But why should he care? What had he in common with this young girl, whose thoughts and feelings must be far removed from his own?
The Lancashire operatives pay little attention to caste or class distinction. With them one man is as good as another, even although they are greatly influenced by the fact of success and the amassing of money. But the inwardness of the word Aristocracy has little or no meaning to them; it is too elusive, too intangible. But at that moment Paul realised something of what it meant. This girl belonged to a class of which he knew nothing. She created an atmosphere utterly different from that breathed in a Lancashire manufacturing town. He could not put it into words, but he knew it was there, a refinement, a suggestion of thoughts to which he was a stranger. What was she doing there? She had nothing in common with that Wilson girl, even although the Wilsons were the wealthiest people in Brunford. And then there was something more, he knew not what, only somehow it made life different. It made him feel how small his world had been, what a little thing money-making was. It suggested a larger world, a higher life of which hitherto he had been ignorant.
When he reached the next stile he found George Preston waiting for him. "Been talking with Wilson's lass?" asked he with a laugh.
Paul shook his head. "Who's the other one?" he asked. "Is she not a stranger in these parts?"
"Why, she's Miss Bolitho. She's the daughter of the man who had so much to do in sending you to quod."
It seemed as though someone had struck him a blow. Unconsciously he had been weaving fancies around her, unconsciously, too, something had come into his life to which hitherto he had been a stranger. And now to hear that she was the daughter of the man whom he could not think of save as his enemy, almost made him reel! For a few minutes he walked on by Preston's side without speaking, while his companion, almost unconsciously realising that he was in no humour for speech, was likewise silent.
"I suppose," said Preston presently, "that Bolitho and Wilson got friendly through thy trial. Of course, Bolitho's a big man, and knows a lot of the big people in London, still, he's allowed his daughter to come visiting here, and I hear, too, that young Ned Wilson is sweet on her."