“Forgive my intrusion, Mrs. Wade,” Denzil began, in a genial voice.  “I have come to look over the house, and was just told that you were here.  As we are not absolute strangers”——­

He had never met her in the social way, though she had been a resident at Polterham for some six years.  Through Mrs. Liversedge, her repute had long ago reached him; she was universally considered eccentric, and, by many people, hardly proper for an acquaintance.  On her first arrival in the town she wore the garb of recent widowhood; relatives here she had none, but an old friendship existed between her and the occupants of this house, a childless couple named Hornibrook.  Her age was now about thirty.

Quarrier was far from regarding her as an attractive woman.  He thought better of her intelligence than before hearing her speak, and it was not difficult for him to imagine that the rumour of Polterham went much astray when it concerned itself with her characteristics; but the face now directed to him had no power whatever over his sensibilities.  It might be that of a high-spirited and large-brained woman; beautiful it could not be called.  There was something amiss with the eyes.  All the other features might pass:  they were neither plain nor comely:  a forehead of good type, a very ordinary nose, largish lips, chin suggesting the masculine; but the eyes, to begin with, were prominent, and they glistened in a way which made it very difficult to determine their colour.  They impressed Denzil as of a steely-grey, and seemed hard as the metal itself.  His preference was distinctly for soft feminine eyes—­such as Lilian gazed with.

Her figure was slight, but seemed strong and active.  He had noticed the evening before that, in standing to address an audience, she looked anything but ridiculous—­spite of bonnet.  Here too, though allowing her surprise to be seen, she had the bearing of perfect self-possession, and perhaps of conscious superiority.  Fawn-coloured hair, less than luxuriant, lay in soft folds and plaits on the top of her head; possibly (the thought was not incongruous) she hoped to gain half an inch of seeming stature.

They shook hands, and Denzil explained his object in calling.

“Then you are going to settle at Polterham?”

“Probably—­that is, to keep an abode here.”

“You are not married, I think, Mr. Quarrier?”

“No.”

“There was a report at the Institute last night—­may I speak of it?”

“Political?  I don’t think it need be kept a secret.  My brother-in-law wishes me to make friends with the Liberals, in his place.”

“I dare say you will find them very willing to meet your advances.  On one question you have taken a pretty safe line.”

“Much to your disgust,” said Denzil, who found himself speaking very freely and inclined to face debatable points.

“Disgust is hardly the word.  Will you sit down?  In Mrs. Hornibrook’s absence, I must represent her.  They are good enough to let me use the library; my own is poorly supplied.”