As to

Mrs. Betts's former history, no one had the smallest right to pry into it.

He defied my father to dismiss him. My father--on his principles--had no

choice but to do so. So then--your brother came on the scene!"

"Of course--he was furious?"

"What right has he to be furious?" said Newbury, quietly. "His principles

may be what he pleases. But he must allow us ours. This is a free country."

A certain haughtiness behind the gentle manner was very perceptible. Marcia

kindled for her brother.

"I suppose Corry would say, if the Church ruled us--as you wish--England

wouldn't be free!"

"That's his view. We have ours. No doubt he has the present majority with

him. But why attack us personally--call us names--because of what we

believe?"

He spoke with vivacity, with wounded feeling. Marcia melted.

"But every one knows," she murmured, "that Corry is mad--quite mad."

And suddenly, impulsively, she put out her hand.

"Don't blame us!"

He took the hand in both his own, bent over and kissed it.

"Don't let him set you against us!"

She smiled and shook her head. Then by way of extricating herself and him

from the moment of emotion--by way of preventing its going any further--she

sprang to her feet.

"Mother will be waiting lunch for us."

They walked back to the house together, discussing as they went Coryston's

whole campaign. Newbury's sympathy with her mother was as balm to Marcia;

insensibly she rewarded him, both by an open and charming mood, and also by

a docility, a readiness to listen to the Newbury view of life which she had

never yet shown. The May day, meanwhile, murmured and gleamed around them.

The spring wind like a riotous life leaped and rustled in the new leaf of

the oaks and beeches; the sky seemed to be leaning mistily to earth; and

there were strange, wild lights on the water and the grass, as though,

invisible, the train of Dionysius or Apollo swept through the land.

Meanwhile the relation between the young man and the girl ripened apace.

Marcia's resistance faltered within her; and to Newbury the walk was

enchantment.

Finally they agreed to leave the task of remonstrating with Coryston to Sir

Wilfrid Bury, who was expected the following day, and was an old friend of

both families.

"Corry likes him," said Marcia. "He says, 'Give me either a firebrand or a

cynic!' He has no use for other sorts of people. And perhaps Sir Wilfrid

will help us, too--with Arthur." Her look darkened.

"Arthur?" said Newbury, startled. "What's wrong with Arthur?"

Marcia hurriedly told him. He looked amazed and shocked.

"Oh, that can't be allowed. We must protect your mother--and persuade

Arthur. Let me do what I can. He and I are old pals."

Marcia was only too glad to be helped. It had begun to seem to her, in

spite of the rush of her London gaieties, and the brilliance of her London

successes, that she had been very lonely at home for a long time, and here,

in this strong man, were warmth and shelter.

* * * * *

Luncheon passed gaily, and Lady Coryston perceived, or thought she

perceived, that Marcia's affairs were marching briskly toward their

destined end. Newbury took his leave immediately afterward, saying to Lady

Coryston, "So we expect you--next Sunday?" The slight emphasis he laid on

the words, the pressure on her hand seemed to reveal to her the hope in the

young man's mind. Well!--the sooner, the better.

Afterward Lady Coryston paid some calls in the village, and, coming home

through a stately series of walled gardens ablaze with spring flowers, she

gave some directions for a new herbaceous border. Then she returned to the

house to await her son. Marcia meanwhile had gone to the station to meet

Sir Wilfrid Bury.

Coryston duly arrived, a more disreputable figure than usual--bedraggled

with rain, his shabby trousers tucked into his boots, and his cap festooned

with fishing-flies; for the afternoon had turned showery, and Coryston had

been pursuing the only sport which appealed to him in the trout-stream of

the park. Before he did so he had formally asked leave of the agent, and

had been formally granted it.

He and Lady Coryston were closeted together for nearly an hour. Had any

one been sitting in the adjoining room they would have heard, save on two

occasions when the raised voices clashed together, but little variation

in the tones of the combatants. When the conference broke up and Coryston

departed Lady Coryston was left alone for a little while. She sat

motionless in her chair beside her writing-table. Animation and color faded

slowly from her features; and before her trance of thought was broken by

the arrival of a servant announcing that Sir Wilfrid Bury had arrived, one

who knew her well would have been startled by certain subtle changes in her

aspect.

Coryston, meanwhile, made his way to the great library in the north wing,

looking for Lester. He found the young librarian at his desk, with a

fifteenth-century MS. before him, which he was describing and cataloguing.

The beautiful pages sparkling with color and gold were held open by glass

weights, and the young man's face, as he bent over his task, showed the

happy abstraction of the scholar. All around him rose the latticed walls

of the library, holding on one side a collection of MSS., on the other of

early printed books, well known to learned Europe. Wandering gleams from

the showery sky outside lit up the faded richness of the room, the pale

brown and yellows of the books, the sharp black and white of the old

engravings hanging among them. The windows were wide open, and occasionally

a westerly gust would blow in upon the floor petals from a fruit tree in

blossom just outside.

Coryston came in, looking rather flushed and excited, and took a seat on

the edge of the table where Lester was working, his hands in his pockets.

"What a blessed place!" he said, glancing round him. Lester looked up and

smiled absently.

"Not bad?"

Silence a moment. Then Coryston said, with sudden vehemence:

"Don't you go into politics, Lester!"

"No fear, old man. But what's up, now? You seem to have been ragging a good

deal."

"I've been 'following the gleam,'" said Coryston, with a sarcastic mouth.

"Or to put it in another way--there's a hot coal in me that makes me do

certain things. I dignify it by calling it a sense of justice. What is it?

I don't know. I say, Lester, are you a Suffragist?"

"Haven't made up my mind."

"I am--theoretically. But upon my word--politics plays the deuce with

women. And sometimes I think that women will play the deuce with politics."

"You mean they're so unmeasured?" said Lester, cautiously.

Coryston shook his head vaguely, staring at the floor, but presently broke

out:

"I say, Lester, if we can't find generosity, tenderness, an open

mind--among women--where the devil are we going to find them?" He stood up.

"And politics kills all that kind of thing."

"'Physician, heal thyself,'" laughed Lester.

"Ah, but it's our _business_!'"--Coryston smote the table beside

him--"our dusty, d--d business. We've got somehow to push and harry

and drive this beastly world into some sort of decency. But the

women!--oughtn't they to be in the shrine--tending the mystic fire? What if

the fire goes out--if the heart of the nation dies?"

Lester's blue-gray eyes looked up quietly. There was sympathy in them, but

he said nothing.

Coryston tramped half-way to the library door, then turned back.

"My mother's quite a good woman," he said, abruptly. "There are no great

scandals on this estate--it's better managed than most. But because of this

poison of politics, no one can call their souls their own. If she'd let

them live their own lives they'd adore her."

"The trade-unions are just the same."

"I believe you!" said Coryston. "Freedom's a lost art in England--from

Parliament downward. Well, well--Good-by!"

"Coryston!"

"Yes?" Lord Coryston paused with his hand on the door.

"Don't take the chair for Glenwilliam?"

"By George, I will!" Coryston's eyes flamed. And going out he noisily shut

the door.

* * * * *

Lester was left to his work. But his mood had been diverted, and he

presently found that he was wasting time. He walked to the window, and

stood there gazing at the bright flower-beds in the formal garden, the

fountain plashing in its center, the low hills and woods that closed the

horizon, the villages with their church-towers, piercing the shelter of the

woods. May had drawn over the whole her first veils of green. The English

perfection, the English mellowness, was everywhere; the spring breathings

in the air came scented with the young leaf of trees that had been planted

before Blenheim was fought.

