“Harden!” said Mr. Boyce, catching the name.  “I wish that man would leave me alone.  What have I got to do with a water-supply for the village?  It will be as much as ever I can manage to keep a water-tight roof over our heads during the winter after the way in which Robert has behaved.”

Marcella’s cheek flushed.

“The village water-supply is a disgrace,” she said with low emphasis.  “I never saw such a crew of unhealthy, wretched-looking children in my life as swarm about those cottages.  We take the rent, and we ought to look after them.  I believe you could be forced to do something, papa—­if the local authority were of any use.”

She looked at him defiantly.

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Boyce testily.  “They got along in your Uncle Robert’s days, and they can get along now.  Charity, indeed!  Why, the state of this house and the pinch for money altogether is enough, I should think, to take a man’s mind.  Don’t you go talking to Mr. Harden in the way you do, Marcella.  I don’t like it, and I won’t have it.  You have the interests of your family and your home to think of first.”

“Poor starved things!” said Marcella sarcastically—­“living in such a den!”

And she swept her white hand round, as though calling to witness the room in which they sat.

“I tell you,” said Mr. Boyce, rising and standing before the fire, whence he angrily surveyed the handsome daughter who was in truth so little known to him, and whose nature and aims during the close contact of the last few weeks had become something of a perplexity and disturbance to him,—­“I tell you our great effort, the effort of us all, must be to keep up the family position!—­our position.  Look at that library, and its condition; look at the state of these wall-papers; look at the garden; look at the estate books if it comes to that.  Why, it will be years before, even with all my knowledge of affairs, I can pull the thing through—­years!”

Mrs. Boyce gave a slight cough—­she had pushed back her chair, and was alternately studying her husband and daughter.  They might have been actors performing for her amusement.  And yet, amusement is not precisely the word.  For that hazel eye, with its frequent smile, had not a spark of geniality.  After a time those about her found something scathing in its dry light.

Now, as soon as her husband became aware that she was watching him, his look wavered, and his mood collapsed.  He threw her a curious furtive glance, and fell silent.

“I suppose Mr. Harden and his sister remind you of your London Socialist friends, Marcella?” asked Mrs. Boyce lightly, in the pause that followed.  “You have, I see, taken a great liking for them.”

“Oh! well—­I don’t know,” said Marcella, with a shrug, and something of a proud reticence.  “Mr. Harden is very kind—­but—­he doesn’t seem to have thought much about things.”

She never talked about her London friends to her mother, if she could help it.  The sentiments of life generally avoided Mrs. Boyce when they could.  Marcella being all sentiment and impulse, was constantly her mother’s victim, do what she would.  But in her quiet moments she stood on the defensive.