"I don't want to meddle with the men's business. And we're a long way yet from catching up with our own. Oh, my husband has a lot of scientific objections. But that's mine." Then her face grew serious--"anyway, we can all agree, I hope, in hating violence. That can never settle it." She looked a little sternly at her young companion. "That depends," said Delia. "But we mustn't argue, Mrs. France. I should only make you angry. Ah!" She sprang up and went to the window, just as steps could be heard on the gravel outside. "Here's someone coming." She turned to Mrs. France. "Is it Mr. Winnington?" "It is!" said her visitor, after putting on her glasses. Delia surveyed him, standing behind the lace curtain, and Mrs. France was relieved to see that a young person of such very decided opinions could be still girlishly curious. She herself rose to go. "Good-bye. I won't interrupt your talk with him." "Good-looking?" said Delia, with mischief in her eyes, and a slight gesture towards the approaching visitor. "Don't you know what an athlete he is--or was?" "Another perfection? Heavens!--how does he endure it?" said the girl, laughing. Mrs. France took her leave. She was a very motherly tender-hearted woman, and she would like to have taken her old friend's grandchild in her arms and kissed her. But she wisely refrained; and indeed the instinct to shake her was perhaps equally strong. "How long will she stand gossiping on the doormat with the paragon," said Delia savagely to herself, when she was left alone. "Oh, how I hate a 'charming man'!" She moved stormily to and fro, listening to the distant sounds of talk in the hall, and resenting them. Then suddenly she paused opposite one of the large mirrors in the room. A coil of hair had loosened itself; she put it right; and still stood motionless, interrogating herself in a proud concentration. "Well?--I am quite ready for him." But her heart beat uncomfortably fast as the door opened, and Mark Winnington entered. Chapter V As Winnington advanced with outstretched hand to greet her, Delia was conscious of a striking physical presence, and of an eye fixed upon her at once kind and penetrating. "How are you? You've been through a terrible time! Are you at all rested? I'm afraid it has been a long, long strain." He held her hand in both his, asking gentle questions about her father's illness, interrogating her looks the while with a frank concern and sympathy. Delia was taken by surprise. For the first time that day she was reminded of what was really, the truth. She _was_ tired--morally and physically. But Gertrude Marvell never recognised anything of the kind; and in her presence Delia rarely confessed any such weakness even to herself. As it was, her eyes and mouth wavered a little under Winnington's look. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I shall soon be rested."