"My aunt has told me all about your new Socialism, Mr. Lashmar. You can't think how it has put my mind at rest! One has so felt that one _ought_ to be a Socialist, and yet there were so many things one couldn't accept. It's delightful to see everything reconciled--all one wants to keep and all the new things that _must_ come!" May had been developing. She spoke with a confidence which, on softer notes, emulated that of her aged relative; she carried her head with a conscious stateliness which might have been--perhaps was--deliberately studied after the portrait in the Rivenoak dining-room. Harmonious with this change was that in her attire; fashion had done its best to transform the aspiring young provincial into a metropolitan Grace; the result being that Miss Tomalin seemed to have grown in stature, to exhibit a more notable symmetry, so that she filled more space in the observer's eye than heretofore. For all that, she looked no older; her self-assertion, though more elaborate, was not a bit more impressive, and the phrases she used, the turn of her sentences, the colour of her speech, very little resembled anything that would have fallen from a damsel bred in the modish world. Her affectation was shot through with spontaneity; her impertinence had a juvenile seriousness which made it much more amusing than offensive; and a feminine charm in her, striving to prevail over incongruous elements, made clear appeal to the instincts of the other sex. "That is very encouraging," was Lashmar's reply. "If only one's thoughts can be of any help to others--" "What time is it?" broke in Lady Ogram. "Why doesn't that man come? What business has he to keep us waiting?" "It's only just half-past one," said Miss Bride. "Then he ought to be here." She turned to Lashmar. "I'm expecting a friend you've heard of--Sir William Amys. How long are we to sit here waiting for him, I wonder?" "What do you think of Herbert Spencer, Mr. Lashmar?" inquired May. Dyce's reply was rendered doubly unnecessary by the opening of the door, and the announcement of the awaited guest. "Willy! Willy!" cried Lady Ogram, with indulgent reproof. "You always used to be so punctual." The gentleman thus familiarly addressed had grey hair and walked with a stoop in the shoulders. His age was sixty, but he looked rather older. Lady Ogram, who had known him as a boy, still saw him in that light. His pleasant face, full of sagacity and good-humour, wore a gently deprecating smile as he stepped forward, and whether intentionally or not--he smoothed with one hand his long, grizzled beard. "This is military!" he exclaimed. "Are not a few minutes' grace granted to a man of peace, when he comes to eat your salt?--And how are you, my dear lady? How are you?" "Never was better in my life, Willy!" shrilled Lady Ogram, her voice slipping out of control in her excitement. "Do you know who this is?" "I could make a guess. The face speaks for itself."