“Of course. But now that it’s within her knowledge she won’t find a thousand pounds come in badly,” was the somewhat testy answer.
“She tore up the cheque of her own accord under my eyes.”
“What? Did she? That looks genuine, Wagram. By George, that looks genuine. Fancy anything Calmour refusing a thousand pounds—or even a hundred! Good heavens! is the world coming to an end?”
“Well, she’s done it anyhow. I want you to come in and see her, father, and put her at her ease. She’s genuinely distressed that we should have thought so badly of her, and all that.”
“By the way, does she know of the trouncing you gave that precious blackguard of a brother of hers?”
“I haven’t told her. If she knows I expect she thinks he richly deserved it. I fancy she’s that sort of girl.”
The blend of the courtly and the paternal in the old Squire’s manner was charming, and soon Delia was quite at ease with herself and her surroundings. Then they showed her over the historic parts of the house, and she gazed with awed delight at the great staircase with its twisted stone banister and the gallery hung with family portraits and old war trophies.
“Oh, but this is perfection,” cried the girl as she leaned out of one of the high windows to gaze upon the panorama unfolded beneath. Miles and miles of it lay outspread in the sunlight—green meadow and dark fir covert, cloud-like masses of feathery elms and hawthorn hedgerows, with here and there a gleam of silver, as a winding of the river broke into view. Then, from far and near, a chorus of song thrushes and the joyous sound of a cuckoo lent the finishing touch to this fairest of English landscapes.
“That spire away there beyond the dark line is Fulkston, near Haldane’s place,” went on Wagram, in the course of pointing out to her the various landmarks.
“Is it? What a delightful day that was. Isn’t Miss Haldane perfectly sweet? By the way, Mr Wagram, I enjoyed hearing how you thrashed a cad for insulting her.”