"Well, you know what Randolph Churchill used to say about an Englishman who could not stand a licking!" laughed the other. "And if I'm licked I hope I shall take it in good part. But I don't mean to be. I am trying to persuade Miss Bolitho here to canvass for me as she did for her father!"
"And will you?" asked Paul, turning towards her.
"Would you be very angry with me if I did?" she asked laughingly.
"No," said Paul. "But I'd give a great deal to have you on my side!"
"If you had," said Boston pleasantly, "I should stand no chance at all. But if she works for me she will more than counterbalance the fact that I am a stranger to the town. Well, we must be going, Bolitho. Of course, Wilson is not expecting us by this train, or no doubt he would have been here to meet us. But as I have to get back to Manchester to-night, we must say what we have to say to him at once. Good afternoon, Mr. Stepaside. I have no doubt we shall meet often during the next few weeks."
"Of course, I can't wish you luck, Stepaside," said Mr. Bolitho cordially. "You see, you're on the other side. All the same, as far as you and I are concerned, we have decided to let bygones be bygones, haven't we?"
But Paul did not speak. He would have given anything to have spoken to Mr. Bolitho in the same spirit in which he had spoken, but for the life of him he could not. A weight seemed to be upon his tongue.
"Perhaps we shall also meet again," he said, turning to Mary Bolitho. "Do you know, I sometimes think you do not understand me! And I should like to have half an hour's chat with you. It might alter your views concerning me and the class I represent." He spoke almost humbly, and even her father did not resent his words. Ordinarily he would probably have been angry that a man of Paul's status should have dared to have spoken to his daughter in such a fashion—now there seemed nothing wrong in it.
"I should love to," laughed the girl. "Perhaps you do not understand my father either. I am sure I could convince you that he's right!" And with a pleasant smile she left him alone on the platform.
Only a few words had passed between them, and if an outsider had been listening to them, he would have regarded them as of no import whatever, but Paul felt that they had changed everything. In a way he could not understand, the old antagonism had gone, and, stranger to her as he still was, it seemed to him that a bond of sympathy had been formed. On previous occasions when he had met her it had seemed to him as though he were meeting an enemy, even although she had filled the whole of his horizon. But now the very atmosphere was changed, and he was sure that when they met again he could make her understand him, and that they would be able to speak on equal terms.