At the end of the difficult ten minutes Sir Francis rose: "Coming my way?" he inquired of Reggie.
"Not just this minute, old man," said Reggie, who knew better.
"Mind you don't tumble downstairs," he called after his departing brother.
Sir Francis gazing stonily in his direction did not deign to thank him for the not all unnecessary caution. Emily awaiting him in the little hall at the bottom of the stairs, had set the outer door open to light the distinguished visitor upon his way.
"Miss Deleah should be in by now, sir," she said as he passed out. Fain would she have all Brockenham to see him issuing from that door, yet fain would she have kept him there for Deleah.
"It is of no consequence, I will write," he said, and departed with a sense of escape.
"Well!" Bessie breathed, as the door closed on the visitor. "Wasn't that extraordinary! What on earth--?"
Her feelings would not allow her to finish the sentence. She looked the rest at Reggie, eyes and mouth open, the fluster into which the visit had thrown her still visibly palpitating in all her person.
"Oh, the dear old boy came to look after me," Reggie explained, calmly indifferent. "I shall get it hot now."
"He won't like my being at home here, like this, you know," the ingenuous youth admitted.
"But, Reggie, you're your own master, aren't you?"
Reggie said he jolly well was, and leaned his head out of the window, to look for Deleah again. He knew very well why she was so long in coming, she had gone ever so far out of her way in order to escape from his attendance on her. It was not very flattering to his _amour propre_, but it piqued him, in his indolent, spoilt habit. Bessie would have run into his arms, he knew right well, not away from them, and so would three or four other pretty girls be knew. But he did not want Bessie or the others. It was Deleah he wanted. And--Bessie was right there--he was his own master.
Sir Francis as he walked away was making plans to frustrate those resolves for his own management of his affairs which Reggie was making in the window overhead. He had turned aside quite easily the young man's foolish bent in this direction, once before. It might be more difficult now, but he would spare no effort to do it effectually again. He was not favourably impressed by the young woman he had just left; her plump prettiness had not appealed to him; nor the mauve-coloured ribbons streaming down her back. As for her family history it was not only undesirable, it was disreputable.