As Delafield spoke, West interrupted:
"I'd rather Mr. Delafield would go," he said quickly, "if—if he would. Maybe she'd listen to you."
"I will do nothing of the sort," Delafield returned angrily. "As if anything I could say could compare with Miss Delafield's words! You are an ungrateful little beast, West. A woman, like Pippa herself, is the best person to understand the matter."
"All right," the boy assented wearily, "only she isn't like Pippa, not a bit. Pippa's different."
Anne coloured deeply, and Delafield cursed the day he met the boy. His niece he did not pretend to understand.
The next afternoon, as he chafed in the stuffy dining-room-parlour of the flat that was Pippa's home, listening to the quarrelling of a half dozen children on the dreary little roof-garden below him as to who should swing in Uncle Joseph's hammock, he understood her less and less. What did she expect to gain from this visit? Was she satisfying her idea of duty or her curiosity? How much did she care, anyhow?
A steady murmur of voices came from a room behind the one he occupied. The afternoon wore on. He began to grow sleepy.
At last the door was flung open. Anne, looking pale and tired, entered the room, followed by a large, handsome girl with a heavy rope of auburn hair twisted low over her forehead. She had a frank, vulgar smile, and shallow, red-brown eyes. In her plump, large-limbed beauty she was like a well-kept cat. The day was damp and hot, and her mussed white shirt-waist clung to her broad curve of shoulder and breast. In her eyes, as she smiled at him, was the quiet ease of a conscious beauty. Beside her Anne seemed unimportant.
"I'm sorry about the book, Mr. Delafield," she said, with a slow smile. "But I guess you don't know Henry very well if you think any reasonable girl would think of marrying him for a minute. The gentleman I've been keeping company with some time had a little misunderstanding with me, and 'twas more or less to spite him, I guess, that I got engaged to Henry. It never seemed to me it mattered much either way."
"You have broken his heart," said Delafield stiffly.