Among the brilliant creatures, however, who came and went, there was one who had conquered her. For Enid Glenwilliam, Marion felt the profound affection that often links the plain, scrupulous, conscientious woman to some one or other of the Sirens of her sex. When Enid came to the cottage Marion became her slave and served her hand and foot. But the probability is that she saw through the Siren--what there was to see through--a good deal more sharply than her father did. Atherstone took a garden chair beside her, and lit his pipe. He had just been engaged in drafting an important Liberal manifesto. His name would probably never appear in connection with it. But that mattered nothing to him. What did vex him was that he probably would not have an opportunity of talking it over with Glenwilliam before it finally left his hands. He was pleased with it, however. The drastic, or scathing phrases of it kept running through his head. He had never felt a more thorough, a more passionate, contempt for his opponents. The Tory party must go! One more big fight, and they would smash the unclean thing. These tyrants of land, and church, and finance!--democratic England when it once got to business--and it was getting to business--would make short work of them. As he looked out over the plain he saw many things well fitted to stir the democratic pulse. There among the woods, not a mile from the base of the hills, lay the great classic pile of Coryston, where "that woman" held sway. Farther off on its hill rose Hoddon Grey, identified in this hostile mind with Church ascendancy, just as Coryston was identified with landlord ascendancy. If there were anywhere to be found a narrower pair of bigots than Lord and Lady William Newbury, or a more poisonous reactionary than their handsome and plausible son, Atherstone didn't know where to lay hands on them. One white dot in the plain, however, gave him unmixed satisfaction. He turned, laughing to his daughter. "Coryston has settled in--with a laborer and his wife to look after him. He has all sorts of ructions on his hands already." "Poor Lady Coryston!" said Marion, giving a glance at the classical cupolas emerging from the woods. "My dear--she began it. And he is quite right--he _has_ a public duty to these estates." "Couldn't he go and stir up people somewhere else? It looks so ugly." "Oh! women have got to get used to these things, if they play such strong parts as Lady Coryston. The old kid-glove days, as between men and women, are over." "Even between mothers and sons?" said Marion, dubiously. "I repeat--she began it! Monstrous, that that man should have made such a will, and that a mother should have taken advantage of it!" "Suppose she had been a Liberal," said Marion, slyly. Atherstone shrugged his shoulders--too honest to reply. He ruminated over his pipe. Presently his eyes flashed. "I hear Coryston's very servants--his man and wife--were evicted from their cottage for political reasons."