Deleah divined the sore feeling in his mind and hastened to bring the balm: "Reggie Forcus might have millions where he will have thousands—and the more he had the less likely would he be to affect any of us. He has been here this afternoon, and if he remembers he may come again. But that is simply the whim of an idle young man who at the moment can think of nothing more amusing to do."
"I thought he seemed to take a good deal of interest. I caught him looking—"
"At Bessie? He likes her, of course, and there was once a great friendship. If—things—hadn't happened, I dare say it might have come to more than friendship. But they did happen, and—" She broke off. Never could she without suffering and difficulty allude to the tragedy which had cost them so dear.
"I assure you, Mr. Gibbon," she began again, and smiled encouragingly upon him, "you are of far more importance to us than Mr. Reginald Forcus is ever likely to be."
"I thank you for telling me that," he said, and his fingers strained tighter upon his coat-sleeves.
Then he lifted his eyes and looked at her as she sat, perched with ease and grace among the tea-cups on the kitchen table. Every movement of hers was made, every posture taken, with ease and grace. It happened, for Deleah's fortune, to be the day of the small woman; the day when she of inches was pronounced a gawk, and she of five feet and a little—slim of waist, of foot, of hand, of ankle—slid with ease and naturalness into a man's heart.
"Thank you for that," said the Manchester man again, with a kind of hoarse fervour in his voice. "You are always kind. I don't think the angels in heaven are kinder than you."
A statement at which Deleah among the tea-cups laughed light-heartedly.
"No. Don't laugh," he said almost fiercely. "It is true! I believe it with all my soul."
He looked from her to the floor at his feet again, frowning upon it, striving for the calmness to proceed with that which he had to say in the order he had taught himself to believe was best for his case.