Suddenly across the farther end of the garden passed a girlish figure in

white. Lester's pulses ran. It was Marcia. He saw her but seldom, and that

generally at a distance. But sometimes she would come, in her pretty,

friendly way, to chat to him about his work, and turn over his manuscripts.

"She has the same feeling about me that nice women have about their dogs

and cats. They are conscious of them, sorry for them; they don't like

them to feel themselves neglected. So she comes to see me every now and

then--lest I should think myself forgotten. Her conscience pricks her for

people less prosperous than herself. I see it quite plainly. But she would

be angry if I were to tell her so!"

CHAPTER VII

It was a breezy June afternoon, with the young summer at its freshest and

lustiest.

Lord and Lady William Newbury were strolling in the garden at Hoddon Grey.

The long low line of the house rose behind them--an attractive house and

an old one, but with no architectural features to speak of, except a

high-pitched mossy roof, a picturesque series of dormer-windows, and a high

gable and small lantern cupola at the farther end which marked the private

chapel. The house was evidently roomy, but built for comfort, not

display; the garden with its spreading slopes and knolls was simple and

old-fashioned, in keeping thereby with the general aspect of the two people

who were walking up and down the front lawn together.

Lord William Newbury was a man of sixty-five, tall and slenderly built. His

pale hazel eyes, dreamily kind, were the prominent feature of his face;

he had very thin flat cheeks, and his white hair--he was walking

bareheaded--was blown back from a brow which, like the delicate mouth,

was still young, almost boyish. Sweetness and a rather weak refinement--a

stranger would probably have summed up his first impressions of Lord

William, drawn from his bodily presence, in some such words. But the

stranger who did so would have been singularly wide of the mark. His wife

beside him looked even frailer and slighter than he. A small and mouse-like

woman, dressed in gray clothes of the simplest and plainest make, and

wearing a shady garden hat; her keen black eyes in her shriveled face gave

that clear promise of strong character in which her husband's aspect, at

first sight, was lacking. But Lady William knew her place. She was the most

submissive and the most docile of wives; and on no other terms would life

have been either possible or happy in her husband's company.

They were discussing, with some eagerness, the approaching arrival of their

week-end guests--Lady Coryston and Marcia, the new dean of a neighboring

cathedral, an ex-Cabinet Minister and an Oxford professor. But the talk,

however it circled, had a way of returning to Marcia. It was evident that

she held the field.

"It is so strange that I have scarcely seen her!" Lady William was saying

in a tone which was not without its note of complaint. "I hope dear Edward

has not been too hasty in his choice. As for you, William, I don't believe

you would know her again, if you were to see her without her mother."

"Oh yes, I should. Her mother introduced her to me at the Archbishop's

party, and I talked to her a little. A very handsome young woman. I

remember thinking her talk rather too theatrical."

"About theaters, you mean," sighed Lady William. "Well, that's the way with

all the young people. The fuss people make about actors and actresses is

perfectly ridiculous."

"I remember she talked to me enthusiastically about Madame Froment," said

Lord William, in a tone of reminiscence. "I asked her whether she knew that

Madame Froment had a scandalous story, and was not fit acquaintance for

a young girl. And she opened her eyes at me, as though I had propounded

something absurd. 'One doesn't inquire about that!' she said--quite

indignantly, I assure you! 'but only whether she can _act_.' It

was curious--and rather disquieting--to see so much

decision--self-assertion--in so young a woman."

"Oh, well, Edward will change all that." Lady William's voice was gently

confident. "He assures me that she has excellent principles--a fine

character really, though quite undeveloped. He thinks she will be readily

guided by one she loves."

"I hope so, for Edward's sake--for he is very much in love. I trust he is

not letting inclination run away with him. So much--to all of us--depends

on his marriage!"

Lord William, frowning a little, paused a moment in his walk and turned his

eyes to the house. Hoddon Grey had only become his personal property some

three years before this date; but ever since his boyhood it had been

associated for him with hallowed images and recollections. It had been

the dower-house of his widowed mother, and after her death his brother,

a widower with one crippled son, had owned it for nearly a quarter of

a century. Both father and son had belonged to the straitest sect of

Anglo-Catholicism; their tender devotion to each other had touched with

beauty the austerity and seclusion of their lives. Yet at times Hoddon Grey

had sheltered large gatherings--gatherings of the high Puseyite party in

the English Church, both lay and clerical. Pusey himself had preached in

the chapel; Liddon with the Italianate profile--orator and ascetic--might

have been seen strolling under the trees where Lord and Lady William were

strolling now; Manning, hatchet-faced, jealous and self-conscious, had made

fugitive appearances there; even the great Newman himself, in his extreme

old age, had once rested there on a journey, and given his Cardinal's

blessing to the sons of one of his former comrades in the Oxford movement.

Every stone in the house, every alley in the garden, was sacred in Lord

William's eyes. To most men the house they love represents either the

dignity and pride of family, or else successful money-making, and the

pleasure of indulged tastes. But to Lord William Newbury the house of

Hoddon Grey stood as the symbol of a spiritual campaign in which his

forebears, himself, and his son were all equally enrolled--the endless,

unrelenting campaign of the Church against the world, the Christian against

the unbeliever.

... His wife broke in upon his reverie.

"Are you going to say anything about Lord Coryston's letter, William?"

Lord William started.

"Say anything to his mother? Certainly not, Albinia!" He straightened his

shoulders. "It is my intention to take no notice of it whatever."

"You have not even acknowledged it?" she asked, timidly.

"A line--in the third person."

"Edward thinks Lady Coryston most unwise--"

"So she is--most unwise!" cried Lord William, warmly. "Coryston has every

right to complain of her."

"You think she has done wrong?"

"Certainly. A woman has no right to do such things--whatever her son may

be. For a woman to take upon herself the sole direction and disposal of

such properties as the Coryston properties is to step outside the bounds

of her sex; it is to claim something which a woman ought not to

claim--something altogether monstrous and unnatural!"

Lord William's thin features had flushed under a sudden rush of feeling.

His wife could not help the sudden thought, "But if we had had an infidel

or agnostic son?"

Aloud she said, "You don't think his being such a Radical, so dreadfully

extreme and revolutionary, justifies her?"

"Not at all! That was God's will--the cross she had to bear. She interferes

with the course of Providence--presumptuously interferes with it--doing

evil that what she conceives to be good may come. A woman must persuade

men by gentleness--not govern them by force. If she attempts that she is

usurping what does not--what never can--belong to her."

The churchman had momentarily disappeared in the indignant stickler for

male prerogative and the time-honored laws of English inheritance. Lady

William acquiesced in silence. She, too, strongly disapproved of Lady

Coryston's action toward her eldest son, abominable as Coryston's opinions

were. Women, like minorities, must suffer; and she was glad to have her

husband's word for it that it is not their business to correct or coerce

their eldest sons, on the ground of political opinions, however grievous

those opinions may be.

"I trust that Lady Coryston will not open on this subject to me," said Lord

William, after a pause. "I am never good at concealing my opinions for

politeness' sake. And of course I hold that Coryston is just as much in the

wrong as she. And mad to boot! No sane man could have written the letter I

received last week?"

"Do you think he will do what he threatens?"

"What--get up a subscription for Mr. and Mrs. Betts, and settle them

somewhere here? I dare say! We can't help it. We can only follow our

consciences."

Lord William held himself erect. At that moment no one could have thought

of "sweetness" in connection with the old man's delicately white features.

Every word fell from him with a quiet and steely deliberation.

