Winnington departed, and his old friend was left to meditate on his predicament. It was strange to see Mark Winnington, with his traditional, English ways and feelings--carried, as she always felt, to their highest--thus face to face with the new feminist forces--as embodied in Delia Blanchflower. He had resented, clearly resented, the introduction--by her, Madeleine--of the sex element into the problem. But how difficult to keep it out! "He will see her constantly--he will have to exercise his will against hers--he will get his way--and then hate himself for conquering--he will disapprove, and yet admire,--will offend her, yet want to please her--a creature all fire, and beauty, and heroisms out of place! And she--could she, could I, could any woman I know, fight Mark Winnington--and not love him all the time? Men are men, and women are women--in spite of all these 'isms,' and 'causes.' I bet--but I don't know what I bet!--" Then her thoughts gradually veered away from Mark to quite another person. How would Susan Amberley be affected by this new interest in Mark Winnington's life? Madeleine's thoughts recalled a gentle face, a pair of honest eyes, a bearing timid and yet dignified. So she was teaching one of Mark's crippled children? And Mark thought no doubt she would have done the like for anyone else with a charitable hobby? Perhaps she would, for her heart was a fount of pity. All the same, the man--blind bat!--understood nothing. No fault of his perhaps; but Lady Tonbridge felt a woman's angry sympathy with a form of waste so common and so costly. And now the modest worshipper must see her hero absorbed day by day, and hour by hour, in the doings of a dazzling and magnificent creature like Delia Blanchflower. What food for torment, even in the meekest spirit! So that the last word the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft "Poor Susy!" dropped into the heart of a September rose as she stooped to gather it. Chapter VII