When he had entered the house he, like Mr. Lowry, had felt the quiet dignity and the atmosphere of cultured refinement which prevailed.
"Who has created this," he asked himself, "the father or the daughter?"
"It is not the father," he concluded before John Castlemaine had spoken a dozen words. It was true that John Castlemaine bore an untarnished reputation for honour and uprightness, but he was not a cultured man; he would never give the house its tone. There were a hundred things which suggested the artist's feeling, the scholar's taste. When he saw Olive Castlemaine, he had no further doubt.
And he felt ashamed. Not that his opinions about women in general were altered. His experiences had been too bitter. He simply felt that his conversation in the club in London a week or so before was, to say the least of it, in bad taste. He did not mean to go back upon his words; that was not his habit. Besides, the difficulties which presented themselves made him more determined to carry his plans into effect.
As for Olive, she felt that her friend had estimated this man rightly—at least in part. He was a striking-looking man; he was a clever man. The florid merchant by his side looked mean and common compared with him. The quiet masterfulness of Leicester impressed her. He suggested a reserve of strength and knowledge which she had never before felt when brought into contact with other political aspirants. She knew the general type of Parliamentary candidates. Some had made money and wanted to have the honour associated with the British House of Legislature; others, again, were brought up with the idea of adopting the political life as a career. Neither in the one case nor the other were they men of note; they would be simply voting machines, even if they entered the House of Commons—just dull, uninteresting men, who had never grasped the principles which govern a nation's life.
But this man was different. The strong chin, the well-shaped head, the large grey eyes, could only mean a man of more than ordinary note.
They sat near each other at dinner, and all the time Radford Leicester was seeking to weigh Olive Castlemaine in the balance of his own opinions.
"I hope none of those fellows will let the wager leak out," he said to himself. "The girl makes me angry. What business has a rich City man's daughter—a religious woman and a Nonconformist—to look with searching eyes like that? I must be careful."
"You are an admirer of Tolstoi, Miss Castlemaine," he said, glancing towards a picture on the wall.
"You say that because of his picture," she replied. "An artist friend of ours knows the family. He paid a visit to Tolstoi's home, and the Count consented to sit for his picture. I believe it is very good."