His wife walked beside him a little longer. Then she left him and went into

the house to see that all the last preparations for the guests were made;

gathering on her way a bunch of early roses from a bed near the house.

She walked slowly through the guestrooms on the garden front, looking at

everything with a critical eye. The furniture of the rooms was shabby and

plain. It had been scarcely changed at all since 1832, when Lord William's

widowed mother had come to live at Hoddon Grey. But everything smelt of

lavender and much cleaning. The windows were open to the June air, and the

house seemed pervaded by the cooing of doves from the lime walk outside; a

sound which did but emphasize the quiet of the house and garden. At the

end of the garden front Lady William entered a room which had a newer and

fresher appearance than the rest. The walls were white; a little rosebud

chintz curtained the windows and the bed. White rugs made the hearth and

the dressing-table gay, and there was a muslin bedspread lined with pink

and tied with knots of pink ribbon.

Lady William stood and looked at it with an intense and secret pleasure.

She had been allowed to "do it up" the preceding summer, out of her own

money, on which, in all her life, she had never signed a check; and she

had given orders that Miss Coryston was to be put into it. Going to the

dressing-table, she took from the vase there the formal three sprigs of

azalea which the housemaid had arranged, and replaced them by the roses.

Her small, wrinkled hands lingered upon them. She was putting them there

for the girl Edward loved--who was probably to be his wife. A great

tenderness filled her heart.

When she left the room, she rapidly descended a staircase just beyond it,

and found herself in the vestibule of the chapel. Pushing the chapel doors

open, she made her way in. The rich glooms and scents of the beautiful

still place closed upon her. Kneeling before the altar, still laden with

Whitsun flowers, and under the large crucifix that hung above it, she

prayed for her son, that he might worthily uphold the heritage of his

father, that he might be happy in his wife, and blessed with children....

* * * * *

An hour later the drawing-room and the lawns of Hoddon Grey were alive

with tea and talk. Lady Coryston, superbly tall, in trailing black, was

strolling with Lord William. Sir Wilfrid, the ex-Minister Sir Louis Ford,

the Dean, and the Chaplain of the house were chatting and smoking round the

deserted tea-table, while Lady William and the Oxford Professor poked among

the flower-beds, exchanging confidences on phloxes and delphiniums.

In the distance, under the lime avenue, now in its first pale leaf, two

young figures paced to and fro. They were Newbury and Marcia.

Sir Wilfrid had just thrown himself back in his chair, looking round him

with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Hoddon Grey makes me feel good! Not a common effect of country-houses!"

"Enjoy them while you may!" laughed Sir Louis Ford. "Glenwilliam is after

them."

"Glenwilliam!" exclaimed the Dean. "I saw him at the station, with his

handsome but rather strange-looking daughter. What's he doing here?"

"Hatching mischief with a political friend of his--a 'fidus Achates'--who

lives near here," said the Chaplain, Mr. Perry, in a deep and rather

melancholy tone.

"From the bills I saw posted up in Martover as we came through"--Sir

Louis Ford lowered his voice--"I gathered the amazing fact that

Coryston--_Coryston_!--is going to take the chair at a meeting where

Glenwilliam speaks some way on in next month."

Sir Wilfrid shrugged his shoulders, with a warning glance at the stately

form of Coryston's mother in the distance.

"Too bad to discuss!" he said, shortly.

A slight smile played round the Dean's flexible mouth. He was a new-comer,

and much more of an Erastian than Lord William approved. He had been

invited, not for pleasure, but for tactics; that the Newburys might find

out what line he was going to take in the politics of the diocese.

"We were never told," said the Dean, "that a _woman's_ foes were to be

those of her own household!"

The Chaplain frowned.

"Lord Coryston is making enemies in all directions," he said, hastily.

"I understand that a letter Lord William received from him last week was

perfectly outrageous."

"What about?" asked Sir Louis.

"A divorce case--a very painful one--on which we have found it necessary to

take a strong line."

The speaker, who was largely made and gaunt, with grizzled hair and

spectacles, spoke with a surprising energy. The Dean looked puzzled.

"What had Lord Coryston to do with it?"

"What indeed?--except that he is out for picking up any grievances he can."

"Who are the parties?"

The Chaplain told the story.

"They didn't ask anybody to marry them in church, did they?" asked the

Dean.

"Not that I know of."

The Dean said nothing, but as he lay back in his chair, his hands behind

his head, his expression was rather hostile than acquiescent.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, under the lime walk the golden evening insensibly heightened

the pleasure of Newbury and Marcia in each other's society. For the sunny

fusion of earth and air glorified not only field and wood, but the

human beings walking in them. Nature seemed to be adapting herself to

them--shedding a mystic blessing on their path. Both indeed were conscious

of a secret excitement. They felt the approach of some great moment, as

though a pageant or presence were about to enter. For the first time,

Marcia's will was in abeyance. She was scarcely ecstatically happy; on the

far horizon of life she seemed to be conscious of storm-clouds, of things

threatening and unexplored. And yet she was in love; she was thrilled

both physically and spiritually by the man beside her; with a certain

helplessness, she confessed in him a being stronger and nobler than

herself; the humility, the self-surrender of passion was rising in her,

like the sap in the spring tree, and she trembled under it.

Newbury too had grown a little pale and silent. But when his eyes met hers

there was that in them under which her own wavered.

"Come and see the flowers in the wood," he said, softly, and leading the

way, he took her out of range of those observers in the garden; deep into

a noble beech wood that rose out of the garden, climbing through a sea of

wild hyacinths to a hilltop.

A mossy path offered itself, winding through the blue. And round them

closed the great beech trees, in a marvel of young green, sparkling and

quivering under the shafts of light that struck through the wood. The air

was balm. And the low music of the wood-pigeons seemed to be there for them

only; a chorus of earth's creatures, wooing them to earth's festival.

Unconsciously, in the deep heart of the wood, their footsteps slackened.

She heard her name breathed.

"Marcia!"

She turned, submissive, and saw him looking down upon her with adoring

tenderness, his lips gravely smiling.

"Yes!"

She raised her eyes to his, all her ripe beauty one flush. He put his arms

round her, whispering:

"Marcia! will you come to me--will you be my wife?"

She leaned against him in a trance of happiness, hiding her face, yet not

so that his lips could not find hers. So this was love?--the supreme of

life?

They stood so in silence a little. Then, still holding her, he drew her

within the low feathering branches of a giant tree, where was a fallen log.

He placed her on it, and himself beside her.

"How wonderful that you should love me, that you should let me love you!"

he said, with passionate emotion. "Oh, Marcia, am I worthy--shall I make

you happy?"

"That is for me to ask!" Her mouth was trembling now, and the tears were in

her eyes. "I'm not nearly as good as you, Edward. I shall often make you

angry with me."

"Angry!" He laughed in scorn. "Could any one, ever, be angry with you,

Marcia! Darling, I want you to help me so! We'll help each other--to live

as we ought to live. Isn't God good? Isn't life wonderful?"

She pressed his hand for answer. But the intensity of his joy, as she read

it in his eyes, had in it--for her--and for the moment--just a shade of

painfulness. It seemed to claim something from her that she could not quite

give--or that she might not be able to give. Some secret force in her cried

out in protest. But the slight shrinking passed almost immediately. She

threw off her hat, and lifted her beautiful brow to him in a smiling

silence. He drew her to him again, and as she felt the pressure of his arm

about her, heart and soul yielded utterly. She was just the young girl,

loving and beloved.

