persons, and had tasted some of the smaller sweets of fame.

But the magnet that

drew her to the Lanes’ house had been no craving for notoriety; at the present
moment she was totally indifferent to what perhaps constitutionally she might have
liked; the attraction had been simply the occasional presence there of Harry
Wharton. He excited, puzzled, angered, and commanded her more than ever. She could
not keep herself away from the chance of meeting him. And Lady Winterbourne
neither knew him, nor apparently wished to know him—a fact which probably tended
to make Marcella obstinate. Yet what pleasure had there been after all in these
meetings! Again and again she had seen him surrounded there by pretty and
fashionable women, with some of whom he was on amazingly easy terms, while with all
of them he talked their language, and so far as she could see to a great extent
lived their life. The contradiction of the House of Commons evening returned upon
her perpetually. She thought she saw in many of his new friends a certain malicious
triumph in the readiness with which the young demagogue had yielded to their
baits. No doubt they were at least as much duped as he. Like Hallin, she did not
believe, that at bottom he was the man to let himself be held by silken bonds if
it should be to his interest to break them. But, meanwhile, his bearing among
these people—the claims they and their amusement made upon his time and his mind—
seemed to this girl, who watched them, with her dark, astonished eyes, a kind of
treachery to his place and his cause. It was something she had never dreamed of;
and it roused her contempt and irritation. Then as to herself. He had been all
eagerness in his enquiries after her from Mrs. Lane; and he never saw her in the
Piccadilly drawing-room that he did not pay her homage, often with a certain
extravagance, a kind of appropriation, which Mrs. Lane secretly thought in bad
taste, and Marcella sometimes resented. On the other hand, things jarred between
them frequently. From day to day he varied. She had dreamt of a great friendship;
but instead, it was hardly possible to carry on the thread of their relation from
meeting to meeting with simplicity and trust. On the Terrace he had behaved, or
would have behaved, if she had allowed him, as a lover. When they met again at
Mrs. Lane’s he would be sometimes devoted in his old paradoxical, flattering vein;
sometimes, she thought, even cool. Nay, once or twice he was guilty of curious
little neglects towards her, generally in the presence of some great lady or other.
On one of these occasions she suddenly felt herself flushing from brow to chin at
the thought—“He does not want any one to suppose for a moment that he wishes to
marry me!” It had taken Wharton some difficult hours to subdue in her the effects
of that one moment’s fancy. Till then it is the simple truth to say that she had
never seriously considered the possibility of marrying him. When it did enter her
mind, she saw that it had already entered his—and that he was full of doubts! The
perception had given to her manner an increasing aloofness and pride which had of
late piqued Wharton into efforts from which vanity, and, indeed, something else,
could not refrain, if he was to preserve his power. So she was sitting by the
window this afternoon, in a mood which had in it neither simplicity nor joy. She
was conscious of a certain dull and baffled feeling—a sense of humiliation—which
hurt. Moreover, the scene of sordid horror she had gone through haunted her
imagination perpetually. She was unstrung, and the world weighed upon her—the pity,
the ugliness, the confusion of it. The muslin curtain beside her suddenly swelled
out in a draught of air, and she put out her hand quickly to catch the French
window lest it should swing to. Some one had opened the door of the room. “Did I
blow you out of window?” said a girl’s voice; and there behind her, in a half-
timid attitude, stood Betty Macdonald, a vision of white muslin, its frills and
capes a little tossed by the wind, the pointed face and golden hair showing small
and elf-like under the big shady hat. “Oh, do come in!” said Marcella, shyly; “Lady
Winterbourne will be in directly.” “So Panton told me,” said Betty, sinking down
on a high stool beside Marcella’s chair, and taking off her hat; “and Panton
doesn’t tell me any stories now—I’ve trained him. I wonder how many he tells in
the day? Don’t you think there will be a special little corner of purgatory for
London butlers? I hope Panton will get off easy!” Then she laid her sharp chin on
her tiny hand, and studied Marcella. Miss Boyce was in the light black dress that
Minta approved; her pale face and delicate hands stood out from it with a sort of
noble emphasis. When Betty had first heard of Marcella Boyce as the heroine of a
certain story, she had thought of her as a girl one would like to meet, if only to
prick her somehow for breaking the heart of a good man. Now that she saw her close
she felt herself near to falling in love with her. Moreover, the incident of the
fight and of Miss Boyce’s share in it had thrilled a creature all susceptibility
and curiosity; and the little merry thing would sit hushed, looking at the heroine
of it, awed by the thought of what a girl only two years older than herself must
have already seen of sin and tragedy, envying her with all her heart, and by
contrast honesty despising—for the moment—that very happy and popular person,
Betty Macdonald! “Do you like being alone?” she asked Marcella, abruptly. Marcella
coloured. “Well, I was just getting very tired of my own company,” she said. “I
was very glad to see you come in.” “Were you?” said Betty, joyously, with a little
gleam in her pretty eyes. Then suddenly the golden head bent forward. “May I kiss
you?” she said, in the wistfullest, eagerest voice. Marcella smiled, and, laying
her hand on Betty’s, shyly drew her. “That’s better!” said Betty, with a long
breath. “That’s the second milestone; the first was when I saw you on the Terrace.
Couldn’t you mark all your friendships by little white stones? I could. But the
horrid thing is when you have to mark them back again! Nobody ever did that with
you!” “Because I have no friends,” said Marcella, quickly; then, when Betty
clapped her hands in amazement at such a speech, she added quickly with a smile,
“except a few I make poultices for.” “There!” said Betty, enviously, “to think of
being really wanted—for poultices—or, anything! I never was wanted in my life! When
I die they’ll put on my poor little grave She’s buried here—that hizzie Betty;She
did na gude—so don’t ee fret ye! “—oh, there they are!”—she ran to the window—-
“Lady Winterbourne and Ermyntrude. Doesn’t it make you laugh to see Lady
Winterbourne doing her duties? She gets into her carriage after lunch as one might
mount a tumbril. I expect to hear her tell the coachman to drive to the scaffold at
Hyde Park Corner.’ She looks the unhappiest woman in England—and all the time
Ermyntrude declares she likes it, and wouldn’t do without her season for the
world! She gives Ermyntrude a lot of trouble, but she is a dear—a naughty dear—and
mothers are a such chance! Ermyntrude! where did you get that bonnet? You got it
without me—and my feelings won’t stand it!” When it did enter her mind, she saw
that it had already entered his—and that he was full of doubts! The perception had
given to her manner an increasing aloofness and pride which had of late piqued
Wharton into efforts from which vanity, and, indeed, something else, could not
refrain, if he was to preserve his power
It was something she had never dreamed of; and it roused her contempt and
irritation. Then as to herself. He had been all eagerness in his enquiries after
her from Mrs. Lane; and he never saw her in the Piccadilly drawing-room that he did
not pay her homage