Cecily and Daphne found Mrs. Robinson in the hall, saying good-bye to those about her. 'Will you come and lunch with me to-morrow?' she said to Daphne. And as the other joyfully accepted, she added: 'We have not had a talk for a long time.'
When they were once more in the carriage, driving through the brilliantly-lighted streets, Mrs. Robinson turned to Cecily, and said: 'Little cousin, I wonder who is your favourite character in history? Joan of Arc? Mary Queen of Scots? I'll tell you mine: it was the woman—I forget her name—who first said, in answer to a friend's remark, "I hate a fool!" She had plenty of courage of the kind I should like to borrow. The thought of to-morrow's execution makes me sick.' And as Cecily looked at her, bewildered, she added: 'I wonder what you thought of Daphne Purdon? They said very little—I mean Philip Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret—but they simply won't keep her there any longer! She corrupts her class of match-girls, and, what of course is much worse, they are corrupting her.' Mrs. Robinson's lips curved into delighted laughter at the recollection of a whispered word which had been uttered, with bated breath, by Mrs. Pomfret.
'How long has Miss Purdon been at the Settlement?' Perhaps Cecily, childish though she was, entered more into her new friend's worries than the other realized.
'Not far from a year, broken, however, by frequent holidays in friends' country-houses, and by a month spent last summer on a yacht. Poor Daphne is a fool, but she's not a bad fool, and above all, she's a very pretty fool!'
'Oh yes,' said the girl eagerly, 'she is very pretty, and I should think very good, even if she is not very sensible.'
'Well, her father, who was an old friend of my father's, died two years ago, leaving practically nothing. At the time Daphne was engaged, and the man threw her over; it was quite a little tragedy, and, as she took it into her head she would like to do some kind of work, I persuaded my people at the Settlement to take her and see what they could do with her. Like most of my "goody" plans, it has failed utterly.'
Cecily's kind, firm little hand, still wearing the cotton gloves of convent days, crept over the carriage rug, and closed for a moment over her new cousin's fingers. Mrs. Robinson went on: 'Philip Hammond is the salt of the earth, and Mrs. Pomfret is an angel, but I never see them without being told something I would rather not hear. Now, David Winfrith, who has so much to do with the many responsibilities connected with the Settlement, never worries me in that way. Perhaps if he did,' she concluded in a lower tone, 'I should see him as seldom as I do the others.'
'And who,' asked Cecily with some eagerness—'who is David Winfrith?'
'Like Daphne's,' answered Mrs. Robinson, 'his is an inherited friendship. His father, who is a clergyman, was one of my father's oldest friends.' Then quickly she added: 'I should not have said that, for David Winfrith is one of my own best friends, the one person to whom I feel I can always turn when I want anything done. What will perhaps interest you more is the fact that he is becoming a really distinguished man. If you read the Morning Post as regularly as I know your aunt reads it——'
'She has left off taking in a daily paper,' said Cecily quickly. 'She says it tries her eyes to read too much.'