of hat-doffing in female presence. Was not civility preserved
between man and man without such idle form? Why not, then, between
man and woman? Unable, as yet, to go the entire length of his
principles in every-day life, he endeavoured, at all events, to
cultivate in his intercourse with women a frankness of speech, a
directness of bearing, beyond the usual. He shook hands as with one
of his own sex, spine uncrooked; he greeted them with level voice,
not as one who addresses a thing afraid of sound. To a girl or
matron whom he liked, he said, in tone if not in phrase, "Let us be
comrades." In his opinion this tended notably to the purifying of
the social atmosphere. It was the introduction of simple honesty
into relations commonly marked--and corrupted--by every form of
disingenuousness. Moreover, it was the great first step to that
reconstruction of society at large which every thinker saw to be
imperative and imminent.

But Constance Bride knew nothing of this, and in her ignorance could
not but misinterpret the young man's demeanor. She felt it to be
brusque; she imagined it to imply a purposed oblivion of things in
the past. Taken together with Mrs. Lashmar's way of receiving her at
the vicarage, it stirred in her heart and mind (already prone to
bitterness) a resentment which, of all things, she shrank from
betraying.

"Is Lady Ogram approachable?" Dyce asked, when his companion had
walked a few paces without speaking. "Does she care to make new
acquaintances?"

"It depends. She likes to know interesting people."