"Is it so plain that no Conservative mother could endure me? But I admit it's not very likely Lady Coryston could. She is the living, distilled essence of Conservative mothers. The question is, mightn't she have to put up with me?" "I do not believe you care for Arthur Coryston," said Marion, with slow decision, "and if you don't care for him you ought not to marry him." "Oh, but you forget a lot of things!" was the cool reply. "You simplify a deal too much." "Are you any nearer caring for him--really--than you were six weeks ago?" "He's a very--nice--dear fellow." The girl's face softened. "And it would be even sweeter to dish the pack of fortune-hunting mothers who are after him, now, than it was six weeks ago." "Enid!" "Can't help it, dear. I'm made like that. I see all the ugly shabby little sides of it--the 'scores' I should make, the snubs I should have to put up with, the tricks Lady Coryston would certainly play on us. How I should love fighting her! In six months Arthur would be my father's private secretary." "You would despise him if he were!" "Yes, I suppose I should. But it would be I who would write his speeches for him then--and they'd make Lady Coryston sit up! Ah! didn't you hear something?" A distant humming on the hill leading to the house became audible. Marion Atherstone rose. "It sounds like a motor. You'll have the garden quite to yourselves. I'll see that nobody interrupts you." Enid nodded. But before Marion had gone half across the lawn she came quickly back again. "Remember, Enid," her voice pleaded, "his mother's devoted to him. Don't make a quarrel between them--unless you must." Enid smiled, and lightly kissed the face bending over her. "Did Lord Coryston tell you to say that?" Marion departed, silenced. Enid Glenwilliam waited. While the humming noise drew nearer she lifted the local paper from the ground and looked eagerly at the account of the Martover meeting. The paper was a Radical paper, and it had blossomed into its biggest head-lines for the Chancellor. "Chancellor goes for the Landlords," "Crushing attack," "Tories writhe under it," "Frantic applause." She put it down, half contemptuous, half pleased. She had grown accustomed to the mouthings of party politics, and could not do without them. But her brain was not taken in by them. "Father was not so good as usual last night," she said to herself. "But nobody else would have been half so good!" she added, with a fierce protectiveness. And in that spirit she rose to meet the stately lady in black, whom the Atherstones' maid-servant was showing across the garden. "Miss Glenwilliam, I believe?" Lady Coryston paused and put up her eyeglass. Enid Glenwilliam advanced, holding out her hand. "How do you do, Lady Coryston?"