She hesitated, but how could she refuse? He put her into a taxi, having already dispatched her maid with the luggage in another, and they started.
"I expect you'll find a lot of queer people there!" she said, trying to laugh. "At least you'll think them queer."
"I shall like to see the people you are working with," he said, gravely.
Half way to Westminster, he turned to her.
"Miss Delia!—it's my plain duty to tell you—again—and to keep on telling you, even though it makes you angry, and even though I have no power to stop you, that in taking part in these doings to-morrow, you are doing a wrong thing, a grievously wrong thing! If I were only an ordinary friend, I should try to dissuade you with all my might. But I represent your father—and you know what he would have felt."
He saw her lips tremble. But she spoke calmly, "Yes,—I know. But it can't be helped. We can't agree, Mr. Mark, and it's no good my trying to explain, any more—just yet!—" she added, in a lower tone.
"'Just yet'? What do you mean by that?"
"I mean that some time,—perhaps sometime soon—I shall be ready to argue the whole thing with you—what's right and what's wrong. Now I can't argue—I'm not free to. Don't you see—'Ours not to make reply,—ours but to do, or die.'" Her smile flashed out. "There's not going to be any dying about it however—you know that as well as I do." Then with a touch of mockery she bent towards him. "You won't persuade me, Mr. Mark, that you take us very seriously! But I'm not angry at that—I'm not angry—at anything!"
And her face, as he scanned it, melted—changed—became all soft sadness, and deprecating appeal. Never had she seemed to him so fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, despairingly—"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, and make her give way!"
But here were the first signs of arrival—a narrow Westminster street—a towering group of flats. The taxi stopped, and Winnington jumped out.