"Oh, no, she won't take to me!" said Delia with decision.

"Why not?"

But Delia only shook her head, a little contemptuously.

"We shall see," said Winnington. "Well, good night. Remember, anything
I can do for you--here I am."

His eyes smiled, but Delia was perfectly conscious that the eager
cordiality, the touch of something like tenderness, which had entered
into his earlier manner, had disappeared. She realised, and with a
moment's soreness, that she had offended his sense of right--of what a
daughter's feeling should be towards a dead father, at any rate, in the
first hours of bereavement, when the recollections of death and
suffering are still fresh.

"I can't help it," she thought stubbornly. "It's all part of the price
one pays."

But when he was gone, she stood a long time by the window without
moving, thinking about the hour which had just passed. The impression
left upon her by Winnington's personality was uncomfortably strong. She
knew now that, in spite of her bravado, she had dreaded to find it so,
and the reality had more than confirmed the anticipation. She was
committed to a struggle with a man whom she must respect, and could not
help liking; whose only wish was to help and protect her. And beside
the man's energetic and fruitful maturity, she became, as it were, the
spectator of her own youth and stumbling inexperience.