"It's a good fight at present," said the girl, coolly, "and a successful one. But Lady Coryston gets all she wants without fighting. When father goes out of office I shall be nobody. _She_ will be always at the top of the tree." "I am no wiser than before as to whether you really like Arthur Coryston or not. You have heard, of course, the gossip about the estates?" "Heard?" The speaker smiled. "I know not only the gossip--but the facts--by heart! I am drowned--smothered in them. At present Arthur is the darling--the spotless one. But when she knows about me!"--Miss Glenwilliam threw up her hands. "You think she will change her mind again?" The girl took up a stalk of grass and nibbled it in laughing meditation. "Perhaps I oughtn't to risk his chances?" she said, looking sidelong. "Don't think about 'chances,'" said Marion Atherstone, indignantly--"think about whether you care for each other!" "What a _bourgeois_ point of view! Well, honestly--I don't know. Arthur Coryston is not at all clever. He has the most absurd opinions. We have only known each other a few months. If he were _very_ rich--By the way, is he coming this afternoon? And may I have a cigarette?" Marion handed cigarettes. The click of a garden gate in the distance caught her ear. "Here they are--he and Lord Coryston." Enid Glenwilliam lit her cigarette, and made no move. Her slender, long-limbed body, as it lay at ease in the deep garden chair, the pale masses of her hair, and the confident quiet face beneath it, made a charming impression of graceful repose. As Arthur Coryston reached her she held out a welcoming hand, and her eyes greeted him--a gay, significant look. Coryston, having shaken hands with Miss Atherstone, hastily approached her companion. "I didn't know you smoked," he said, abruptly, standing before her with his hands on his sides. As always, Coryston made an odd figure. His worn, ill-fitting clothes, with their bulging pockets, the grasshopper slimness of his legs and arms, the peering, glancing look of his eternally restless eyes, were all of them displeasing to Enid Glenwilliam as she surveyed him. But she answered him with a smile. "Mayn't I?" He looked down on her, frowning. "Why should women set up a new want--a new slavery--that costs money?" The color flew to her cheeks. "Why shouldn't they? Go and preach to your own sex." "No good!" He shrugged his shoulders. "But women are supposed to have consciences. And--especially--_Liberal_ women," he added, slowly, as his eyes traveled over her dress. "And pray why should Liberal women be ascetics any more than any other kind of women?" she asked him, quietly. "Why?" His voice grew suddenly loud. "Because there are thousands of people in this country perishing for lack of proper food and clothing--and it is the function of Liberals to bring it home to the other thousands." Arthur Coryston broke out indignantly: "I say, Cony, do hold your tongue! You do talk such stuff!"