All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete single-mindedness--confident, disdainfully confident, in his own immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had watched him--with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and behind the mass of the sex, now racing toward what she understood was called the "economic independence of women"--_i.e._ a life without man. But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed--as to both the persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful--and troublesome--ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia. But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's attitude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl profoundly--both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was eager--though she tried to conceal it--for information about him; and three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had been young together. As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,--the heroine of Winnington's brief engagement--Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of Wanchester--retiring, spiritual, tender,--suggesting a cloistered atmosphere, and _The Christian Year_--she was still sharp in Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent.