"Most exclusive of women! I sometimes wish I
might unveil your real opinions to the Radical fellows who come here."
Lady Lucy colored faintly.
"That has nothing to do with politics."
"Hasn't it? I can't imagine anything that has more to do with them."
"I was thinking of character--honorable tradition--not blood."
Ferrier shook his head.
"Won't do. Barton wouldn't pass you--'A man's a man for a' that'--and a
woman too."
"Then I am a Tory!" said Lady Lucy, with a smile that shot pleasantly
through her gray eyes.
"At last you confess it!" cried Ferrier, as he carried off his papers.
But his gayety soon departed. He stood awhile at the window in his room,
looking out upon the sodden park--a rather gray and sombre figure. Over
his ugly impressiveness a veil of weariness had dropped. Politics and
the strife of parties, the devices of enemies and the dissatisfaction of
friends--his soul was tired of them. And the emergence of this possible
love-affair--for the moment, ardent and deep as were the man's
affections and sympathies, toward this Marsham household, it did but
increase his sense of moral fatigue. If the flutter in the blood--and
the long companionship of equal love--if these were the only things of
real value in life--how had _his_ been worth living?
CHAPTER V
The last covert had been shot, and as Marsham and his party, followed by
scattered groups of beaters, turned homeward over the few fields that
separated them from the park, figures appeared coming toward them in the
rosy dusk--Mr.
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