e
their colour. They impressed Denzil as of a steely-grey, and seemed
hard as the metal itself. His preference was distinctly for soft
feminine eyes--such as Lilian gazed with.

Her figure was slight, but seemed strong and active. He had noticed the
evening before that, in standing to address an audience, she looked
anything but ridiculous--spite of bonnet. Here too, though allowing her
surprise to be seen, she had the bearing of perfect self-possession,
and perhaps of conscious superiority. Fawn-coloured hair, less than
luxuriant, lay in soft folds and plaits on the top of her head;
possibly (the thought was not incongruous) she hoped to gain half an
inch of seeming stature.

They shook hands, and Denzil explained his object in calling.

"Then you are going to settle at Polterham?"

"Probably--that is, to keep an abode here."

"You are not married, I think, Mr. Quarrier?"

"No."

"There was a report at the Institute last night--may I speak of it?"

"Political? I don't think it need be kept a secret. My brother-in-law
wishes me to make friends with the Liberals, in his place."

"I dare say you will find them very willing to meet your advances. On
one question you have taken a pretty safe line."

"Much to your disgust," said Denzil, who found himself speaking very
freely and inclined to face debatable points.

"Disgust is hardly the word. Will you sit down? In Mrs. Hornibrook's
absence, I must represent her. They are good enough to let me use the
library; my own is poorly supplied."

Denzil took a chair.

"Are you busy with any particular subject?" he asked.

"The history of woman in Greece."

"Profound! I have as good as forgotten my classics. You read the
originals?"

"After a fashion. I don't know much about the enclitic _de_, and I
couldn't pass an exam. in the hypothetical sentences; but I pick up the
sense as I read on."

Her tone seemed to imply that, after all, she was not ill-versed in
grammatical niceties. She curtailed the word "examination" in an
off-hand way which smacked of an undergraduate, and her attitude on the
chair suggested that she had half a mind to cross her legs and throw
her hands behind her head.

"Then," said Quarrier, "you have a good deal more right to speak of
woman's claims to independence than most female orators."

She looked at him with a good-humoured curl of the lip.

"Excuse me if I mention it--your tone reminds me of that with which you
began last evening.