"Then let the nation guard it—and every individual in the nation! But do you think Miss Marvell would take much pains to protect it?"
"Gertrude said nothing about the house." "No; but if I had been one of the excitable women you command, my one desire after that speech would have been to do some desperate damage to Sir Wilfrid, or his property. If anything does happen, I am afraid everyone in the neighbourhood will regard her as responsible."
Delia moved impatiently. "Can't we say what we think of Sir
Wilfrid—because he happens to possess a beautiful house?"
"If you care for Monk Lawrence, you do so,—with this campaign on foot—only at great risk. Confess, Miss Delia!—that you were sorry for that speech!"
He turned upon her with animation.
She spoke as though under pressure, her head thrown back, her face ivory within the black frame of the veil.
"I—I shouldn't have made it."
"That's not enough. I want to hear you say you regret it!"
The light suddenly increased, and she saw him looking at her, his eyes bright and urgent, his attitude that of the strong yet mild judge, whose own moral life watches keenly for any sign of grace in the accused before him. She realised for an angry moment what his feeling must be—how deep and invincible, towards these "outrages" which she and Gertrude Marvell regarded by now as so natural and habitual—outrages that were calmly planned and organised, as she knew well, at the head offices of their society, by Gertrude Marvell among others, and acquiesced in—approved—by hundreds of persons like herself, who either shrank from taking a direct part in them, or had no opportunity of doing so. "But I shall soon make opportunities!—" she thought, passionately; "I'm not going to be a shirker!" Aloud she said in her stiffest manner—"I stand by my friends, Mr. Winnington, especially when they are ten times better and nobler than I!"
His expression changed. He turned, like any courteous stranger, to playing the part of showman of the house. Once more a veil had fallen between them.