"You needn't be. They are very good-natured men. They wouldn't wish to burn you for the world. They prefer the 'Stakes of Smithfield' with the 'e' transposed."

"Now you're chaffing me again. But, really, I'm always a little shy of 'the cloth.' I never know what to talk about."

"Make your mind easy. We shall find the lay element abundantly represented on the lawn, never fear. But first come and say a word or two to my father."

Remembering the episode of the gnu, Delia was a little shy of meeting the old Squire. But she need not have been, for his denunciation of the house of Calmour notwithstanding, his greeting of this scion thereof was all that was kind and cordial.

"So this is the famous big game slayer?" he said after a word or two of welcome. "What do you think of that, Monsignor? You don't meet every day with a young lady who can boast of having shot big game--dropped a fine specimen of the brindled gnu dead in his tracks."

"No, indeed. In South Africa, I suppose?"

"South Africa? No. Here--right here. But it was to save someone from being badly gored."

"Which is one more instance to show that pluck and readiness of resource are not prerogatives of our s.e.x entirely," said the prelate, quick to notice the look of embarra.s.sment which had come over the girl's face.

It was even as Wagram had said, the lay element was represented on the lawn, as a fair sprinkling of sunshades and vari-coloured light summer dresses and hats bore token. Likewise refreshment, and while in process of procuring some for his charge Wagram felt a pull at his sleeve.

"Who's that you've got there, Wagram? Is Damages here too?"

"Eh? Oh, by the way, Haldane, which of them is Damages?"

"Not this one; a sister; the tall one: Clytie, I think they call her."

"Oh! Well, this one isn't responsible for her sister, and she's a very nice sort of girl. She's the heroine of the gnu adventure, you know, and I want Yvonne to go and talk to her a little."

"Of course I will," said Yvonne, moving off with that intent.

"Look at her!" exclaimed Haldane as they watched this tall child cross the lawn; straight, erect, gait utterly free and unstudied, the great golden mantle of her hair rippling below her waist. "Just look at her, Wagram! Did you ever see such a child in your life? And they talk about 'the awkward age.' Yvonne never had an awkward age."

"I should think not," a.s.sented Wagram, who ran her father very close in his admiration for the beautiful child.

"How many girls of her age," went on Haldane, "would unhesitatingly go and talk to an entire stranger like that? They'd kick against it, object that they didn't know what to say, that someone else had better undertake the job, and so on. Yet look at her; she's as self-possessed as a woman of fifty, and as devoid of self-consciousness as a savage, and she's talking to the other girl as if she's known her all her life."

And such, indeed, was the case. So entranced was Delia with the charm of this child-woman that she almost forgot to do justice to the strawberries and champagne cup which Wagram had procured for her, almost forgot furtively to watch Wagram himself as he moved here and there attending to other guests; forgot entirely any little _gene_ she might have felt, remembering that, after all, this was not her world, that she was in a sort of fish-out-of-water state. They talked of bicycling, then of post-card collecting, then of the solemnity they had just witnessed, and here especially the blue eyes would kindle and the whole face light up, and Yvonne would describe graphically and well other and similar ceremonies she had witnessed in some of the great cathedrals of the world. Her listener thought she could have sat there for ever in that atmosphere of refinement and ease; and this lovely child, who had drawn her with such a magnetic fascination--they would probably never hold converse together again. How could they, belonging as they did to different worlds, and in this connection the thought of the atmosphere of Siege House caused her very much of a mental shudder.

"Has this little girl been boring you a lot, Miss Calmour?" And Haldane laid an arm round the sunny tresses upon his child's shoulders.

"Boring me! Why, I never was so interested in my life! You and your daughter seem to have been everywhere, Mr Haldane. Boring me!" And with a little, instinctively affectionate impulse she dropped her hand on to that of Yvonne, as though to plead: "Don't leave me yet."

"We've been having a post-card discussion, father; Miss Calmour has a splendid collection. But she holds that post-cards are no good unless they've been through the post. I hold they're no good if they have, because the picture is all spoilt."

"Why not cut the knot of the difficulty by collecting both?" suggested Delia.

