There followed no exchange of letters.  From that hour to this the two had in no way communicated.  Mr. Bride, somewhat offended by what he had seen and surmised of Mr. and Mrs. Lashmar’s disposition, held no correspondence with the vicar of Alverholme; his wife had never been on friendly terms with Mrs. Lashmar.  How Dyce thought of that singular incident it was impossible to infer from his demeanour; Constance might well have supposed that he had forgotten all about it.

“Is your work interesting?” were his next words.  “What does Lady Ogram go in for?”

“Many things.”

“You prefer it to the other work?”

“It isn’t so hard, and it’s much more profitable.”

“By the bye, who is Lady Ogram?” asked Dyce, with a smiling glance.

“A remarkable old lady.  Her husband died ten years ago; she has no children, and is very rich.  I shouldn’t think there’s a worse-tempered person living, yet she has all sorts of good qualities.  By birth, she belongs to the working class; by disposition she’s a violent aristocrat.  I often hate her; at other times, I like her very much.”

Dyce listened with increasing attention.

“Has she any views?” he inquired.

“Oh, plenty!” Constance answered, with a dry little laugh.

“About social questions—­that kind of thing?”

“Especially.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if she called herself a socialist.”

“That’s just what she does—­when she thinks it will annoy people she dislikes.”

Dyce smiled meditatively.

“I should like to know her.  Yes, I should very much like to know her.  Could you manage it for me?”

Constance did not reply.  She was comparing the Dyce Lashmar of to-day with him of the past, and trying to understand the change that had come about in his talk, his manner.  It would have helped her had she known that, in the ripe experience of his seven and twentieth year, Dyce had arrived at certain conclusions with regard to women, and thereupon had based a method of practical behaviour towards them.  Women, he held, had never been treated with elementary justice.  To worship them was no less unfair than to hold them in contempt.  The honest man, in our day, should regard a woman without the least bias of sexual prejudice; should view her simply as a fellow-being, who, according to circumstances, might or not be on his own plane.  Away with all empty show and form, those relics of barbarism known as chivalry!  He wished to discontinue even the habit of hat-doffing in female presence.  Was not civility preserved between man and man without such idle form?  Why not, then, between man and woman?  Unable, as yet, to go the entire length of his principles in every-day life, he endeavoured, at all events, to cultivate in his intercourse with women a frankness of speech, a directness of bearing, beyond the usual.  He shook hands as with one of his own sex, spine uncrooked; he greeted them with