"Not from us!" she said, with energy. "No one speaking for us must ever apologise for militant acts. It takes all the heart out of our people.
Justify them--glory in them--as much as you like."
There was a pause.
"Then you have no more work for me?" said Lathrop at last.
"We need not, I think, trouble you again. Your cheque will of course be sent from head-quarters."
"That doesn"t matter," said Lathrop, hastily.
The reflection crossed his mind that there is an insolence of women far more odious than the insolence of men.
"After all they are our inferiors! It doesn"t do to let them command us," he thought, furiously.
He rose to take his leave.
"You are going up to London?"
"I am going. Miss Blanchflower stays behind, because her maid is ill."
He stood hesitating. Gertrude lifted her eyebrows as though he puzzled her. She never had liked him, and by now all her instincts were hostile to him. His clumsy figure, and slovenly dress offended her, and the touch of something grandiose in his heavy brow, and reddish-gold hair, seemed to her merely theatrical. Her information was that he had been no use as a campaigner. Why on earth did he keep her waiting?
"I suppose you have heard some of the talk going about?" he said at last, shooting out the words.
"What talk?"
"They"re very anxious about Monk Lawrence--after your speech. And there are absurd stories. Women have been seen--at night--and so on."
Gertrude laughed.
"The more panic the better--for us."
"Yes--so long as it stops there. But if anything happened to that place, the whole neighbourhood would turn detective--myself included."
He looked at her steadily. She leant one thin hand on a table behind her.
"No one of course would have a better chance than you. You are so near."
Their eyes crossed. "By George!" he thought--"you"re in it. I believe to G.o.d you"re in it."
And at that moment he felt that he hated the willowy, intangible creature who had just treated him with contempt.
But as they coldly touched hands, the door opened again, and Delia appeared.
"Oh I didn"t mean to interrupt--" she said, retreating.
"Come in, come in!" said Gertrude. "We have finished our business--and Mr. Lathrop I am sure will excuse me--I must get some letters off by post--"
And with the curtest of bows she disappeared.
"I have brought you a book, Miss Blanchflower," Lathrop nervously began, diving into a large and sagging pocket. "You said you wanted to see Madame de Noailles" second volume."
He brought out "Les eblouiss.e.m.e.nts," and laid it on the table beside her. Delia thanked him, and then, all in a moment, as she stood beside him, a thought struck her. She turned her great eyes full upon him, and he saw the colour rushing into her cheeks.
"Mr. Lathrop!"
"Yes."
"Mr. Lathrop--I--I dreadfully want some practical advice. And I don"t know whom to ask."
The soreness of his wounded self-love vanished in a moment.
"What can I do for you?" he asked eagerly. And at once his own personality seemed to expand, to throw off the shadow of something ign.o.ble it had worn in Gertrude"s presence. For Delia, looking at him, was attracted by him. The shabby clothes made no impression upon her, but the blue eyes did. And the childishness which still survived in her, beneath all her intellectualisms, came impulsively to the surface.
"Mr. Lathrop, do you--do you know anything about jewelry?"
"Jewelry? Nothing!--except that I have dabbled in pretty things of that sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a man who set up--in Bond Street--to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I suppose you have heaps of jewels?"
"Too many. I want to sell some jewels."
"Sell?--But--" he looked at her in astonishment.
She reddened still more deeply; but spoke with a frank charm.
"You thought I was rich? Well, of course I ought to be. My father was rich. But at present I have nothing of my own--nothing! It is all in trust--and I can"t get at it. But I _must_ have some money! Wait here a moment!"
She ran out of the room. When she came back she was carrying a miscellaneous armful of jewellers" cases. She threw them down on the sofa.
"They are all hideous--but I am sure they"re worth a great deal of money."
And she opened them with hasty fingers before his astonished eyes. In his restless existence he had acc.u.mulated various odd veins of knowledge, and he knew something of the jewelry trade of London. He had not only drawn designs, he had speculated--unluckily--in "De Beers."
For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope to make money out of anything. However there was the result--a certain amount of desultory information.
He took up one piece after another, presently drawing a magnifying gla.s.s out of his pocket to examine them the better.
"Well, if you want money--" he said at last, putting down a _riviere_ which had belonged to Delia"s mother--"That alone will give you some thousands!"
Delia"s eyes danced with satisfaction--then darkened.
"That was Mamma"s. Papa bought it at Constantinople--from an old Turkish Governor--who had robbed a province--spent the loot in Paris on his wives--and then had to disgorge half his fortune--to the Sultan--who got wind of it. Papa bought it at a great bargain, and was awfully proud of it. But after Mamma died, he sent it to the Bank, and never thought of it again. I couldn"t wear it, of course--I was too young."
"How much money do you want?"
"Oh, a few thousands," said Delia, vaguely. "Five hundred pounds, first of all."
"And who will sell them for you?"
She frowned in perplexity.