"I called to see you at your house, just now. I found my brother there.
May I ask if he is a frequent visitor?"
The small face which had been so clearly pale was suddenly like a scarlet rose. "Just lately a very frequent visitor," she said; and, in spite of her shyness, she lifted her head and looked him straight in the face.
"A young man who is idle can never understand that other people are busy," he said. "I am sure that you are all too much occupied to wish to have my brother always hanging about."
Deleah looked at him in silence. She understood perfectly what he meant.
What was there for her to say?
"I shall try and waken him to the perception that he is trespassing on valuable time, and making a bore of himself," he said; smiled to make his words acceptable, raised his hat to go on his way; yet delayed for a minute still.
"In the matter of your brother, you understand, I will do what you ask."
"I shall persuade mama to give up her idea of buying him off."
"What is his regiment?" She told him, and that it was at Aldershot. A couple of years ago it happened to have been quartered at Brockenham. "I know several of the officers," Sir Francis remembered. "I could write to Colonel Greene about your brother. If it did him no good it couldn't do him any harm; and there is the chance that Greene would take an interest in him."
Deleah said with an averted head that that would be very good of him; and making him a grave little bow hurried away.