"Nearly twenty-two," repeated Winnington. "And I assure you, that what with 'People's Budgets,' and prowling Chancellors, and all the new turns of the screw that the Treasury is for ever putting on, inheriting an estate nowadays is no simple matter. Your father thought of that. He wished to provide someone to help you." "I could have found lawyers to help me." "Of course you could. But my experience is that solicitors are good servants but bad masters. It wants a good deal of practical knowledge to direct them, so that you get what you want. I have gone a little way into the business of the estate this morning with Mr. Masham, and in town, with the Morton Manners people. I see already some complications which will take me a deal of time and thought to straighten out. And I am a lawyer, and if you will let me say so, just double your age." He smiled at her, but Delia's countenance did not relax. Her mouth was scornful. "I daresay that's quite true, Mr. Winnington. But of course you know it was _not_ on that account--or at any rate not chiefly on that account, that my father left things as he did. He wished"--she spoke clearly and slowly--"simply to prevent my helping the Suffrage movement in the way I think best." Winnington too had risen, and was standing with one hand on the mantelpiece. His brow was slightly furrowed, not frowning exactly, but rather with the expression of one trying to bring his mind into as close touch as possible with another mind. "I must of course agree with you. That is evidently one of the objects of the will, though by no means--I think--the only one. And as to that, should you not ask yourself--had not your father a right, even a duty, to look after the disposal of his money as he thought best? Surely it was his responsibility--especially as he was old, and you were young." Delia had begun to feel impatient--to resent the very mildness of his tone. She felt, as though she were an insubordinate child, being gently reasoned with. "No, I don't admit it!" she said passionately. "It was tampering with the right of the next generation!" "Might you not say the same of the whole--or almost the whole of our system of inheritance?" he argued. "I should put it--that the old are always trying to preserve and protect something they know is more precious to them than it can be to the young--something as to which, with the experience of life behind them, they believe they are wiser than the young. _Ought_ the young to resent it?" "Yes," persisted Delia. "_Yes_! They should be left to make their own experiments."