Winnington laughed.
"I have no intention of giving it up. Only I warn you that I shall probably make a mess of it."
"Well"—the tone was coolly reflective—"that may do you good—whatever happens to the girl. You have never made a mess of anything yet in your life. It will be a new experience."
Winnington protested hotly that her remark only shewed how little even intimate friends know of each other's messes, and that his were already legion. Lady Tonbridge threw him an incredulous look. As he sat there in his bronzed and vigorous manhood, the first crowsfeet just beginning to shew round the eyes, and the first streaks of grey in the brown curls, she said to herself that none of her young men acquaintance possessed half the physical attractiveness of Mark Winnington; while none—old or young—could rival him at all in the humane and winning spell he carried about with him. To see Mark Winnington aux prises with an adventure in which not even his tact, his knowledge of men and women, his candour, or his sweetness, might be sufficient to win success, piqued her curiosity; perhaps even flattered that slight inevitable malice, wherewith ordinary mortals protect themselves against the favourites of the gods.
She was determined however to help him if she could, and she put him through a number of questions. The girl then was as handsome as she promised to be? A beauty, said Winnington—and of the heroic or poetic type. And the Fury? Winnington described the neat, little lady, fashionably Pressed and quiet mannered, who had embittered the last years of Sir Robert Blanchflower, and firmly possessed herself of his daughter.
"You will see her to-morrow, at my house, when you come to tea. I carefully didn't ask her, but I am certain she will come, and Alice and I shall of course have to receive her."
"She is not thin-skinned then?"
"What fanatic is? It is one of the secrets of their strength."
"She probably regards us all as the dust under her feet," said Lady Tonbridge. "I wonder what game she will be up to here. Have you seen the Times this morning?"
Winnington nodded. It contained three serious cases of arson, in which Suffragette literature and messages had been discovered among the ruins, besides a number of minor outrages. An energetic leading article breathed the exasperation of the public, and pointed out the spread of the campaign of violence.