"Do your father and mother really approve?" she asked at last as she

disengaged herself, and her hands went up to her hot cheeks, and then to

her hair, to smooth it back into something like order.

"Let us go and see." He raised her joyously to her feet.

She looked at him a little wistfully.

"I'm rather afraid of them, Edward. You must tell them not to expect too

much. And I shall always--want to be myself."

"Darling! what else could they, could any one want for you--or for me!"

The tone showed him a little startled, perhaps stung, by her words. And he

added, with a sudden flush:

"Of course I know what Coryston will say to you. He seems to think us all

hypocrites and tyrants. Well--you will judge. I won't defend my father and

mother. You will soon know them. You will see what their lives are."

He spoke with feeling. She put her hand in his, responding.

"You'll write to Corry--won't you? He's a dreadful thorn in all our sides;

and yet--" Her eyes filled with tears.

"You love him?" he said, gently. "That's enough for me."

"Even if he's rude and violent?" she pleaded.

"Do you think I can't keep my temper--when it's _your_ brother? Try

me."

He clasped her hand warm and close in his strong fingers. And as she moved

through the young green of the woodland he saw her as a spirit of delight,

the dark masses of her hair, her white dress and all her slender grace

flecked by the evening sun. These were moments, he knew, that could never

come again; that are unique in a man's history. He tried to hold and taste

them as they passed; tormented, like all lovers, by what seems, in such

crises, to be the bitter inadequacy and shallowness of human feeling.

They took a more round-about path home than that which had brought them

into the wood, and at one point it led them through a clearing from which

there was a wide view of undulating ground scattered with houses here and

there. One house, a pleasant white-walled dwelling, stood conspicuously

forward amid copses a couple of fields away. Its garden surrounded by a

sunk fence could be seen, and the figure of a lady walking in it. Marcia

stopped to look.

"What a charming place! Who lives there?"

Newbury's eyes followed hers. He hesitated a moment.

"That is the model farm."

"Mr. Betts's farm?"

"Yes. Can you manage that stile?"

Marcia tripped over it, scorning his help. But her thoughts were busy with

the distant figure. Mrs. Betts, no doubt; the cause of all the trouble and

talk in the neighborhood, and the occasion of Corry's outrageous letter to

Lord William.

"I think I ought to tell you," she said, stopping, with a look of

perplexity, "that Corry is sure to come and talk to me--about that story. I

don't think I can prevent him."

"Won't you hand him on to me? It is really not a story for your ears."

He spoke gravely.

"I'm afraid Cony would call that shirking. I--I think perhaps I had better

have it out with him--myself. I remember all you said to me!"

"I only want to save you." His expression was troubled, but not without

a certain touch of sternness that she perceived. He changed the subject

immediately, and they walked on rapidly toward the garden.

Lady William first perceived them--perceived, too, that they were hand in

hand. She broke off her chat with Sir Wilfrid Bury under the limes, and

rising in sudden agitation she hurried across the lawn to her husband.

The Dean and Sir Louis Ford had been discussing Woman Suffrage over their

cigarettes, and Sir Louis, who was a stout opponent, had just delivered

himself of the frivolous remark--in answer to some plea of the Dean's on

behalf of further powers for the female sex:

"Oh, no doubt, somewhere between the Harem and the Woolsack, it will be

necessary to draw the line!"--when they too caught sight of the advancing

figures.

The Dean's eyebrows went up. A smile, most humorous and human, played over

his round cheeks and button mouth.

"Have they drawn it? Looks like it!" he said, under his breath.

"Eh!--what?" Sir Louis, the most incorrigible of elderly gossips, eagerly

put up his eyeglass. "Do you suspect anything?"

Five persons were presently gathered in the library, and Marcia was sitting

with her hand in Lady William's. Everybody except Lady Coryston was in a

happy agitation, and trying to conceal it. Even Lord William, who was not

without his doubts and qualms, was deeply moved, and betrayed a certain

moisture in his eyes, as he concluded his old world speech of welcome and

blessing to his son's betrothed. Only Lady Coryston preserved an unbroken

composure. She was indeed quite satisfied. She had kissed her daughter and

given her consent without the smallest demur, and she had conveyed both to

Newbury and his father in a few significant words that Marcia's portion

would be worthy of their two families. But the day's event was already

thrust aside by her burning desire to get hold of Sir Louis Ford before

dinner, and to extract from him the latest and most confidential

information that a member of the Opposition could bestow as to the possible

date for the next general election. Marcia's affair was thoroughly nice

and straightforward--just indeed what she had expected. But there would

be plenty of time to talk about it after the Hoddon Grey visit was over;

whereas Sir Louis was a rare bird not often to be caught.

"My dear," said Lord William in his wife's ear, "Perry must be informed of

this. There must be some mention of it in our service to-night."

She assented. Newbury, however, who was standing near, caught the remark,

and looked rather doubtfully at the speaker.

"You think so, father?"

"Certainly, my dear son, certainly."

Neither Marcia nor her mother heard. Newbury approached his betrothed, but

perceived that there was no chance of a private word with her. For by this

time other guests had been summoned to receive the great announcement, and

a general flutter of laughter and congratulations was filling the room.

The Dean, who had had his turn with Marcia, and was now turning over books,

looked at her keenly from time to time.

"A face," he thought, "of much character, promising developments. Will she

fit herself to this medieval household? What will they make of her?"

Sir Louis, after paying his respects and expressing his good wishes to the

betrothed pair, had been resolutely captured by Lady Coryston. Lord William

had disappeared.

Suddenly into the talk and laughter there struck the sound of a loud and

deep-toned bell. Lady William stood up with alacrity. "Dear me!--is it

really chapel-time? Lady Coryston, will you come?"

Marcia's mother, her face stiffening, rose unwillingly.

"What are we supposed to do?" asked the Dean, addressing Newbury.

"We have evensong in chapel at seven," said Newbury. "My father set up

the custom many years ago. It gathers us all together better than evening

prayer after dinner."

His tone was simple and matter-of-fact. He turned radiantly to Marcia, and

took her hand again. She followed him in some bewilderment, and he led her

through the broad corridor which gave access to the chapel.

"Rather unusual, this, isn't it?" said Sir Louis Ford to Lady Coryston

as they brought up the rear. His face expressed a certain restrained

amusement. If there was a convinced agnostic in the kingdom it was he. But

unlike the woman at his side he could always take a philosophical interest

in the religious customs of his neighbors.

"Most unusual!" was the emphatic reply. But there was no help for it. Lady

Coryston followed, willy-nilly.

Marcia, meanwhile, was only conscious of Newbury. As they entered the

chapel together she saw his face transfigured. A mystical "recollection,"

shutting him away completely from the outside world, sweeping like a

sunlit cloud even between himself and her, possessed it. She felt suddenly

forsaken--altogether remote from him.

But he led her on, and presently they were kneeling together under a great

crucifix of primitive Italian work, while through the dusk of the May

evening gleamed the lamps of the chapel, and there arose on all sides of

her a murmur of voices repeating the Confession. Marcia was aware of many

servants and retainers; and she could see the soldierly form of Lord

William kneeling in the distance, with Lady William beside him. The chapel

seemed to her large and splendid. It was covered with painting and mosaic;

and she felt the sharp contrast between it and the simple bareness of the

house to which it was attached.

"What does all this mean?" she seemed to be asking herself. "What does it

mean for _me_? Can I play my part in it?"

What had become of that early antagonism and revolt which she had expressed

to "Waggin"? It had not protected her in the least from Newbury's growing

ascendancy! She was indeed astonished at her own pliancy! In how short a

time had she allowed Newbury's spell upon her to drive her earlier vague

fears of his surroundings and traditions out of her mind!

