“I shall speak to Mr. Raeburn about it,” said Marcella.

She never called him “Aldous” to anybody—­a stiffness which jarred a little upon the gentle, sentimental Mary.

“I saw you pass,” she said, “from one of the top windows.  He was with you, wasn’t he?”

A slight colour sprang to her sallow cheek, a light to her eyes.  Most wonderful, most interesting was this engagement to Mary, who—­strange to think!—­had almost brought it about.  Mr. Raeburn was to her one of the best and noblest of men, and she felt quite simply, and with a sort of Christian trembling for him, the romance of his great position.  Was Marcella happy, was she proud of him, as she ought to be?  Mary was often puzzled by her.

“Oh no!” said Marcella, with a little laugh.  “That wasn’t Mr. Raeburn.  I don’t know where your eyes were, Mary.  That was Mr. Wharton, who is staying with us.  He has gone on to a meeting at Widrington.”

Mary’s face fell.

“Charles says Mr. Wharton’s influence in the village is very bad,” she said quickly.  “He makes everybody discontented; sets everybody by the ears; and, after all, what can he do for anybody?”

“But that’s just what he wants to do—­to make them discontented,” cried Marcella.  “Then, if they vote for him, that’s the first practical step towards improving their life.”

“But it won’t give them more wages or keep them out of the public house,” said Mary, bewildered.  She came of a homely middle-class stock, accustomed to a small range of thinking, and a high standard of doing.  Marcella’s political opinions were an amazement, and on the whole a scandal to her.  She preferred generally to give them a wide berth.

Marcella did not reply.  It was not worth while to talk to Mary on these topics.  But Mary stuck to the subject a moment longer.

“You can’t want him to get in, though?” she said in a puzzled voice, as she led the way to the little sitting-room across the passage, and took her workbasket out of the cupboard.  “It was only the week before last Mr. Raeburn was speaking at the schoolroom for Mr. Dodgson.  You weren’t there, Marcella?”

“No,” said Marcella, shortly.  “I thought you knew perfectly well, Mary, that Mr. Raeburn and I don’t agree politically.  Certainly, I hope Mr. Wharton will get in!”

Mary opened her eyes in wonderment.  She stared at Marcella, forgetting the sock she had just slipped over her left hand, and the darning needle in her right.

Marcella laughed.

“I know you think that two people who are going to be married ought to say ditto to each other in everything.  Don’t you—­you dear old goose?”

She came and stood beside Mary, a stately and beautiful creature in her loosened furs.  She stroked Mary’s straight sandy hair back from her forehead.  Mary looked up at her with a thrill, nay, a passionate throb of envy—­soon suppressed.

“I think,” she said steadily, “it is very strange—­that love should oppose and disagree with what it loves.”