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 God 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 Eblouissements," 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 ignoble 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.