And now it returned upon her intensified--that cold, indefinite fear,

creeping through love and joy.

She turned again to look beseechingly at Newbury. But it seemed to her that

she was forgotten. His eyes were on the altar--absorbed.

And presently, aghast, she heard her own name! In the midst of the General

Thanksgiving, at the point where mention may be made of individual cases,

the Chaplain suddenly paused to give thanks in a voice that possessed a

natural and slightly disagreeable tremor, for the "happy betrothal of

Edward Newbury and Marcia Coryston."

An audible stir and thrill ran through the chapel, subsiding at once into

a gulf of intense silence. Marcia bowed her head with the rest; but her

cheeks burned, and not only with a natural shyness. The eyes of all these

kneeling figures seemed to be upon her, and she shrank under them. "I

ought to have been asked," she thought, resentfully. "I ought to have been

asked!"

When they left the chapel, Newbury, pale and smiling, bent over her

appealingly.

"Darling!--you didn't mind?"

She quickly withdrew her hand from his.

"Don't you dine at half past eight? I really must go and dress."

And she hurried away, without waiting for him to guide her through the

unknown house. Breathlessly she ran up-stairs and found her room. The sight

of her maid moving about, of the lights on the dressing-table, of the

roses, and her dress laid out upon the bed, brought her sudden and

unspeakable relief. The color came back to her cheeks, she began to chatter

to her maid about everything and nothing--laughing at any trifle, and yet

feeling every now and then inclined to cry. Her maid dressed her in pale

pink and told her plainly when the last hook was fastened and the last

string tied that she had never looked better.

"But won't you put on these roses, miss?"

She pointed to the bunch that Lady William had gathered.

Marcia pinned them into her belt, and stood a moment looking at her

reflection in the glass. Not in mere girlish vanity! Something much

stronger and profounder entered in. She seemed to be measuring her

resources against some hostile force--to be saying to herself:

"Which of us is to yield? Perhaps not I!"

* * * * *

Yet as soon as Marcia entered the drawing-room, rather late, to find all

the party assembled, the tension of her mood dropped, thawed by the

sheer kindness and good will of the people round her. Lord William was

resplendent in a button-hole and new dress-clothes; Lady William had put

on her best gown and some family jewels that never saw the light except on

great occasions; and when Marcia entered, the friendly affectionate looks

that greeted her on all sides set her blushing once more, and shamed away

the hobgoblins that had been haunting her. She was taken in to dinner by

Lord William and treated as a queen. The table in the long, low dining-room

shone with flowers and some fine old silver which the white-haired butler

had hurriedly produced from the family store. Beside Marcia's plate lay a

bunch of lilies-of-the-valley which the no less ancient head gardener had

gathered and tied with a true-lover's knot, in the interval between chapel

and dinner. And opposite to her sat the man she was to marry, composed and

gay, careful to spare his betrothed embarrassment, ready to talk politics

with Sir Louis Ford and cathedral music with the Dean; yet, through it all,

so radiantly and transparently happy that his father and mother, at any

rate, could not look at him without melting memories of their own youth,

which sometimes, and for a moment, made talk difficult.

After dinner Sir Wilfrid Bury found Lady Coryston in a secluded corner,

deep in the evening papers which had just arrived. He sat down beside her.

"Well, how are you feeling?"

"If we could but revive the duel!" said Lady Coryston, looking up with eyes

aflame.

"Gracious! For what and whom? Do you want to shoot your future son-in-law

for taking her from you?"

"Who--Marcia? Nonsense!" said Lady Coryston, impatiently. "I was talking

of this last speech of Glenwilliam's, attacking us landlords. If the duel

still existed he would either never have made it or he would have been shot

within twenty-four hours!"

"Hang Glenwilliam!" Sir Wilfrid's tone was brusque. "I want to talk about

Marcia!"

Lady Coryston turned slowly round upon him.

"What's wrong with Marcia? I see nothing to talk about."

"Wrong! You unnatural woman! I want to know what you feel about it. Do you

really like the young man? Do you think he's good enough for her?"

"Certainly I like him. A very well disposed fellow. I hope he'll manage her

properly. But if you want to know what I think of his family"--she dropped

her voice--"I can only say that although their virtues no doubt are legion,

the atmosphere of this house is to me positively stifling. You feel it as

you cross the threshold. It is an atmosphere of sheer tyranny! What on

earth do they mean by bundling us into chapel like that?"

"Tyranny! _You_ call it tyranny!" Sir Wilfrid's eyes danced.

"Certainly," said Lady Coryston, stiffly. "What else should I call it?

One's soul is not one's own."

Sir Wilfrid settled down on the sofa beside her, and devoted himself to

drawing her out. Satan rebuking sin was a spectacle of which he never

tired, and the situation was the more amusing because he happened to have

spent the morning in remonstrating with her--to no purpose whatever--on the

manner in which she was treating her eldest son.

CHAPTER VIII

While these events were happening at Hoddon Grey, Reginald Lester was

passing a solitary Sunday at Coryston, until the afternoon, at least, when

visitors appeared. To be left to himself, the solitary inhabitant, save for

the servants, of the great classical pile; to be able to wander about it as

he liked, free to speculate on its pictures and engravings; to rummage the

immense collection of china in the basement rooms which no one but himself

ever looked at; to examine some new corner of the muniment-room, and

to ponder the strange and gruesome collection of death-masks, made by

Coryston's grandfather, and now ranged in one of the annexes of the

library--gave him endless entertainment. He was a born student, in whom the

antiquarian instincts would perhaps ultimately overpower the poetic and

literary tastes which were now so strong in him; and on Sunday, when he put

aside his catalogue, the miscellaneous possessions of an historic house

represented for him a happy hunting-ground through which he was never tired

of raiding.

But on Sunday, also, he generally gave some time to writing the journal of

the preceding week. He had begun it in the hopes of attaining thereby a

more flexible and literary style than the methods of his daily research

allowed, and with various Stevensonian ambitions dinning in his head. Why

should he not make himself a _writer_, like other people?

But the criticisms of books, the records of political or literary

conversation, with which the parchment-bound volume had been filled for

some time, had been gradually giving place to something quite different,

and it had become more necessary than ever that the book should be

carefully locked when done with, and put away in his most private drawer.

For instance:

"What is happening, or what has probably already happened, yesterday or

to-day, at Hoddon Grey? It is very easy to guess. N. has been gaining

ground steadily ever since he has been able to see her away from the

distracting influences of London. What is impressive and unusual in his

character has room to show itself; and there are no rival forces. And

yet--I doubt very much whether it would answer his purpose that she should

see much of his home. She will never endure any home of her own run on the

same lines; for at bottom she is a pagan, with the splendid pagan virtues,

of honor, fairness, loyalty, pity, but incapable by temperament of those

particular emotions on which the life of Hoddon Grey is based. Humility, to

her, is a word and a quality for which she has no use; and I am sure that

she has never been sorry for her 'sins,' in the religious sense, though

often, it seems to me, her dear life just swings hour by hour between the

two poles of impulse and remorse. She passionately wants something and

must get it; and then she is consumed with fear lest in the getting it she

should have injured or trampled on some one else.

"Of late she has come in here--to the library--much more frequently. I am

sure she feels that I care deeply what happens to her; and I sometimes am

presumptuous enough to think that she wishes me to understand and approve

her.

