That there could be any "right" in private property or private wealth had become incredible to them; their minds were full of lurid images or resentments drawn from the existing state of London; and though one was humorous and handsome, the other, short, sickly, and pedantic, neither could discuss the Socialist ideal without passion, nor hear it attacked without anger.
And in milder measure their sister, who possessed more artistic gift than either of them, was like unto them.
Marcella saw much of these three persons, and something of their friends.

She went with them to Socialist lectures, or to the public evenings of the Venturist Society, to which the brothers belonged.

Edie, the sister, assaulted the imagination of her friend, made her read the books of a certain eminent poet and artist, once the poet of love and dreamland, "the idle singer of an empty day," now seer and prophet, the herald of an age to come, in which none shall possess, though all shall enjoy.

The brothers, more ambitious, attacked her through the reason, brought her popular translations and selections from Marx and Lassalle, together with each Venturist pamphlet and essay as it appeared; they flattered her with technical talk; they were full of the importance of women to the new doctrine and the new era.
The handsome brother was certainly in love with her; the other, probably.

Marcella was not in love with either of them, but she was deeply interested in all three, and for the sickly brother she felt at that time a profound admiration--nay, reverence--which influenced her vitally at a critical moment of life.