Page:Watts Mumford--Whitewash.djvu/318

 way you have permitted me to explain my very unpleasant and delicate mission." The drum-major rose with stately and studied grace. "I am sure, Mr. Conway, my niece ought to be very grateful to you for your assurances of good-will. Of course, she knows nothing of my intervention on her behalf. She is too ill to have painful subjects broached at all. And I promise you in her name and my own, that Miss Claudel shall have thorough and complete vindication."

They shook hands warmly. Mrs. Ford very much as if she were conferring a cross of honor upon a valorous warrior. Morton, with an amused delight at the comedy. He bowed himself out, and in the hall passed Ethel Tracy, who nodded sweetly and inquired with an air of arch knowledge for the latest news of Philippa. Morton's amusement deepened as he foresaw the scene to follow between the artless curiosity of the girl and the wily generalship of the drum-major. "You had better see Mrs. Ford, she will tell you all the particulars, Miss Tracy," he said. 304