Having led the way to the drawing-room, Fanny retired again for a few moments, to fetch the fern of which she had spoken, leaving Peak in conversation with little Miss Lilywhite. Bertha was a rather shy girl of fifteen, not easily induced, under circumstances such as these, to utter more than monosyllables, and Godwin, occupied with the unforeseen results of his call, talked about the weather. With half-conscious absurdity he had begun to sketch a theory of his own regarding rain-clouds and estuaries (Bertha listening with an air of the gravest attention) when Fanny reappeared, followed by Sidwell. Peak searched the latter’s face for indications of her mood, but could discover nothing save a spirit of gracious welcome. Such aspect was a matter of course, and he knew it. None the less, his nervousness and the state of mind engendered by a week’s miserable solitude, tempted him to believe that Sidwell did not always wear that smile in greeting a casual caller. This was the first time that she had received him without the countenance of Mrs. Warricombe. Observing her perfect manner, as she sat down and began to talk, he asked himself what her age really was. The question had never engaged his thoughts. Eleven years ago, when he saw her at the house near Kingsmill and again at Whitelaw College, she looked a very young girl, but whether of thirteen or sixteen he could not at the time have determined, and such a margin of possibility allowed her now to have reached—it might be-her twenty-seventh summer. But twenty-seven drew perilously near to thirty; no, no, Sidwell could not be more than twenty-five. Her eyes still had the dewy freshness of flowering maidenhood; her cheek, her throat, were so exquisitely young——

In how divine a calm must this girl have lived to show, even at five-and-twenty, features as little marked by inward perturbation as those of an infant! Her position in the world considered, one could forgive her for having borne so lightly the inevitable sorrows of life, for having dismissed so readily the spiritual doubts which were the heritage of her time; but was she a total stranger to passion? Did not the fact of her still remaining unmarried make probable such a deficiency in her nature? Had she a place among the women whom coldness of temperament preserves in a bloom like that of youth, until fading hair and sinking cheek betray them——?

Whilst he thought thus, Godwin was in appearance busy with the fern Fanny had brought for his inspection. He talked about it, but in snatches, with intervals of abstractedness.

Yet might he not be altogether wrong? Last year, when he observed Sidwell in the Cathedral and subsequently at home, his impression had been that her face was of rather pallid and dreamy cast; he recollected that distinctly. Had she changed, or did familiarity make him less sensible of her finer traits? Possibly she enjoyed better health nowadays, and, if so, it might result from influences other than physical. Her air of quiet happiness seemed to him especially noticeable this afternoon, and as he brooded there came upon him a dread which, under the circumstances, was quite irrational, but for all that troubled his views. Perhaps Sidwell was betrothed to some one? He knew of but one likely person—Miss Moorhouse’s brother. About a month ago the Warricombes had been on a visit at Budleigh Salterton, and something might then have happened. Pangs of jealousy smote him, nor could he assuage them by reminding himself that he had no concern whatever in Sidwell’s future.

‘Will Mr. Warricombe be long away?’ he asked, coldly.

‘A day or two. I hope you didn’t wish particularly to see him today?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Do you know, Mr. Peak,’ put in Fanny, ‘that we are all going to London next month, to live there for half a year?’

Godwin exhibited surprise. He looked from the speaker to her sister, and Sidwell, as she smiled confirmation, bent very slightly towards him.

‘We have made up our minds, after much uncertainty,’ she said. ‘My brother Buckland seems to think that we are falling behind in civilisation.’

‘So we are,’ affirmed Fanny, ‘as Mr. Peak would admit, if only he could be sincere.’

‘Am I never sincere then, Miss Fanny?’ Godwin asked.

‘I only meant to say that nobody can be when the rules of politeness interfere. Don’t you think it’s a pity? We might tell one another the truth in a pleasant way.’

‘I agree with you. But then we must be civilised indeed. How do you think of London, Miss Warricombe? Which of its aspects most impresses you?’

Sidwell answered rather indefinitely, and ended by mentioning that in Villette, which she had just reread, Charlotte Bronte makes a contrast between the City and the West End, and greatly prefers the former.

‘Do you agree with her, Mr. Peak?’

‘No, I can’t. One understands the mood in which she wrote that; but a little more experience would have led her to see the contrast in a different light. That term, the West End, includes much that is despicable, but it means also the best results of civilisation. The City is hateful to me, and for a reason which I only understood after many an hour of depression in walking about its streets. It represents the ascendency of the average man.’

Sidwell waited for fuller explanation.

‘A liberal mind,’ Peak continued, ‘is revolted by the triumphal procession that roars perpetually through the City highways. With myriad voices the City bellows its brutal scorn of everything but material advantage. There every humanising influence is contemptuously disregarded. I know, of course, that the trader may have his quiet home, where art and science and humanity are the first considerations; but the mass of traders, corporate and victorious, crush all such things beneath their heels. Take your stand (or try to do so) anywhere near the Exchange; the hustling and jolting to which you are exposed represents the very spirit of the life about you. Whatever is gentle and kindly and meditative must here go to the wall—trampled, spattered, ridiculed. Here the average man has it all his own way—a gross utilitarian power.’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ Sidwell replied, thoughtfully. ‘And perhaps it also represents the triumphant forces of our time.’