"Don't you give her any such pernicious advice, Miss Calmour," laughed Haldane. "The craze is quite ruinous enough to me as it is. I find myself gently but firmly impelled within a post-card shop every other day or so--sort of metaphorically taken by the ear, don't you know--on the ground that just one or two are wanted to fill up a vacant s.p.a.ce in the corner of a given page. But seldom, if ever, do I quit that shop without becoming liable for one or two dozen."

Delia laughed at this, but Yvonne merely smiled complacently, as though to convey that her parent might think himself lucky at being let down so easily. The latter went on:

"Now you are inducing her to do that which makes me fairly quake, for if she adopts the course you recommend she'll buy the cards at a greater rate than before, and ruin me in postage over and above for the purpose of posting them to herself."

"All safe, father; all safe this time. I wouldn't have them if they had been through the post."

"Would you care to bring your collection over and compare notes with Yvonne, Miss Calmour? Let me see, we are going back home on Monday.

Why not come over to lunch on Tuesday? You have a bicycle--but I forgot, you can hardly carry a lot of post-card books on a bicycle."

"Easily. I have a carrier on the back wheel which has often held a far greater weight," answered the girl, hardly able to conceal her delight.

"Very well, then, that's settled. But--don't stop to shoot any more blue wildebeeste on the way."

"Oh, that wretched creature! Am I never to hear the last of it?"

laughed Delia, merrily rueful.

Two considerations had moved Haldane in the issuing of this invitation-- the spontaneous and whole-souled admiration evinced by this girl for Yvonne, and the wistful look on the face of the latter at the propinquity of a good post-card collection which she might not see. He prided himself upon his knowledge of character, too, and watching Delia closely was inclined to endorse Wagram's opinion. The house of Calmour was manifestly and flagrantly impossible; but this seemed a nice sort of girl, entirely different to the others. Moreover, Yvonne seemed to like her, and Yvonne's instincts were singularly accurate for her age.

"Well, I must be moving," said Delia, with something like a sinking of the heart. Wagram had disappeared for some time, and the groups on the lawn were thinning out fast. "But I don't see Mr Wagram anywhere."

"He's probably in the big tent making them a speech or something," said Haldane. "There, I thought so," as a sound of l.u.s.ty cheering arose at no great distance. "He's sure to be there. Yvonne will pilot you there if you want to find him. It's an inst.i.tution I fight rather shy of," he added, with a laugh.

But a strange repugnance to mingling in a crowd took hold of Delia just then. Would Mr Haldane kindly make her adieux for her? And then, having taken leave of them, she went round to where she had left her bicycle, and was in the act of mounting when--

"Hallo, Miss Calmour, are you off already? I've been rather remiss, I fear, but you've no notion how one gets pulled this way and that way on an occasion of this kind. I hope Yvonne took care of you."

"She did indeed, Mr Wagram. What a perfectly sweet child she is! Do you know, I am to lunch there next week, and compare post-card collections."

"That'll be very jolly."

"Won't it? Well now, Mr Wagram, I don't know when I have enjoyed myself so much. Oh, but there is one thing I wanted to ask you," relapsing into shyness. "Might I--er--are people allowed--to attend your chapel here on Sundays? Now and then, I mean."

"Certainly, if there's room for them," he answered, looking rather astonished. "It won't hold a great many, as you might have seen to-day--oh, and, of course, you won't see anything like the ceremonial you saw to-day."

"I know. Still, I should like to attend occasionally. Then--I may?"

"Why, of course. Meanwhile I must look out a pair of thumbscrews that's likely to fit you. Good-bye."

In the midst of the mutual laugh evoked by this parting jest Delia mounted her bicycle and glided away. She pa.s.sed groups in the avenue, some, like herself, awheel. Gaining the high road, there was the white gate opening on to the by-road through the park, the scene of the gnu adventure. Then, as by sudden magic, the spell of serenity and peace which had been upon her was removed. She felt restlessly unhappy, in tumultuous revolt. She thought of home, when she should get there; of Bob's vulgarity, of Clytie's soft-toned and brutal cynicisms, of her father, thick-voiced and reeling. Worse still, she would probably find him in an even further advanced stage of intoxication, and more or less foul of speech in consequence, and--this is exactly what she eventually did find.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

CONCERNING A DERELICT.

"So that was your heroine of the adventure, Wagram?" said the old Squire as they sat at breakfast the following morning.

"Yes. What did you think of her?"

"Poor girl."

"Poor girl? Why?" asked Monsignor Culham.