Eleanor, on her part, was conscious of liking less and less the aroma, as it were, of Miss Wynter and her surroundings; but she was aware that this was blind prejudice, and was determined to overcome it if she could. She was very young, and Otho had not been wrong when he had described her as enthusiastic; but she felt a kind of mental and moral chill, or ever she had really entered into conversation with this woman, who had, as it were, been so suddenly flung across her path, and who, she began to realise, must be a powerful influence in Otho’s life. It must be so, she reflected, or he would not thus have been eager to bring them together, and then as eager to leave them alone. Alone, for what?—to discover the innate and latent points of sympathy between them, and to rejoice in them, or to fight out their radical differences to the bitter end? CHAPTER XIV THRUST AND PARRY ‘Of course you are quite strange to Bradstane?’ began Magdalen. ‘Yes, quite—at least, practically so. I can’t recall much about it. In fact, I’m strange to the north altogether, except Scotland—staying at hotels or shooting-boxes, you know.’ ‘Ah, yes. Those are luxuries for the rich,’ said Magdalen, whose whole person, attire, and surroundings breathed an atmosphere of more than riches, of extravagance. ‘I may say I have never been in the south, for I haven’t, except to Bournemouth, with my aunt. Well, I wonder how you will “like,” as they say here. The society of Bradstane is a little peculiar. It is not intellectual—Eleanor felt a little surprise at this; Magdalen herself had not struck her as looking intellectual—‘and it is not by any means lively. And I suppose you have been accustomed to a good deal of variety in your life?’ ‘Not lately. Six months ago, my aunt, Mrs. Stanley, who has been my second mother, died very suddenly. We have had a very quiet and a very sad house ever since, and if Bradstane were ever so gay, I should not be going out much now.’ ‘Ah, yes, very sad—Otho mentioned your loss,’ murmured Magdalen, who, with the self-absorption of her kind, had forgotten Eleanor’s account of her uncle’s condition. ‘And then,’ added Eleanor, feeling her heart beating just a little faster, but marching straight into the fray, ‘I have Otho. I hope to see something of him now. He is my only brother, and I have been much separated from him.’ ‘Ah, your brother,’ said Magdalen, all at once discarding her purring tone, and taking up her knitting, with the expression of one who has just come to some mental decision. ‘He was the attraction, was he?’