’But I haven’t much hope that he’ll come.  I rather think he regards me as his enemy.  And, you see, I never go to church.’

’What a pity that is, Mr. Mutimer!  Ah, if I could only persuade you to think differently about those things!  There really are so many texts that read quite like Socialism; I was looking them over with Adela on Sunday.  What a sad thing it is that you go so astray t It distresses me more than you think.  Indeed, if I may tell you such a thing, I pray for you nightly.’

Mutimer made a movement of discomfort, but laughed off the subject.

‘I’ll go and see the vicar, at all events,’ he said.  ’But must your coming depend on his?’

Mrs. Waltham hesitated.

‘It really would make things easier.’

‘Might I, in that case, hope that Miss Waltham would come?’

Richard seemed to exert himself to ask the question.  Mrs. Waltham sank her eyes, smiled feebly, and in the end shook her head.

‘On a public occasion, I’m really afraid—­’

‘I’m sure she would like to know Mrs. Westlake,’ urged Richard, without his usual confidence.  ‘And if you and her brother—­’

‘If it were not a Socialist gathering.’

Richard uncrossed his legs and sat for a moment looking into the fire.  Then he turned suddenly.

‘Mrs. Waltham, may I ask her myself?’

She was visibly agitated.  There was this time no affectation in the tremulous lips and the troublous, unsteady eyes.  Mrs. Waltham was not by nature the scheming mother who is indifferent to the upshot if she can once get her daughter loyally bound to a man of money.  Adela’s happiness was a very real care to her; she would never have opposed an unobjectionable union on which she found her daughter’s heart bent, but circumstances had a second time made offer of brilliant advantages, and she had grown to deem it an ordinance of the higher powers that Adela should marry possessions.  She flattered herself that her study of Mutimer’s character had been profound; the necessity of making such a study excused, she thought, any little excess of familiarity in which she had indulged, for it had long been clear to her that Mutimer would some day make an offer.  He lacked polish, it was true, but really he was more a gentleman than a great many whose right to the name was never contested.  And then he had distinctly high aims:  such a man could never be brutal in the privacy of his home.  There was every chance of his achieving some kind of eminence; already she had suggested to him a Parliamentary career, and the idea had not seemed altogether distasteful.  Adela herself was as yet far from regarding Mutimer in the light of a future husband; it was perhaps true that she even disliked him.  But then a young girl’s likes and dislikes have, as a rule, small bearing on her practical content in the married state; so, at least, Mrs. Waltham’s experience led her to believe.  Only, it was clear that there must be no precipitancy.  Let the ground be thoroughly prepared.