"Marcella!" cried Lady Winterbourne, catching at the tone rather than words—"I thought you didn't feel like that any more—not about the distance between the poor and the rich—and our tyranny—and its being hopeless—and the poor always hating us—I thought you changed."
And forgetting Lady Selina, remembering only the old talks at Mellor, Lady Winterbourne bent forward and laid an appealing hand on Marcella's arm.
Marcella turned to her with an odd look.
"If you only knew," she said, "how much more possible it is to think well of the rich, when you are living amongst the poor!"
"Ah! you must be at a distance from us to do us justice?" enquired Lady
Selina, settling her bracelets with a sarcastic lip.
"I must," said Marcella, looking, however, not at her, but at Lady Winterbourne. "But then, you see,"—she caressed her friend's hand with a smile—"it is so easy to throw some people into opposition!"
"Dreadfully easy!" sighed Lady Winterbourne.
The flush mounted again in the girl's cheek. She hesitated, then felt driven to explanations.
"You see—oddly enough"—she pointed away for an instant to the north-east through the open window—"it's when I'm over there—among the people who have nothing—that it does me good to remember that there are persons who live in James Street, Buckingham Gate!"
"My dear! I don't understand," said Lady Winterbourne, studying her with her most perplexed and tragic air.