If the girl had any heart it must have pleaded on behalf of Bernard
Murray--young, handsome, lovable, as he was. Nothing else except
ambition could have allowed her to compare Aston with him. There
might, it is true, have been a spice of adventure connected with her
encouragement of the latter; it was well known that his parents looked
with dismay upon the prospect of their idolized boy "throwing himself
away on that little school-teacher," as his mother phrased it.

To do the Astons credit, their objection to Violet did not rest wholly
upon an imagined social disparity; there was a much graver reason. The
girl lost no opportunity in proclaiming herself a pronounced
Free-thinker. Her mother had died while she was quite a child, and for
her upbringing Violet had depended wholly upon her father--an ardent
Socialist as well as Atheist. Thus she had grown up in an atmosphere
thoroughly anti-religious, until death had claimed her father also.
Socialism had never strongly appealed to her, and was not likely to do
so, under present circumstances; for religion she entertained a
supercilious disdain, as "out-of-date nonsense."

Here, then, were three young people kept in contact by the evident
attraction of both men for the same girl, and by the diplomatic
encouragement which the latter seemed to give to each in equal
proportion. Had Violet not been in question, Murray would have given
the cold shoulder to Aston; but as Violet tolerated Aston, he perforce
must put up with him. Aston, on his part, admired and feared Murray,
whom he regarded as a formidable rival.

"What puzzles me about Murray," he exclaimed once to a boon companion,
"is his jolly good English! Why, the chap has positively no kind of