"We will go to my room," said Ivy, regarding her nervously.
"Thank you," was the reply, "I mustn't stay longer to-day."
"Oh, why not? But indeed you must come for a moment; I have something to show you."
Serena took leave of the gentlemen, and with show of reluctance suffered herself to be led to the familiar retreat.
"I'm afraid I have displeased you," Ivy addressed her, when the door was closed. "I ought to have asked your permission."
"It doesn't matter, dear—not a bit. But I wasn't quite in the humour for—for that kind of thing. I came here for quietness, as I always do."
"Do forgive me! I thought—to tell the truth, it was my uncle—I had spoken of you to him, and he said he should so much like to meet you."
"It really doesn't matter; but I look rather like the woman who comes to buy old dresses, don't I?"
Ivy laughed.
"Of course not!"
"And what if I do?" exclaimed the other, seating herself by the fire. "I don't know that I've any claim to look better than Mrs. Moss. I suppose she and I are about on a level in understanding and education, if the truth were told. Your uncle would see that, of course."
"Now, don't—don't!" pleaded Ivy, bending over the chair and stroking her friend's shoulder. "It's so wrong of you, dear. My father and Uncle Eustace are both quite capable of judging you rightly."
"What did you tell him about me—your uncle?" asked Serena, pettishly.
"That you were my friend, and that we read together"–
"Oh, of course! What else?"
Ivy faltered.
"I explained who you were."
"That I had a ridiculous name, and was the daughter of silly people!"
"Oh, it is unkind of you!"
"Well, and what else? I insist on knowing, Ivy."
"Indeed, I didn't say one word that you mightn't have heard yourself. I think you can believe me, dear?"
"To be sure I can. But then no doubt your father told him the rest, or has done by this time. There's no harm in that. I like people to know that I am independent. Well, now tell me about him. He isn't a great favourite of yours, is he?"
"No, not a great favourite." Ivy seemed always to weigh her words. "I don't know him very well. He has always lived in London, and I've never seen him more than once a year. I'm afraid he doesn't care much about the things that I prize most, but he is kind and very clever, I believe. Father always says he might have been a great artist if he had chosen."
"Then why didn't he choose?"
"I can't say. So many people seem to fall far short of what they might have been."
"Women do—what else can you expect? But men are free. I suppose he is rich?"
"No, not rich. He seems to have enough for his needs."
Serena indulged her thoughts.
"I felt I disliked him at first," she said, presently. "But he is improved. He can talk well, I should think. I suppose he is always in clever society?"
"I suppose so."
"And why doesn't he invite you to London, and take you to see people?"
"Oh, he knows me better than that!" replied Ivy, with a laugh.
Whilst the girls talked thus, Eustace Glazzard and his brother were also in confidential chat. They had gone to the library and made themselves comfortable with cigars—a cellaret and glasses standing within reach. The rooms at Highmead gave evidence of neglect. Guests were seldom entertained; the servants were few, and not well looked after.
"She has, I dare say, thirty thousand," William Glazzard was saying, with an air of indifference. "I suppose she'll marry some parson. Let us hope it's one of the fifty-pound curates."
"Deep in the old slough?"
"Hopelessly—or Ivy wouldn't be so thick with her."
When he had spoken, William turned with an expressive smile.
"Still, who knows? I rather like the girl. She has no humbug about her—no pretence, that's to say. You see how she dresses."
"A bad sign, I'm afraid."
"Well, no, not in this case, I think. Her home accounts for it. That old ass, Mumbray, and his wife make things pretty sour for her, as the Germans say; at least, I guess so."
"I don't dislike her appearance—intelligent at bottom, I should imagine."
There followed a long silence. Eustace broke it by asking softly:
"And how do things go with you?"
"The same as ever. Steadily down-hill I had better let the place before it gets into a thoroughly bad state. And you?"
His brother made no answer, but sat with bent head.
"You remember Stark," he said at length, "the lawyer? He wants me to stand for Polterham at the next election."
"You? In place of Welwyn-Baker?"
"No; as Liberal candidate; or Radical, if you like."
"You're joking, I suppose!"
"Where's the impossibility?"
Their eyes met.
"There's no absurdity," said William, "in your standing for Parliament; au contraire. But I can't imagine you on the Radical side. And I don't see the necessity of that. Welwyn-Baker is breaking up; they won't let him come forward again, even if he wishes. His son is disliked, and would have a very poor chance. If you cared to put yourself in touch with Mumbray and the rest of them—by love! I believe they would welcome you. I don't know of any one but the Welwyn-Bakers at all likely to stand."
"But," objected his brother, "what's the use of my standing for a party that is pretty sure to be beaten?"
"You think that's the case?"
Eustace repeated Mr. Stark's opinions, and what he had heard from Quarrier. It seemed to cost William an effort to fix his mind on the question; but at length he admitted that the contest would probably be a very close cue, even granting that the Conservatives secured a good candidate.
"That's as much as to say," observed his brother, "that the Liberals stand to win, as things are. Now, there seems to be no doubt that Liversedge would gladly withdraw in favour of a better man. What I want you to do is to set this thing in train for me. I am in earnest."
"You astonish me! I can't reconcile such an ambition with"–
"No, no; of course not." Glazzard spoke with unwonted animation. "You don't know what my life is and has been. Look I must do something to make my blood circulate, or I shall furnish a case for the coroner one of these mornings. I want excitement. I have taken up one thing after another, and gone just far enough to understand that there's no hope of reaching what I aimed at—superlative excellence; then the thing began to nauseate me. I'm like poor Jackson, the novelist, who groaned to me once that for fifteen years the reviewers had been describing his books as 'above the average.' In whatever I have undertaken the results were 'above the average,' and that's all. This is damned poor consolation for a man with a temperament like mine!"
His voice broke down. He had talked himself into a tremor, and the exhibition of feeling astonished his brother, who—as is so often the case between brothers—had never suspected what lay beneath the surface of Eustace's dilettante life.
"I can enter into that," said the elder, slowly. "But do you imagine that in politics you have found your real line?"
"No such thing. But it offers me a chance of living for a few years. I don't flatter myself that I could make a figure in the House of Commons; but I want to sit there, and be in the full current of existence. I had never dreamt of such a thing until Stark