rtainly! But first--I have been
boasting of knowing something about you--but I should like to ask--do
you know anything about me?"

Both laughed. Then Marcella tried to be serious.

"Well--I--I believe--you have some land?"

"Eight!" he nodded--"I am a Lincolnshire landowner. I have about five
thousand acres--enough to be tolerably poor on--and enough to play
tricks with. I have a co-operative farm, for instance. At present I have
lent them a goodish sum of money--and remitted them their first
half-year's rent. Not so far a paying speculation. But it will do--some
day. Meanwhile the estate wants money--and my plans and I want
money--badly. I propose to make the _Labour Clarion_ pay--if I can.
That will give me more time for speaking and organising, for what
concerns _us_--as Venturists--than the Bar."

"The Bar?" she said, a little mystified, but following every word with a
fascinated attention.

"I made myself a barrister three years ago, to please my mother. She
thought I should do better in Parliament--if ever I got in. Did you ever
hear of my mother?"

There was no escaping these frank, smiling questions.

"No," said Marcella, honestly.

"Well, ask Lord Maxwell," he said, laughing. "He and she came across
each other once or twice, when he was Home Secretary years ago, and she
was wild about some woman's grievance or other. She always maintains
that she got the better of him--no doubt he was left with a different
impression. Well--my mother--most people thought her mad--perhaps she
was--but then somehow--I loved her!"

He was still smiling, but at the last words a charming vibration crept
into the words, and his eyes sought her with a young open demand for
sympathy.

"Is that so rare?" she asked him, half laughing--instinctively defending
her own feeling lest it should be snatched from her by any make-believe.

"Yes--as we loved each other--it is rare. My father died when I was ten.
She would not send me to school, and I was always in her pocket--I
shared all her interests. She was a wild woman--but she _lived_, as not
one person in twenty lives."

Then he sighed. Marcella was too shy to imitate his readiness to ask
questions. But she supposed that his mother must be dead--indeed, now
vaguely remembered to have heard as much.

There was a little silence.

"Please tell me," she said suddenly, "why do you attack my
straw-plaiting? Is a co-operative farm any less of a stopgap?"

Instantly his face ch