"
"Vulgar? _Vulgar!_"
"She is pretentious, she is affected, she is gushing--what is that but to
be vulgar? She is not even pretty--"
"Not pretty!" Reggie cried, and started up from his chair. "Not pretty!
Deleah Day!"
"Deleah! The young one?"
"I've been telling you so, all along, haven't I? Who did you think it
was?"
"It was the other, when we spoke of the Days before," Sir Francis reminded
him, but flatly, and his face had fallen.
Here was more serious matter. Not that flaunting extravagant queen, not
Bessie with her plump prettiness, her cheap wiles, her nets that were
spread in the sight of man; but Deleah, the dainty, charmingly pretty
child. The marriage would be none the less hideously undesirable on the
social side, and from the point of view of the family; but it would be
infinitely more difficult to stop. Sir Francis, in his widowed estate,
with twenty years more of experience on his head, was yet not so old but
that he could picture how deeply, how dangerously in love a young man of
his brother's age could imagine himself with Deleah Day.
Reggie was recalling attention to himself by a loud snort of contempt.
"I'm not very likely to have thought of Bessie when Deleah was on the
spot," he said.
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