Delia Blanchflower Part 35

"I--I don't know."

"You don't wish to ask Mr. Winnington?"

"Certainly not! They have nothing to do with him. They are my own personal property," she added proudly.

"Still he might object--Ought you not to ask him?"

"I shall not tell him!" She straightened her shoulders. "He has far too much bother on my account already."

"Of course, if I could do anything for you--I should be delighted. But I don't know why you should trust me. You don't know anything about me!" He laughed uncomfortably.

Delia laughed too--in some confusion. It seemed to him she suddenly realised she had done something unusual.

"It is very kind of you to suggest it--" she said, hesitating.

"Not at all. It would amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up still--in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that _riviere_. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a man I know; he will show it to--" he named a famous firm. "In a few days--well, give me a week--and I undertake to bring you proposals. If you accept them, I will collect the money for you at once--or I will return you the necklace, if you don't."

Delia clasped her hands.

"A week! You think it might all be finished in a week?"

"Certainly--thereabouts. These things--" he touched the diamonds--"are practically money."

Delia sat ruminating, with a bright excited face. Then a serious expression returned. She looked up.

"Mr. Lathrop, this ought to be a matter of business between us--if you do me so great a service?"

"You mean I ought to take a commission?" he said, calmly. "I shall do nothing of the kind."

"It is more than I ought to accept!" she cried. "Let your kindness--include what I wish."

He shook his fair hair impatiently.

"Why should you take away all my pleasure in the little adventure?"

She looked embarra.s.sed. He went on--

"Besides we are comrades--we have stood together in the fight. I expect this is for the Cause! If so I ought to be angry that you even suggested it!"

"Don't be angry!" she said gravely. "I meant nothing unkind. Well, I thank you very much--and there are the diamonds."

She gave him the case, with a quiet deliberate movement, as if to emphasize her trust in him. The simplicity with which it was done p.r.i.c.ked him uncomfortably. "I'm no thief!--" he thought angrily. "She's safe enough with me. All the same, if she knew--she wouldn't speak to me--she wouldn't admit me into her house. She doesn't know--and I am a cad!"

"You can't the least understand what it means to be allowed to do you a service!" he said, with emotion.

But the tone evidently displeased her. She once more formally thanked him; then sprang up and began to put the cases on the sofa together. As she did so, steps on the gravel outside were heard through the low cas.e.m.e.nt window. Delia turned with a start, and saw Mark Winnington approaching the front door.

"Don't say anything _please_!" she said urgently. "This has nothing to do with my guardian."

And opening the door of a lacquer cabinet, she hurriedly packed the jewelry inside with all the speed she could. Her flushed cheek shewed her humiliated by the action.

Winnington stood in the doorway, silent and waiting. After a hasty greeting to the new-comer, Delia was nervously bidding Lathrop good-bye.

"In a week!" he said, under his breath, as she gave him her hand.

"A week!" she repeated, evidently impatient for him to be gone. He exchanged a curt bow with Winnington, and the door closed on him.

There was a short silence. Winnington remained standing, hat in hand.

He was in riding dress--a commanding figure, his lean face reddened, and the waves of his grizzled hair slightly loosened, by a buffeting wind. Delia, stealing a glance at him, divined a coming remonstrance, and awaited it with a strange mixture of fear and pleasure. They had not met for ten days; and she stammered out some New Year's wishes. She hoped that he and Mrs. Matheson had enjoyed their visit.

But without any reply to her politeness, he said abruptly--

"Were you arranging some business with Mr. Lathrop?"

She supposed he was thinking of the militant Campaign.

"Yes," she said, eagerly. "Yes, I was arranging some business."

Winnington's eyes examined her.

"Miss Delia, what do you know about that man?--except that story--which I understand Miss Marvell told you."

"Nothing--nothing at all! Except--except that he speaks at our meetings, and generally gets us into hot water. He has a lot of interesting books--and drawings--in his cottage; and he has lent me Madame de Noailles' poems. Won't you sit down? I hope you and Mrs.

Matheson have had a good time? We have been to church--at least I have--and given away lots of coals and plum-puddings--at least I have.

Gertrude thought me a fool. We have had the choir up to sing carols in the servants' hall, and given them a sovereign--at least I did. And I don't want any more Christmas--for a long, long, time!"

And with that, she dropped into a chair opposite Winnington, who sat now twirling his hat and studying the ground.

"I agree with you," he said drily when she paused. "I felt when I was away that I had better be here. And I feel it now doubly."

"Because?"

"Because--if my absence has led to your developing any further acquaintance with the gentleman who has just left the room, when I might have prevented it, I regret it deeply."

Delia's cheeks had gone crimson again.

"You knew perfectly well Mr. Winnington, that we had made acquaintance with Mr. Lathrop! We never concealed it!"

"I knew, of course, that you were both members of the League, and that you had spoken at meetings together. I regretted it--exceedingly--and I asked you--in vain--to put an end to it. But when I find him paying a morning call here--and lending you books--that is a very different matter!"

Delia broke out--

"You really are _too_ Early-Victorian, Mr. Winnington!--and I can't help being rude. Do you suppose you can ever turn me into a bread-and-b.u.t.ter miss? I have looked after myself for years--you don't understand!" She faced him indignantly.

Winnington laughed.

"All right--so long as the Early Victorians may have their say. And my say about Mr. Lathrop is--again that he is not a fit companion for you, or any young girl,--that he is a man of blemished character--both in morals and business. Ask anybody in this neighbourhood!"