So on the way home there had been a particular zest in his chance encounter with the young man who was likely to give the Raeburns and their candidate—­so all the world said—­a very great deal of trouble.  The seat had been held to be an entirely safe one for the Maxwell nominee.  Young Wharton, on the contrary, was making way every day, and, what with securing Aldous’s own seat in the next division, and helping old Dodgson in this, Lord Maxwell and his grandson had their hands full.  Dick Boyce was glad of it.  He was a Tory; but all the same he wished every success to this handsome, agreeable young man, whose deferential manners to him at the end of the day had come like ointment to a wound.

The three sat on together for a little while in silence.  Marcella kept her seat by the fire on the old gilt fenderstool, conscious in a dreamlike way of the room in front of her—­the stately room with its stucco ceiling, its tall windows, its Prussian-blue wall-paper behind the old cabinets and faded pictures, and the chair covers in Turkey-red twill against the blue, which still remained to bear witness at once to the domestic economies and the decorative ideas of old Robert Boyce—­conscious also of the figures on either side of her, and of her own quick-beating youth betwixt them.  She was sore and unhappy; yet, on the whole, what she was thinking most about was Aldous Raeburn.  What had he said to Lord Maxwell?—­and to the Winterbournes?  She wished she could know.  She wished with leaping pulse that she could see him again quickly.  Yet it would be awkward too.

* * * * *

Presently she got up and went away to take off her things.  As the door closed behind her, Mrs. Boyce held out Miss Raeburn’s note, which Marcella had returned to her, to her husband.

“They have asked Marcella and me to lunch,” she said.  “I am not going, but I shall send her.”

He read the note by the firelight, and it produced the most contradictory effects upon him.

“Why don’t you go?” he asked her aggressively, rousing himself for a moment to attack her, and so vent some of his ill-humour.

“I have lost the habit of going out,” she said quietly, “and am too old to begin again.”

“What! you mean to say,” he asked her angrily, raising his voice, “that you have never meant to do your duties here—­the duties of your position?”

“I did not foresee many, outside this house and land.  Why should we change our ways?  We have done very well of late.  I have no mind to risk what I have got.”

He glanced round at her in a quick nervous way, and then looked back again at the fire.  The sight of her delicate blanched face had in some respects a more and more poignant power with him as the years went on.  His anger sank into moroseness.

“Then why do you let Marcella go?  What good will it do her to go about without her parents?  People will only despise her for a girl of no spirit—­as they ought.”