A few days later a surprise came for Delia in the shape of a letter from the editor of a particularly smart and up-to-date pictorial, requesting her to contribute to its illustrated series of articles on old country seats, so many words of letterpress and so many photographs of Hilversea Court, and quoting a very liberal rate of remuneration if the contribution proved to be to the editor’s satisfaction. The girl was radiant.
“It’s too good to be true, Clytie. How can they have heard of me?” she exclaimed. “Surely no one has been playing a practical joke on me. I can hardly believe it.”
Clytie scanned the letter “It’s genuine right enough,” she pronounced. “Wagram again.”
“What? But—no—it can’t be this time. Why, don’t you see what it says: ‘Provided you can obtain the permission of Mr Grantley Wagram’? So, you see, it’s apart from them entirely.”
“That’s only a red herring. I’ll bet you five bob he’s at the back of it. Are you on?”
“N-no,” answered Delia, upon whom a recollection was dawning of things she had let fall on that memorable occasion of her last visit to Hilversea. She had prattled on about herself, and her experiences, among which had been a little journalism of a very poorly-paid order.
“I believe you are right, Clytie,” she went on slowly. “I remember letting go that I had done that sort of thing in a small way, and even that I would be glad to do it again in a large one if only I got the chance, but I never dreamt of anything coming of it—never for a moment.”
“No? Well, you’re in luck’s way this time, dear. Probably this editor is a friend of his; and then, apart from that, a man in the position of Wagram of Hilversea can exercise almost unlimited influence in pretty near any direction he chooses—by Jove, he can.”
Delia did not at once reply, and, noting a certain look upon her meditative face, Clytie smiled to herself, and forebore to make any allusion to her cherished scheme, which, in her own mind, she decided was growing more promising than ever.