He looked keenly at her, with a smile of delight.

‘That also! The power which centres in the world’s money-markets—plutocracy.’

In conversing with Sidwell, he had never before found an opportunity of uttering his vehement prejudices. The gentler side of his character had sometimes expressed itself, but those impulses which were vastly more significant lay hidden beneath the dissimulation he consistently practised. For the first time he was able to look into Sidwell’s face with honest directness, and what he saw there strengthened his determination to talk on with the same freedom.

‘You don’t believe, then,’ said Sidwell, ‘that democracy is the proper name for the state into which we are passing?’

‘Only if one can understand democracy as the opening of social privileges to free competition amongst men of trade. And social privilege is everything; home politics refer to nothing else.’

Fanny, true to the ingenuous principle of her years, put a direct question:

‘Do you approve of real democracy, Mr. Peak?’

He answered with another question:

‘Have you read the “Life of Phokion” in Plutarch?’

‘No, I’m sorry to say.’

‘There’s a story about him which I have enjoyed since I was your age. Phokion was once delivering a public speech, and at a certain point the majority of his hearers broke into applause; whereupon he turned to certain of his friends who stood near and asked, “What have I said amiss?”’

Fanny laughed.

‘Then you despise public opinion?’

‘With heart and soul!’

It was to Sidwell that he directed the reply. Though overcome by the joy of such an utterance, he felt that, considering the opinions and position of Buckland Warricombe, he was perhaps guilty of ill manners. But Sidwell manifested no disapproval.

‘Did you know that story?’ Fanny asked of her.

‘It’s quite new to me.’

‘Then I’m sure you’ll read the “Life of Phokion” as soon as possible. He will just Suit you, Sidwell.’

Peak heard this with a shock of surprise which thrilled in him deliciously. He had the strongest desire to look again at Sidwell but refrained. As no one spoke, he turned to Bertha Lilywhite and put a commonplace question.

A servant entered with the tea-tray, and placed it on a small table near Fanny. Godwin looked at the younger girl; it seemed to him that there was an excess of colour in her cheeks. Had a glance from Sidwell rebuked her? With his usual rapidity of observation and inference he made much of this trifle.

Contrary to what he expected, Sidwell’s next remark was in a tone of cheerfulness, almost of gaiety.

‘One advantage of our stay in London will be that home will seem more delightful than ever when we return.’

‘I suppose you won’t be back till next summer?’

‘I am afraid not.’

‘Shall you be living here then?’ Fanny inquired.

‘It’s very doubtful.’

He wished to answer with a decided negative, but his tongue refused. Sidwell was regarding him with calm but earnest eyes, and he knew, without caring to reflect, that his latest projects were crumbling.

‘Have you been to see our friends at Budleigh Salterton yet?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. I hope to in a few days.’

Pursuing the subject, he was able to examine her face as she spoke of Mr. Moorhouse. His conjecture was assuredly baseless.

Fanny and Bertha began to talk together of domestic affairs, and presently, when tea-cups were laid aside, the two girls went to another part of the room; then they withdrew altogether. Peak was monologising on English art as represented at the Academy, but finding himself alone with Sidwell (it had never before happened) he became silent. Ought he to take his leave? He must already have been sitting here more than half-an-hour. But the temptation of teae-a-teae was irresistible.

‘You had a visit from Mr. Chilvers the other day?’ he remarked, abruptly.

‘Yes; did he call to see you?’

Her tone gave evidence that she would not have introduced this topic.

‘No; I heard from Mrs. Lilywhite. He had been to the vicarage. Has he changed much since he was at Whitelaw?’

‘So many years must make a difference at that time of life,’ Sidwell answered, smiling.

‘But does he show the same peculiarities of manner?’

He tried to put the question without insistency, in a tone quite compatible with friendliness. Her answer, given with a look of amusement, satisfied him that there was no fear of her taking Mr Chilvers too seriously.

‘Yes. I think he speaks in much the same way.’

‘Have you read any of his publications?’

‘One or two. We have his lecture on Altruism.’

‘I happen to know it. There are good things in it, I think. But I dislike his modern interpretation of old principles.’

‘You think it dangerous?’

He no longer regarded her frankly, and in the consciousness of her look upon him he knit his brows.

‘I think it both dangerous and offensive. Not a few clergymen nowadays, who imagine themselves free from the letter and wholly devoted to spirit, are doing their best in the cause of materialism. They surrender the very points at issue between religion and worldliness. They are so blinded by a vague humanitarian impulse as to make the New Testament an oracle of popular Radicalism.’

Sidwell looked up.

‘I never quite understood, Mr. Peak, how you regard Radicalism. You think it opposed to all true progress?’

‘Utterly, as concerns any reasonable limit of time.’