"It has grown up inevitably--this affair; but N. little realizes how

dangerous his position is. Up to a certain point the ascetic element in him

and his philosophy will attract her--will draw the moth to the candle. All

strong-willed characters among women are attracted by the austere, the

ascetic powers in men. The history of all religious movements is there

to prove it. But there are tremendous currents in our modern life making

against such men as Newbury--their ideals and traditions. And to one or

other of those currents it always seems to me that she is committed. She

does not know it--does not dream, perhaps, whither she is being carried;

but all the same there are 'murmurs and scents' from 'the infinite sea' of

free knowledge and experiment which play upon her, and will never play upon

Newbury.

"Coryston will make a great effort to upset the engagement--if it is an

engagement; that I can see. He thinks himself justified, on the ground that

she will be committing herself to an inhuman and antisocial view of life;

and he will work upon her through this painful Betts case. I wonder if

he will succeed. Is he really any more tolerant than his mother? And can

toleration in the active-spirited be ever anything more than approximate?

'When I speak of toleration I mean not tolerated Popery,' said Milton. Lady

Coryston can't tolerate her son, and Coryston can't tolerate Newbury. Yet

all three must somehow live together and make a world. Doesn't that

throw some light on the ideal function of women? Not voting--not direct

party-fighting--but the creation of a spiritual atmosphere in which the

nation may do its best, and may be insensibly urged to do its best, in

fresh, spontaneous ways, like a plant flowering in a happy climate--isn't

that what women might do for us?--instead of taking up with all the

old-fashioned, disappointing, political machinery, that men have found out?

Meanwhile Lady Coryston of course wants all the women of her sort to vote,

but doesn't see how it is to be done without letting in the women of all

and any sort--to vote against her.

"I have about half done my cataloguing, and have been writing some letters

to Germany this morning with a view to settling on some university work

there for the winter. A big book on the rise and fall of Burgundy suggests

itself to me; and already I hug the thought of it. Lady Coryston has paid

me well for this job, and I shall be able to do what I like for a year, and

give mother and Janie some of the jam and frills of life. And who knows if

I sha'n't after all be able to make my living out of what I like best? If

I only could _write_! The world seems to be waiting for the historian

that can write.

"But meanwhile I shall always be glad of this year with the Corystons. How

much longer will this rich, leisurely, aristocratic class with all its

still surviving power and privileges exist among us? It is something that

obviously is in process of transmutation and decay; though in a country

like England the process will be a very slow one. Personally I greatly

prefer this landlord stratum to the top stratum of the trading and

manufacturing world. There are buried seeds in it, often of rare and

splendid kinds, which any crisis brings to life--as in the Boer war; and

the mere cult of family and inheritance implies, after all, something

valuable in a world that has lately grown so poor in all cults.

"Mother and daughter here show what is going on. Lady Coryston is just the

full-blown _tyrannus_. She has no doubt whatever about her right to

rule, and she rules for all she's worth. At the same time she knows that

Demos has the last word, and she spends her time in the old see-saw between

threats and cajolery. The old vicar here has told me astonishing tales of

her--how she turned her own sister out-of-doors and never spoke to her

afterward because she married a man who ratted to the Liberals, and the

wife went with him; how her own husband dreaded her if he ever happened to

differ from her politically, and a sort of armed neutrality between her and

Coryston was all that could be hoped for at the best of times.

"The poor people here--or most of them--are used to her, and in a way

respect her. They take her as inevitable--like the rent or the east wind;

and when she sends them coal and blankets, and builds village halls for

them, they think they might be worse off. On the other hand, I don't see

that Coryston makes much way among them. They think his behavior to his

mother unseemly; and if they were he, they would use all his advantages

without winking. At the same time, there is a younger generation growing

up in the village and on the farms--not so much there, however!--which is

going to give Lady Coryston trouble. Coryston puzzles and excites them. But

they, too, often look askance; they wonder what he, personally, is going to

get out of his campaign.

"And then--Marcia? For in this book, this locked book, may I not call her

by her name? Well, she is certainly no prophetess among these countryfolk.

She takes up no regular duties among the poor, as the women of her family

have probably always done. She is not at her ease with them; nor they with

her. When she tries to make friends with them she is like a ship teased

with veering winds, and glad to shrink back into harbor. And yet when

something does really touch her--when something makes her _feel_--that

curious indecision in her nature hardens into something irresistible.

There was a half-witted girl in the village, ill-treated and enslaved by a

miserly old aunt. Miss Coryston happened to hear of it from her maid, who

was a relation of the girl. She went and bearded the aunt, and took the

girl away bodily in her pony-cart. The scene in the cottage garden--Marcia

with her arm round the poor beaten and starved creature, very pale, but

keeping her head, and the old virago shrieking at her heels--must have been

worth seeing. And there is an old man--a decrepit old road-mender, whose

sight was injured in a shooting accident. She likes his racy talk, and she

never forgets his Christmas present or his birthday, and often drops in to

tea with him and his old wife. But that's because it amuses her. She goes

to see them for precisely the same reasons that she would pay a call in

Mayfair; and it's inspiriting to see how they guess, and how they like it.

You perceive that she is shrinking all the time from the assumptions on

which her mother's life is based, refusing to make them her own, and yet

she doesn't know what to put in their place. Does Coryston, either?

"But the tragic figure--the tragic possibility--in all this family

_galère_ at the present moment, of course, is Arthur. I know, because

of our old Cambridge friendship--quite against my will--a good deal about

the adventure into which he has somehow slipped; and one can only feel that

any day may bring the storm. His letter to me yesterday shows that he is

persecuting the lady with entreaties, that she is holding him off, and that

what Lady Coryston may do when she knows will greatly affect what the

young lady will do. I don't believe for one moment that she will marry

a penniless A. She has endless opportunities, and, I am told, many

proposals--"

The journal at this point was abruptly closed and locked away. For the

writer of it, who was sitting at an open window of the library, became

aware of the entrance of a motor into the forecourt of the house. Arthur

Coryston was sitting in it. When he perceived Lester at the window he waved

to the librarian, and jumping from the car as it drew up at the front door,

he came across the court to a side door, which gave access to the library

staircase.

As he entered the room Lester was disagreeably struck by his aspect. It was

that of a man who has slept ill and drunk unwisely. His dress was careless,

his eyes haggard, and all the weaknesses of the face seemed to have leaped

to view, amid the general relaxation of _tenue_ and dignity. He came

up to the chair at which Lester was writing, and flung himself frowning

into a chair beside it.

"I hear mother and Marcia are away?"

"They have gone to Hoddon Grey for the Sunday. Didn't you know?"

"Oh yes, I knew. I suppose I knew. Mother wrote something," said the young

man, impatiently. "But I have had other things to think about."

Lester glanced at him, but without speaking. Arthur rose from his seat,

thrust his hands into his pockets, and began to pace the polished floor of

the library. The florid, Georgian decoration of ceiling and walls, and the

busts of placid gentlemen with curling wigs which stood at intervals among

the glass cases, wore an air of trivial or fatuous repose beside the

hunted young fellow walking up and down. Lester resolutely forbore to

cross-examine him. But at last the walk came to an abrupt stop.

"Here's the last straw, Lester! Have you heard what mother wants me to do?

There's to be a big Tory meeting here in a month--mother's arranged it

all--not a word to me with your leave, or by your leave!--and I'm to speak

at it and blackguard Glenwilliam! I have her letter this morning. I'm not

allowed a look in, I tell you! I'm not consulted in the least. I'll bet

mother's had the bills printed already!"

"A reply, of course, to the Martover meeting?"

