After watching his three companions for a while, he broke in upon their chat with an abrupt—­

“What is this job, Louis?”

“I told you.  I am to investigate, report, and back up the Damesley strike, or rather the strike that begins at Damesley next week.”

“No chance!” said Anthony shortly, “the masters are too strong.  I had a talk with Denny yesterday.”

The Denny he meant, however, was not Wharton’s colleague in the House, but his son—­a young man who, beginning life as the heir of one of the most stiff-backed and autocratic of capitalists, had developed socialist opinions, renounced his father’s allowance, and was now a member of the “intellectual proletariat,” as they have been called, the free-lances of the Collectivist movement.  He had lately joined the Venturists.  Anthony had taken a fancy to him.  Louis as yet knew little or nothing of him.

“Ah, well!” he said, in reply to his brother, “I don’t know.  I think the Clarion can do something.  The press grows more and more powerful in these things.”

And he repeated some of the statements that Wharton had made—­that Wharton always did make, in talking of the Clarion—­as to its growth under his hands, and increasing influence in Labour disputes.

“Bunkum!” interrupted Anthony drily; “pure bunkum!  My own belief is that the Clarion is a rotten property, and that he knows it!”

At this both Marcella and Louis laughed out.  Extravagance after a certain point becomes amusing.  They dropped their vexation, and Anthony for the next ten minutes had to submit to the part of the fractious person whom one humours but does not argue with.  He accepted the part, saying little, his eager, feverish eyes, full of hostility, glancing from one to the other.

However, at the end, Marcella bade him a perfectly friendly farewell.  It was always in her mind that Anthony Craven was lame and solitary, and her pity no less than her respect for him had long since yielded him the right to be rude.

“How are you getting on?” he said to her abruptly as he dropped her hand.

“Oh, very well! my superintendent leaves me almost alone now, which is a compliment.  There is a parish doctor who calls me ‘my good woman,’ and a sanitary inspector who tells me to go to him whenever I want advice.  Those are my chief grievances, I think.”

“And you are as much in love with the poor as ever?”

She stiffened at the note of sarcasm, and a retaliatory impulse made her say:—­

“I see a great deal more happiness than I expected.”

He laughed.

“How like a woman!  A few ill-housed villagers made you a democrat.  A few well-paid London artisans will carry you safely back to your class.  Your people were wise to let you take this work.”

“Do you suppose I nurse none but well-paid artisans?” she asked him, mocking.  “And I didn’t say ‘money’ or ‘comfort,’ did I? but ‘happiness.’  As for my ‘democracy,’ you are not perhaps the best judge.”