Chapter VI: Part 6

“Oh, yes, he is a gentleman, of course, and Mrs Shepton says he is very kind-hearted and everything good. But, oh, mamma, I have a perfect horror of ever seeing him again; I felt so—so _degraded_, when I had, as it were, to throw myself on his mercy. You cannot think what it felt like,” and she shivered slightly.

Mrs Raynsworth did not at once answer. She seemed to be thinking deeply. Then she said:

“Philippa, my child, it will not do any good, or undo what cannot be undone, for you to allow yourself to grow morbid about it. Put it out of your mind as far as it is possible for you; you owe it to us all to do so, now that there is nothing more to explain, and that all is forgiven. Promise me that you will try to do this.” Philippa sighed deeply.

“Yes, mamma, I will try. I know it is the least I can do when you—papa and you—are so very, very good to me,” her voice trembled a little. “I will try. But do promise me, dear mamma, that if the question comes up of my going to Merle-in-the-Wold with Evelyn and Duke—they are sure to go some time or other—you will help me to get out of it? _That_ is not morbid.”

No, under the circumstances, Mrs Raynsworth could scarcely call it so, as nothing was more probable, almost certain, than that Michael Gresham would be one of the party at his cousin’s. Under the circumstances, however, she much doubted if Evelyn’s zeal for a visit to Merle would hold good, though this opinion she kept to herself.

“I will promise never to urge you to do anything as painful to you as this idea seems at present,” Mrs Raynsworth replied. “And perhaps,” with a little sigh—for unworldly though the mother was, it could scarcely be that Evelyn’s glowing description of the master of Merle, and the evident “admiration at first sight” which her sister had aroused in him, had made no impression on the maternal imagination—“perhaps your instinctive dread of meeting the younger Gresham again is well founded.”

“I am sure of it,” said Philippa, in a tone of relief. “And, oh, mamma, there is one thing we—I—should be glad of, and that is that Charley did not come here while we were away. Of course,” (as had been the case) “his last letter—the last before we left—showed it was unlikely; but everything unlikely seems to have happened to me! And I could not bear him to know what I did—he would be furious.”

“Yes,” Mrs Raynsworth agreed, “I am afraid he would be. And I see no reason why he should ever hear of it. We took care not to let Hugh and Leonard know where you had gone. I just told them that you had gone away again unexpectedly for a few days. I believe they had some vague idea that you had been summoned back to Dorriford.”

And after that first evening, though with no definite _parti pris_ on the subject, Philippa’s eccentric escapade was practically buried.

Circumstances greatly helped to bring this about. For the very next morning came the looked-for news of Charley’s definite return—a return “for good,” as his people had got into the way of calling it. He was to stay at home, indefinitely at least, working at the special branch of literature which he had made his own, and in which his father’s advice and experience were of great value to him, and acting at the same time as Mr Raynsworth’s secretary, thus relieving his younger sister from the somewhat onerous duties of the last year or two.

“Tell poor old Phil,” he wrote, “that she is to have a regular right-down good holiday at last, to be idle and frivolous, and taken up about her clothes like other girls. She’s not had fun enough in her life, and it’s time she had some now. With Evey being at home, surely we can plan something of a change for Phil? We must talk it over when I get back. I have a few pounds by me that I have managed to get together, and I am determined to spend them on her.”

Philippa’s eyes glistened when her mother read aloud her brother’s letter, but though she smiled, her face was a little sad.

“I know what would be best,” said Evelyn, “if only we were sure of Duke’s coming next month! I am to let Mr Gresham know whenever it is quite settled; then he will invite us to Merle, and on the way there, at least we will _make_ it the way there, Duke, and Phil, and I will stay a few days in London, and I shall choose two or three of the prettiest dresses you ever saw, for you, Phil.” But Philippa did not respond to the proposal.

“I count that I have had my holiday,” she said. “I enjoyed the visit to Dorriford exceedingly, and I shall enjoy having Charley more than anything. Don’t ask me to leave home again. Mamma,” with an appeal in her voice that was new to the self-reliant Philippa, “you won’t, will you?”

“Nobody will want you to do anything you don’t like, my dear child,” her mother replied, reassuringly. “That would be a strange use to make of poor Charley’s thoughtfulness.”