"I dare say. D--n the Martover meeting! But what _taste_!--two

brothers slanging at each other--almost in the same parish. I declare women

have no taste!--not a ha'porth. But I won't do it--and mother, just for

once, will have to give in."

He sat down again and took the cigarette which Lester handed him--no doubt

with soothing intentions. And indeed his state of excitement and agitation

appeared nothing less than pitiable to the friend who remembered the

self-complacent young orator, the budding legislator of early April.

"You are afraid of being misunderstood?"

"If I attack her father, as mother wishes me to attack him," said the young

man, with emphasis, looking up, "Enid Glenwilliam will never speak to me

again. She makes that quite plain."

"She ought to be too clever!" said Lester, with vivacity. "Can't she

discriminate between the politician and the private friend?"

Arthur shook his head.

"Other people may. She doesn't. If I get up in public and call Glenwilliam

a thief and a robber--and what else can I call him, with mother

looking on?--there'll be an end of my chances for good and all. She's

_fanatical_ about her father! She's pulled me up once or twice already

about him. I tell you--it's rather fine, Lester!--upon my soul, it is!"

And with a countenance suddenly softening and eyes shining, Arthur turned

his still boyish looks upon his friend.

"I can quite believe it. They're a very interesting pair.... But--I confess

I'm thinking of Lady Coryston. What explanation can you possibly give? Are

you prepared to take her into your confidence?"

"I don't know whether I'm prepared or not. Whatever happens I'm between the

devil and the deep sea. If I tell her, she'll break with me; and if I don't

tell her, it won't be long before she guesses for herself!"

There was a pause, broken at last by Lester, whose blue eyes had shown him

meanwhile deep in reflection. He bent forward.

"Look here, Arthur!--can't you make a last effort, and get free?"

His companion threw him a queer resentful look, but Lester persisted:

"You know what I think. You won't make each other happy. You belong to two

worlds which won't and can't mix. Her friends can never be your friends nor

your friends hers. You think that doesn't matter now, because you're in

love. But it does matter--and it'll tell more and more every year."

"Don't I know it?" cried Arthur. "She despises us all. She looks upon us

all--I mean, us people, with land and money and big houses--just as so much

grist to her father's mill, so many fat cattle for him to slaughter."

"And yet you love her!"

"Of course I do! I can't make you understand, Lester! She doesn't speechify

about these things--she never speechifies to me, at least. She mocks at

her own side--just as much as ours. But it's her father she worships--and

everything that he says and thinks. She adores him--she'd go to the stake

for him any day. And if you want to be a friend of hers, lay a finger on

him, and you'll see! Of course it's mad--I know that. But I'd rather marry

her mad than any other woman sane!"

"All the same you _could_ break it off," persisted Lester.

"Of course I could. I could hang--or poison--or shoot myself, I suppose, if

it comes to that. It would be much the same thing. If I do have to give her

up, I shall cut the whole business--Parliament--estates--everything!"

The quarter-decking began again; and Lester waited patiently on a slowly

subsiding frenzy. At last he put a question.

"What are your chances?"

"With her? I don't know. She encourages me one day, and snubs me the next.

But one thing I do know. If I attend that meeting, and make the sort of

speech I should have made three months ago without turning a hair--and if I

don't make it, mother will know the reason why!--it's all up with me."

"Why don't you apply to Coryston?"

"What--to give up the other meeting? He's very likely to climb down, isn't

he?--with his damned revolutionary nonsense. He warned us all that he was

coming down here to make mischief--and, by Jove, he's doing it!"

"I say, who's taking my name in vain?" said a high-pitched voice.

Lester turned to the doorway, and beheld a protruding head, with glittering

greenish eyes, alive with laughter. Coryston slowly emerged, and closed the

door behind him.

"Arthur, my boy, what's up now?"

Arthur paused, looked at him angrily, but was too sore and sulky to

reply. Lester mildly summarized the situation. Coryston whistled. Then he

deposited the butterfly-net and tin case he had been carrying, accepted a

cigarette, and hoisting himself onto the corner of a heavy wooden pedestal

which held the periwigged bust of an eighteenth-century Coryston, he flung

an arm affectionately round the bust's neck, and sat cross-legged, smoking

and pondering.

"Bar the meeting for a bit," he said at last, addressing his brother;

"we'll come back to it. But meeting or no meeting, I don't see any way out

for you, Arthur--upon my soul, I don't!"

"No one ever supposed you would!" cried Arthur.

"Here's your dilemma," pursued Coryston, good-humoredly. "If you engage

yourself to her, mother will cut off the supplies. And if mother cuts off

the supplies, Miss Glenwilliam won't have you."

"You think everybody but yourself, Corry, mercenary pigs!"

"What do _you_ think? Do you see Miss Glenwilliam pursuing love in

a garret--a genteel garret--on a thousand a year? For her father,

perhaps!--but for nobody else! Her clothes alone would cost a third of it."

No reply, except a furious glance. Coryston began to look perturbed. He

descended from his perch, and approaching the still pacing Arthur, he took

his arm--an attention to which the younger brother barely submitted.

"Look here, old boy? Am I becoming a beast? Are you sure of her? Is it

serious?"

"Sure of her? Good God--if I were!"

He walked to a window near, and stood looking out, so that his face could

not be seen by his companions, his hands in his pockets.

Coryston's eyebrows went up; the eyes beneath them showed a genuine

concern. Refusing a further pull at Lester's cigarettes, he took a pipe out

of his pocket, lit it, and puffed away in a brown study. The figure at the

window remained motionless. Lester felt the situation too delicate for

an outsider's interference, and made a feint of returning to his work.

Presently it seemed that Coryston made up his mind.

"Well," he said, slowly, "all right. I'll cut my meeting. I can get

Atherstone to take the chair, and make some excuse. But I really don't know

that it'll help you much. There's already an announcement of your meeting

in the Martover paper yesterday--"

"_No_!" Arthur faced round upon his brother, his cheeks blazing.

"Perfectly true. Mother's taken time by the forelock. I have no doubt she

has already written your speech."

"What on earth can I do?" He stood in helpless despair.

"Have a row!" said Coryston, laughing. "A good row and stick to it! Tell

mother you won't be treated so--that you're a man, not a school-boy--that

you prefer, with many thanks, to write your own speeches--_et cetera_.

Play the independence card for all you're worth. It _may_ get you out

of the mess."

Arthur's countenance began to clear.

"I'm to make it appear a bargain--between you and me? I asked you to give

up your show, and you--"

"Oh, any lies you like," said Coryston, placidly. "But as I've already

warned you, it won't help you long."

"One gains a bit of time," said the young lover, in a tone of depression.

"What's the good of it? In a year's time Glenwilliam will still be

Glenwilliam--and mother mother. Of course you know you'll break her

heart--and that kind of thing. Marcia made me promise to put that before

you. So I do. It's perfectly true; though I don't know that I am the

person to press it! But then mother and I have always disagreed--whereas

_you_ have been the model son."

Angry melancholy swooped once more upon Arthur.

"What the deuce have women to do with politics! Why can't they leave the

rotten things to us? Life won't be worth living if they go on like this!"

"'_Life_,'" echoed Coryston, with amused contempt. "Your life? Just

try offering your billet--with all its little worries thrown in--to the

next fellow you meet in the street--and see what happens!"

But the man in Arthur rebelled. He faced his brother.

"If you think that I wouldn't give up this whole show to-morrow"--he

waved his hand toward the marble forecourt outside, now glistening in the

sun--"for--for Enid--you never made a greater mistake in your life, Corry!"

