She was thinking, as a fiancee should, of Aldous and their marriage, which had been fixed for the end of February.  Yet not apparently with any rapturous absorption.  There was a great deal to plan, and her mind was full of business.  Who was to look after her various village schemes while she and Lady Winterbourne were away in London?  Mary Harden had hardly brains enough, dear little thing as she was.  They must find some capable woman and pay her.  The Cravens would tell her, of course, that she was on the high road to the most degrading of roles—­the role of Lady Bountiful.  But there were Lady Bountifuls and Lady Bountifuls.  And the role itself was inevitable.  It all depended upon how it was managed—­in the interest of what ideas.

She must somehow renew her relations with the Cravens in town.  It would certainly be in her power now to help them and their projects forward a little.  Of course they would distrust her, but that she would get over.

All the time she was listening mechanically for the hall door bell, which, however, across the distances of the great rambling house it was not easy to hear.  Their coming guest was not much in her mind.  She tacitly assumed that her father would look after him.  On the two or three occasions when they had met during the last three months, including his luncheon at Mellor on the day after her engagement, her thoughts had been too full to allow her to take much notice of him—­picturesque and amusing as he seemed to be.  Of late he had not been much in the neighbourhood.  There had been a slack time for both candidates, which was now to give way to a fresh period of hard canvassing in view of the election which everybody expected at the end of February.

But Aldous was to bring Edward Hallin!  That interested her.  She felt an intense curiosity to see and know Hallin, coupled with a certain nervousness.  The impression she might be able to make on him would be in some sense an earnest of her future.

Suddenly, something undefinable—­a slight sound, a current of air—­made her turn her head.  To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorway looking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves.

She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance.

“Mr. Wharton!”

“Oh!—­must you?”—­he said, with a movement of one hand, as though to stop her.  “Couldn’t you stay like that?  At first I thought there was nobody in the room.  Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are as the sand of the sea for multitude, so I wandered in by myself.  Then I saw you—­and the fire—­and the room.  It was like a bit of music.  It was mere wanton waste to interrupt it.”

Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him.

“I did not hear the front door,” she said coldly.  “My mother will be here directly.  May I give you some tea?”

“Thanks.  No, I knew you did not hear me.  That delighted me.  It showed what charming things there are in the world that have no spectators!  What a delicious place this is!—­what a heavenly old place—­especially in these half lights!  There was a raw sun when I was here before, but now—­”