"You were quite deceived about Reggie, Francis. You are, indeed. Deleah will never marry Reggie. She as good as told me so. I never was more thankful. It would have been so terribly unsuitable. She told me she was writing to you. What does she say?"
Sir Francis did not choose to see the hand held out for Deleah's little note. He folded it, and walked to the window, looking out thoughtfully upon the garden, his hands behind his back, the letter, held by its corner in one of them, waggling up and down.
"She told me she had written," Miss Forcus said again, by way of reminder.
"She simply says she has gone."
"I shall miss her dreadfully. She is the dearest girl. Never have I seen one so lovely and so little vain."
"She is too lovely to be vain," Sir Francis said.
And at the tone rather than the words Miss Forcus lifted a startled head, and gazed and gazed upon her brother's stately back, upon the hands clasped behind it, holding the letter, waggling up and down, he would not let out of his keeping.
Over another letter which Sir Francis received the next morning, he laughed as he read. He tossed it across the table to his sister. "What a fellow!" he said.
"From Reggie? I wish you had not written to him to come home, Francis."
"He's not coming. Don't alarm yourself. He says the Worradykes have turned up at Nice—"