There was a bitter and passionate accent in the voice which carried

conviction. Coryston's expression changed.

"Unfortunately, it wouldn't help you with--with Enid--to give it up," he

said, quietly. "Miss Glenwilliam, as I read her--I don't mean anything in

the least offensive--has a very just and accurate idea of the value of

money."

A sort of impatient groan was the only reply.

But Lester raised his head from his book.

"Why don't you see what Miss Coryston can do?" he asked, looking from one

to the other.

"Marcia?" cried Coryston, springing up. "By the way, what are mother and

Marcia after, this Sunday? Do you suppose that business is all settled by

now?"

He flung out a finger vaguely in the direction of Hoddon Grey. And as he

spoke all the softness which had gradually penetrated his conversation with

Arthur through all his banter, disappeared. His aspect became in a moment

hard and threatening.

"Don't discuss it with me, Coryston," said Lester, rather sharply. "Your

sister wouldn't like it. I only mentioned her name to suggest that she

might influence your mother in Arthur's case." He rose, and began to put up

his papers as he spoke.

"I know that! All the same, why shouldn't we talk about her? Aren't you

a friend?--her friend?--our friend?--everybody's friend?" said Coryston,

peremptorily. "Look here!--if Marcia's really going to marry Newbury!"--he

brought his hand down vehemently on Lester's table--"there'll be another

family row. Nothing in the world will prevent my putting the Betts' case

before Marcia! I have already warned her that I mean to have it out with

her, and I have advised Mrs. Betts to write to her. If she can make Newbury

hear reason--well and good. If she can't--or if she doesn't see the thing

as she ought, herself--well!--we shall know where we are!"

"Look here, Corry," said Arthur, remonstrating, "Edward Newbury's an

awfully good chap. Don't you go making mischief!"

"Rather hard on your sister, isn't it?"--the voice was Lester's--"to plunge

her into such a business, at such a time!"

"If she's happy, let her make a thank-offering!" said the inexorable

Coryston. "Life won't spare her its facts--why should we? Arthur!--come and

walk home with me!"

Arthur demurred, stipulated that he should not be expected to be civil to

any of Coryston's Socialist lodgers--and finally let himself be carried

off.

Lester was left once more to the quiet of the library.

"'I have advised Mrs. Betts to write to her!'"

What a shame! Why should a girl in her first love-dream be harassed with

such a problem--be brought face to face with such "old, unhappy, far-off

things"? He felt a fierce indignation with Coryston. And as he again sat

solitary by the window, he lost himself in visualizations of what was or

might be going on that summer afternoon at Hoddon Grey. He knew the old

house--for Lord William had once or twice courteously invited the Coryston

librarian to examine such small treasures as he himself possessed. He could

see Marcia in its paneled rooms and on its old lawns--Marcia and Newbury.

Gradually his head dropped on his hands. The sun crept along the library

floor in patches of orange and purple, as it struck through the lozenges of

old painted glass which bordered the windows. No sound except the cooing of

doves, and the note of a distant cuckoo from the river meadows.

He did his best to play the cynic with himself. He told himself that such

painful longings and jealous revolts as he was conscious of are among the

growing-pains of life, and must be borne, and gradually forgotten. He had

his career to think of--and his mother and sister, whom he loved. Some day

he too would marry and set up house and beget children, framing his life

on the simple strenuous lines made necessary by the family misfortunes. It

would have been easier, perhaps, to despise wealth, if he and his had never

possessed it, and if his lack of it were not the first and sufficient

barrier which divided him from Marcia Coryston. But his nature was sound

and sane; it looked life in the face--its gifts and its denials, and those

stern joys which the mere wrestle with experience brings to the fighting

spirit. He had soon reconquered cheerfulness; and when Arthur returned, he

submitted to be talked to for hours on that young man's tangled affairs,

handling the youth with that mixture of sympathy and satire which both

soothed and teased the sentimentalists who chose to confide in him.

* * * * *

Next morning Marcia and her mother returned from Hoddon Grey in excellent

time. Lady Coryston never lingered over week-ends. Generally the first

train on Monday morning saw her depart. In this case she was obliged to

give an hour to business talk--as to settlements and so forth--with Lord

William, on Monday morning. But when that was over she stepped into her

motor with all possible speed.

"What a Sunday!" she said, languidly throwing herself back, with

half-closed eyes, as they emerged from the park. Then remembering herself:

"But you, my dear, have been happy! And of course they are excellent

people--quite excellent."

Marcia sat beside her flushed and rather constrained. She had of course

never expected her mother to behave like ordinary mothers on the occasion

of a daughter's betrothal. She took her insignificance, the absence of any

soft emotion, quite calmly. All the same she had her grievance.

"If only Edward and you--and everybody would not be in such a dreadful

hurry!" she said, protesting.

"Seven weeks, my dear child, is enough for any trousseau. And what have

you to wait for? It will suit me too, much best. If we put it off till

the autumn I should be terribly busy--absolutely taken up--with Arthur's

election. Sir Louis Ford tells me they cannot possibly stave off going to

the country longer than November. And of course this time I shall have not

only the usual Liberal gang--I shall have Coryston to fight!"

"I know. It's appalling!" cried Marcia. "Can't we get him to go away?" Then

she looked at her mother uneasily. "I do wish, mother, you hadn't put that

notice of Arthur's meeting into the _Witness_ without consulting him.

Why, you didn't even ask him, before you settled it all! Aren't you afraid

of his cutting up rough?"

"Not in the least! Arthur always expects me to settle those things for him.

As soon as Coryston had taken that outrageous step, it was imperative that

Arthur should speak in his own village. We can't have people's minds in

doubt as to what _he_ thinks of Glenwilliam, with an election only

five months off. I have written to him, of course, fully--without a word of

reply! What he has been doing these last weeks I can't imagine!"

Marcia fell into a frowning silence. She knew, alack! a great deal more

than she wished to know of what Arthur had been doing. Oh, she hoped

Coryston had been able to talk to him--to persuade him! Edward too had

promised to see him--immediately. Surely between them they would make him

hear reason, before any suspicion reached their mother?

The usual pile of letters awaited Lady Coryston and Marcia on their arrival

at home. But before opening hers, Lady Coryston turned to the butler.

"Is Mr. Arthur here?"

"Yes, my lady. He is out now, but he left word he would be in for

luncheon."

Lady Coryston's face lit up. Marcia did not hear the question or the

answer. She was absorbed in a letter which she happened to have opened

first. She read it hastily, with growing astonishment. Then, still

holding it, she was hurrying away to her own sitting-room when the butler

intercepted her.

"There's a young lady, miss, who wants to see you. I took her to your

sitting-room. She said she came from the dressmaker--something you had

ordered--very particular."

"Something I had ordered?" said Marcia, mystified. "I don't know anything

about it."

She ran up-stairs, still thinking of the letter in her hand.

"I won't see her!" she said to herself, vehemently, "without Edward's

leave. He has a right now to say what I shall do. It is different with

Coryston. He may argue with me--and with Edward--if he pleases. But Mrs.

Betts herself! No--that's too much!"

Her cheeks flushed angrily. She threw open the door of her sitting-room.

Some one sitting stiffly on the edge of a chair rose as she entered. To her

amazement Marcia perceived a slender woman--a lady--a complete stranger

to her, standing in her own private sitting-room, awaiting her arrival. A

woman in rather slipshod artistic dress, with hands clasped theatrically,

and tears on her cheeks.

"Who are you?" said Marcia, drawing back.

Book II

MARCIA

"To make you me how much so e'er I try,

You will be always you, and I be I."