"Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and oddly resentful.
Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on—to Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying—though attaching—young woman had imagined that Winnington was being handsomely paid for putting up with her?
* * * * *
And Winnington?
Here again, it was plain there was a change of attitude, though what it meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly into his own upright and humane character.
Well, but did all this mean love?—the desire of the man for the woman.
Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"—he had said once, in conversation,—"she teaches me many things." Madeleine could have laughed in his face—but for the passionate sincerity in his look.
One thing she perceived—that he was abundantly roused on the subject of that man Lathrop's acquaintance with his ward. Lathrop's name had not been mentioned since Lady Tonbridge's arrival, but she received the impression of a constant vigilance on Winnington's part, and a certain mystery and unhappiness on Delia's. As to the notion that such a man as Paul Lathrop could have any attraction for such a girl as Delia Blanchflower, the idea was simply preposterous,—except on the general theory that no one is really sane, and every woman "is at heart a rake." But of course there was the common interest, or what appeared to be a common interest in this militant society to which Delia was still so intolerably committed! And an unscrupulous man might easily make capital out of it.
At this stage in the rambling reverie which possessed her, Lady Tonbridge was aware of footsteps on the gravel outside. Winnington? He had proposed to take Delia for a ride that afternoon, to distract her mind from Weston's state, and from the operation which was to take place early the following morning. She drew the curtain aside.
Paul Lathrop!