And Philippa’s face grew calm again; she could depend upon “mamma.”

“Besides,” said Evelyn, “you needn’t work yourself up about a thing that may not come to pass for ever so long. Duke _may_ not get home till next year. And I think it’s not very nice of you, Phil, to be so lugubrious about a plan I only thought of for your sake. You might understand that I would like to do something to—to make up a little, as it were, for all you went through for me.”

Evelyn’s voice grew tremulous, and her pretty eyes were dewy as she finished speaking. In a moment Philippa was kneeling beside her—her arms flung round her sister in a close embrace.

“Evey dear, you might understand,” she whispered. “Mamma does. I have got nervous about it all. But don’t think me ungrateful. I shall be quite right again soon, and it will be so nice to have Charley at home. He will cheer us up; he always does, and I am sure Duke _will_ get back before Christmas, at the very latest.”

Evelyn kissed her in return, and the little cloud melted. Still Philippa felt very glad when her brother’s arrival brought a diversion and a still stronger certainty that the Wyverston travesty would henceforth be allowed to sleep in peace.

How _very_ rarely, how “almost never,” do things turn out as we have pictured them to ourselves? How the misfortunes which we foresee and prepare to face disappear; how wholly unexpected difficulties and complications weave themselves about our unwary feet till we scarcely dare to risk a step! “If we had but known,” “if I had had any idea of this happening,” “ifs” without end, and better disregarded.

The unexpected came to Philippa Raynsworth this winter, though not altogether in painful guise, and she found, as so many of us do, that she had expended fears and misgivings in quite unnecessary directions.

Charles Raynsworth was the eldest of the family, and the only plain member of it. He had none of Philippa’s graceful stateliness, nor Evelyn’s charm of manner and appearance, some traces and promise of all of which were to be found in the two younger boys—handsome Hugh and blue-eyed Leonard. But no one of the five brothers and sisters was more loved and trusted by the other four than the insignificant-looking head of the party. For the insignificance began and ended with his outward appearance; he was far above the average in every other direction; intellectually gifted and possessing, in addition to undoubted talent, the “genius” of perseverance and steady application; honest and straightforward like all his family, unselfish and with a power of sympathy unusual in a man. No wonder that “Charley’s” home-coming was the best of good news.

And for a day or two the pleasure of all being together again shed a rosy hue over everything. Charley was in such request that he had scarcely time to think. If he were not closeted with his father in the study, he was button-holed by his mother in the drawing-room; if he were not in the thick of the boys’ pets—feathered, guinea-pigs, and all the rest of them—admiring, advising, and doing his best to make sense of Hugh and Leonard both talking at once, he was pretty sure to be in the nursery, with Bonny riding on his shoulder, or listening to Evelyn’s maternal raptures over baby Vanda’s attempts at conversation. It was not till he had been some days at home that he one morning waylaid his mother and drew her out to the front of the house for a stroll up and down the gravel drive.

“You are not busy, are you, mother?” he said. “You have got your cook-interviewing and all that sort of thing over for the day, haven’t you? I want a talk with you without being interrupted, as we always are in the drawing-room, and in the afternoon it is even worse. Next week I must buckle to work regularly; but for these two or three days I have been giving myself time to settle down.”

It was a mild day—“mild for November,” as one so often hears people say when that maligned daughter of the year is with us, forgetting how very often the early days of the month are altogether charming.

“Shall I get you a shawl?” Charles Raynsworth went on, but his mother negatived the proposal.

“I am not the least cold,” she said, “and if we keep at this side of the house it is always sheltered. What is it, dear, that you want to talk about? Nothing wrong?” and a slight furrow of anxiety made itself seen between her eyebrows. For the moment, unreasonable though it was, a fear startled her that possibly—_could_ it be?—was Charley going to tell her that Philippa’s escapade had come to his ears?

But her son’s first words reassured her.

“Don’t look so startled and anxious, mother,” he said, eagerly. “No, of course it’s nothing wrong. I only want to take the bull by the horns, so as to prevent anything wrong coming to pass. Mother, I don’t think my father is looking well—one notices looks, you see, dropping in among you all from the outside, as it were. And once the idea struck me it made me watch him; no, he is not what he was last year, I am quite sure of it. He is overdone. I can see that he has been working too hard.”

