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Updated: May 27, 2025
The matron departed discreetly, but at the door the child in her arms began to cry. Wingarde turned swiftly, took the little one's face between his hands, spoke a soft word, and kissed it. Then, as the matron moved away, he walked back into the room, closing the door behind him. All the tenderness with which he had comforted the wailing baby had vanished from his face. "Mr.
Outside on the lawn, away from the buzzing multitude, Nina began to recover herself. Archie brought a chair, and she dropped into it, but she held fast to Wingarde's arm, beseeching him over and over again not to leave her. Wingarde stooped over her, supporting her; but he found nothing to say to her.
And, of late, visions of the bankruptcy court had nearly distracted the former. It had filtered round among his daughter's admirers that money, not rank, would win the prize. But somehow no one had expected Hereford Wingarde, the financial giant, to step coolly forward and secure it for himself. He had been regarded as out of the running. Women did not like him.
As Nina stealthily watched them she saw that this man was restless and agitated. Her husband's face was turned from her, but his attitude was one of careless ease, into which his big limbs dropped when he was at leisure. Later she never knew by what impulse she acted. It was as if a voice suddenly cried aloud in her heart that Wingarde was in deadly danger. She gave Archie her cup and rose.
He released her hand calmly, imperturbably. "I will ask you again to-morrow," he said. "No!" she said sharply. He looked at her questioningly. "No!" she repeated, with a piteous ring of uncertainty in her voice. "Mr. Wingarde, I say No!" "But you don't mean it," he said, with steady conviction. "I do mean it!" she gasped. "I tell you I do!"
Are you going to drive or am I? Mind, you are to state your preference." "Very well," she answered. "Then I'll drive, please, I know this country a little. I stayed near here three years ago with the Nevilles. Archie and I used to fish." "Did you ever catch anything?" Wingarde asked, with his quiet eyes on her face. "Of course we did," she answered. "Salmon trout beauties. Oh, and other things.
The soft strains in the room behind them had swelled into music that was passionately exultant. It seemed to fill and overflow the silence between them. Then came a triumphant crash and it ended. From within sounded the gay buzz of laughing voices. Slowly Wingarde turned and looked at the bent, hopeless figure of the girl in the chair.
No word was spoken by either in praise or admiration of the man who had risked his life to save theirs. Somehow it was a difficult subject between them. Nearly two hours later Wingarde arrived on foot. He reported Archie's man only slightly the worse for his adventure. "It ought to have killed him," he said briefly. "But men of that sort never are killed. I told him to drive back to stables.
He is purely a City acquaintance. Oh, are you going, Neville? We shall see you again, I suppose?" It was not cordially spoken. Archie coloured and glanced at Nina. "You are coming to dinner, aren't you?" she said at once. "Please do! We shall be alone. And you promised, didn't you?" Archie hesitated for a moment. Wingarde was looking at him piercingly.
But she never cared for me in the same way. That I know now. I proposed to her twice, and she refused me." "You weren't made of money, you see," sneered Wingarde. Archie's fingers gripped each other. He had never before longed so fiercely to hurl a blow in a man's face. "If I had been," he said, "I am not sure that I should have made the running with you in the field.
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