Chapter Sixteen.
“A Calmour at Hilversea.”
Wagram’s private study, or “den,” where he was wont to do all his business thinking and writing, and which was absolutely sacred to himself and his papers and general litter, was a snug room overlooking the drive; and thence, as he sat with his after-breakfast pipe in his mouth and some business papers relating to the estate before him on the morning following the incidents just recorded, he was—well, not altogether surprised at seeing a girl on a bicycle skimming up to the front door.
“Poor child!” he said to himself. “She looks positively radiant. I used to think, in those awful days, if I were in the position I am in now—by the grace of God—what a great deal I could do for others, and yet, and yet, it’s little enough one seems to be able to do.”
He need not have disparaged himself. There were not a few, among them some who had shown him kindness in “those awful days,” who now had reason to bless his name as long as they lived, and their children’s children after them.
“Come in. Yes; I’ll be down in a minute or two,” he said in response to the announcement that Miss Calmour had called on a matter of business, and very much wished to see him. He smiled to himself as he remembered the occasion of her last call—also “on a matter of business.” Then he made a note as to where to resume the work in which he had been interrupted, laid down his pipe, and went downstairs.
“And now,” he said merrily when they had shaken hands, “what is this ‘matter of business’?”
Delia was looking radiant, and, consequently, very pretty. She had that dark warmth of complexion which suffuses, and her hazel eyes were soft and velvety.
“This will explain,” she said, holding out the editor’s letter; “and, Mr Wagram, it would be affectation for me to pretend that I did not know whom I had to thank for it.”