Part 12 (1/2)

AT HALDANE'S.

Delia was a quick and graceful cyclist, and now on her beautiful new machine she seemed to fly as she skimmed the level and well-kept roads; and although she covered the eleven miles intervening between Ba.s.singham and Haldane's house--a pleasant country box--in a little over the hour she was neither hot nor blown. Yvonne was strolling on the lawn, and greeted her with great cordiality.

”Is that your post-card collection?” she said as she helped to unstrap three large alb.u.ms from the carrier. ”Why, it must be as big as mine.

I am longing to see it. We'll overhaul it after lunch down there,”

indicating a spreading tree by the stream which gave forth abundant shade.

”What a lovely kitten,” cried Delia.

”Isn't it?” said Yvonne, picking it up. ”Only it isn't a kitten; it's full-grown. It's a kind that never grows large--do you, Poogie?” she added lovingly, stroking the beautiful little animal, which nestled to her, purring contentedly. It was of the Angora type, with small, lynxlike ears, thick, rich fur with regular markings, and a spreading tail. ”We got it in Switzerland. I wasn't going to lose the chance.

You might go all your life and never see another like it, so I made father buy it for me. It follows me like a dog. If I walk up and down it walks up and down with me. Look.”

”How sweet,” said Delia, watching the little creature as, with tail erect, it paced daintily beside them. ”I do love them like that.”

”So do I, and so does father. I believe if anything happened to Poogie he'd be as sick about it as I would.”

”I don't wonder.” And, all unconsciously, the speaker had more completely won Yvonne's heart.

Even the shyest--and Delia was not addicted to shyness--would have felt at ease as they sat down, a party of three. Haldane had a frank, easy way with him towards those he did not dislike, calculated to make them feel at home, especially in the case of a bright, pretty, and intelligent girl, and soon all three were chatting and laughing as if they had known each other all their lives. Delia was at her best, and talked intelligently and well, as she could do when temporarily emanc.i.p.ated from the depressing atmosphere of Siege House.

”What a beautiful place Hilversea Court is, Mr Haldane,” she said presently.

”Yes. Too big for me. Very good as a show place; but for living in give me a box like this.”

The said ”box” at that moment looked out upon a wondrously lovely bit of summer landscape--great clouds of vivid foliage against the blue sky; intervening seas of meadow, golden with spangling b.u.t.tercups; and in the immediate foreground a stretch of green lawn, flower-bedded, and tuneful with the murmur of bees, blending with the plash of the stream beyond.

Within, all was correspondingly bright and cheerful.

”Father says Hilversea Court exists for the sole purpose of framing old Mr Wagram,” said Yvonne. ”That Grandisonian, old-world look about him wouldn't be in keeping with anything more modern.”

”No, it wouldn't,” a.s.sented Haldane. ”But, as I said before--never to the Wagrams, though--the place is much too big to live in.”

”I suppose they are pa.s.sionately attached to it?” asked Delia.

”That's the word. If they have a weakness it is a conviction that the world revolves round Hilversea, and this conviction Wagram holds, if possible, a trifle more firmly than the old Squire.”

”Really?”

”Yes; but he acts in keeping with the idea. There isn't a better looked after place--well, in the world, I may safely say. All the people on it simply idolise him, especially since the old Squire turned over the whole management to him.”

”How perfectly delightful,” p.r.o.nounced Delia. ”I can well imagine it, for a more kind and considerate man can hardly exist. Fancy, that splendid new bicycle I'm riding he insisted on sending me in place of mine that got smashed up by the gnu--an old rattle-trap of a thing that would hardly have fetched its value in old iron.”

”Yes; that's just the sort of thing he would do,” said Yvonne.

Then Delia went on to tell about the typewriting work he had been instrumental in procuring for her sister; and they talked Wagram for some time longer, in such wise as should have put the heir-apparent of Hilversea to the painful blush could he have overheard them.

”What I object to about him, though,” said Haldane, ”is that he s.h.i.+rks his duties on the Bench. I suppose if it weren't that he can hardly help being on the commission of the peace he'd resign.”

”I'm sure he would,” declared Yvonne. ”You know, Miss Calmour, he says it doesn't seem his mission to to be punis.h.i.+ng other people.”