"
"How ought I to speak of Mrs. Wade? When people tell downright
falsehoods about her, may I contradict?"
"It's a confoundedly difficult matter, that. I half wish Mrs. Wade
would hasten her departure. Did she say anything about it when you
saw her the other day?"
"Nothing whatever."
It appeared that the widow wished to make a friend of Lilian. She
had called several times, and on each occasion behaved so charmingly
that Lilian was very ready to meet her advances. Though on
intellectual and personal grounds he could feel no objection to such
an intimacy, Denzil began to fear that it might affect his
popularity with some voters who would take the Liberal side if it
did not commit them to social heresies. This class is a very large
one throughout England. Mrs. Wade had never given occasion of grave
scandal; she was even seen, with moderate regularity, at one or
other of the churches; but many of the anti-Tory bourgeois suspected
her of sympathy with views so very "advanced" as to be socially
dangerous. Already it had become known that she was on good terms
with Quarrier and his wife. It was rumoured that Quarrier would
reconsider the position he had publicly assumed, and stand forth as
an advocate of Female Suffrage. For such extremes Polterham was not
prepared.
"Mrs. Wade asks me to go and have tea with her to-morrow," Lilian
announced one morning, showing a note.
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