The sight made Deleah almost desperate: "I can't do what you ask. I can't possibly ask Reggie. But--there is another person--"
She stopped there, saying to herself, "The third time The third time! I can't ask him for money the third time!"
"Bernard! My Bernard!" cried the mother, her face hidden on her arms.
"Mama, pray do not cry so dreadfully--you break my heart. I can't do what you ask, but I will do what I can," Deleah promised.
The letter in which Deleah, in her most careful handwriting and in formal language, set forth her prayer that for her mother's sake Sir Francis Forcus, who had already shown her family such generous kindness, should buy off her brother Bernard; he, having left Mr. George Boult's shop at Ingleby, and now enlisted in such and such a regiment--was addressed to that gentleman at his private residence, The Court, Cashelthorpe.
He read the letter among others as he ate his breakfast, gave a shrug and a snort of impatience, and put it aside on a little heap of those which required answering.
Before starting for town he singled it out from the rest and read it again. Then, standing up, the letter still in his hand, he gave vent to his feelings on the subject, for the enlightenment of his sister.
"They've put that pretty child on to me again," he said. "This is from that little Day girl you fell in love with, last year, in the Assembly Rooms, Ada." He tossed the letter into her lap.
"That sweetly pretty little thing at the concert?" She read the letter. "What shall you do?" she asked.
"Because the boy is a ne'er-do-well. I have heard of him before. He is safest where he is."
"No. Nor yet, altogether, the principle."
"It would be kind and good-natured to do what the poor little thing asks."
"Yes. But for the sake of seeming good-natured I'm not going to be made a tool of."
"You'll simply write back, then, that you won't do it?" She laughed a little, looking across at him as he stood up, tall and solemn and handsome, with his back to the fire. "To do that will cost you more than just enclosing the money."
"That is not the question, Ada. I shall write, or"--he paused a minute, putting his lips together as his habit was when making up his mind to a course which did not altogether please him--"I'll go and see her," he finished.