It was rather patronizing."

"Heaven forbid! I am very sorry to have been guilty of such
ill-manners."

"In a measure you atoned for it afterwards. When I got up to offer you
my thanks, I was thinking of the best part of your lecture--that where
you spoke of girls being entrapped into monstrous marriages. That was
generous, and splendidly put. It seemed to me that you must have had
cases in mind."

For the second time Denzil was unable to meet the steely gaze. He
looked away and laughed.

"Oh, of course I had; who hasn't--that knows anything of the world?
But," he changed the subject, "don't you find it rather dull, living in
a place like Polterham?"

"I have my work here."

"Work?--the work of propagandism?"

"Precisely. It would be pleasant enough to live in London, and
associate with people of my own way of thinking; but what's the
good?--there's too much of that centralization. The obscurantists take
very good care to spread themselves. Why shouldn't those who love the
light try to keep little beacons going in out-of-the-way places?"

"Well, do you make any progress?"

"Oh, I think so. The mere fact of my existence here ensures that. I
dare say you have heard tell of me, as the countryfolk say?"

The question helped Denzil to understand why Mrs. Wade was content with
Polterham. He smiled.

"Your influence won't be exerted against me, I hope, when the time
comes?"

"By no means. Don't you see that I have already begun to help you?"

"By making it clear that my Radicalism is not of the most dangerous
type?"

They laughed, together, and Quarrier, though the dialogue entertained
him, rose as if to depart.

"I will leave you with your Greeks, Mrs. Wade; though I fear you
haven't much pleasure in them from that special point of view."

"I don't know; they have given us important types of womanhood. The
astonishing thing is that we have got so little ahead of them in the
facts of female life. Woman is still enslaved, though men nowadays
think it necessary to disguise it."

"Do you really attach much importance to the right of voting, and so
on?"

"'And so on!' That covers a great deal, Mr. Quarrier. I attach all
importance to a state of things which takes for granted that women
stand on a level with children."

"So they do--with an inappreciable number of exceptions. You must be
perfectly well aware of that."

"And so you expect me to be satisfied with it?--I insist on the
franchise, because i