Mrs Raynsworth drew a long breath. This was not what she had feared, but it startled her. She grew rather pale.

“Charley!” she said.

“Don’t looked so appalled, mother,” he said, reassuringly. “I have not the least fear of there being anything seriously wrong; if I _had_ had, of course I should have done something else—spoken to a doctor or to my father himself before frightening you. But I am perfectly sure it is overwork only; he should have a holiday—a holiday and a change. And that brings me to the second head of my discourse. Phil isn’t looking well, either. I believe the two of them have been buried in that study far too much and for far too long together. I should have been here at home some months ago, but it was impossible, so there is no use going back upon that. What I want now—”

But Mrs Raynsworth interrupted him.

“I daresay you are right about your father,” she said; “but as to Philippa, I don’t know; she has had some change this autumn. There was the visit to Dorriford, you know, which she enjoyed very much, and—”

But in his turn Charles interrupted, fortunately so, perhaps, for Mrs Raynsworth was beginning to feel very guilty.

“A week,” he said, “a week or ten days at most—what’s that? Oh, no, she needs much more thorough change than that sort of thing. She has grown nervous, mother, that is what I have noticed, for it is so unlike her. She changes colour for nothing and starts if one opens the door suddenly. No, I am sure I am right about them both, and this is what I want you to help me to manage. Father and Phil should go abroad together this winter for three or four months. They would enjoy it thoroughly. Phil has never been out of England, and father can take her over some of the old ground he knows so well. It would be new life to him. Phil is so intelligent, you see, and would enter into all that interested him,” and Charley’s commonplace greenish-grey eyes lighted up with eagerness till they looked almost beautiful. He was nearly breathless, as he stopped short in the path and stood facing his mother.

She could not but be infected to some extent by his enthusiasm, but Mrs Raynsworth was eminently practical.

“My dearest boy!” she exclaimed. “Yes, I agree with you; nothing could be more delightful for both your father and Philippa,” and as she named her younger daughter there flashed through her mind the special benefit to the girl of such a complete change of life and surroundings at the present time; “nothing,” she repeated, “could be better. But, Charley, you forget—the ways and means!—and your father’s work. We should never persuade him to leave it.”

“He need not do so; at least, I mean to say, it need not suffer,” said the young man. “I have gone into all that part of it already since I came, without my father’s finding it out. He can quite well leave his work at its present stage to me—he said so himself. And the time I would give it need be no more than I could give to him if he were here. I can quite fit it in with my own work. The only thing father must do is to defer starting on his new book for a few weeks, and all the better if he does so. He would gather some fresh material if he was in Italy, and—”

“But—but—Charley—there is the money part of it.”

Charley’s fair, freckled face flushed.

“_That’s_ all right,” he said. “You know, mother, I wrote that I had saved a few pounds—saved and made, I should have said. Well, to cut a long story short, the few pounds have turned out more than I expected. I have a hundred, a clear hundred, mother, ready for this scheme of mine. And a hundred pounds will go a long way with two people like my father and Phil; he knowing the ground so well, and she so economical and managing as I know she is. Besides, once my father made up his mind to go, he would no doubt put something to the hundred.”

Mrs Raynsworth, well as she knew her son, was greatly touched.

“My dearest boy,” she said again, “I cannot tell you how good I think it of you to have planned such a thing. But I fear your father would never consent to take your money—your own earnings.”

Charley laid his hand on his mother’s arm and drew her forward again. It felt rather chilly standing still.

“My dearest mother,” he said, as they resumed their stroll, “leave that to me. How can you think such a thing, when you remember all my father and you have done for me? Stinting yourselves, and even, indirectly, my sisters too a little, to give me the best of educations. It is all thanks to that that I am now where I am, certain of earning my own livelihood at the very worst, and with every reasonable prospect of greater success. Leave it to me, my dear mother; only promise me to back me up when I have broached the idea with both my father and Phil.”

The promise was given and acted upon. For the more Mrs Raynsworth thought over her son’s idea the more it commended itself to her. And the verdict of the doctor—an old friend who knew him well—whom Mr Raynsworth appealed to with the expectation of his pronouncing the proposed holiday, however agreeable, by no means a necessity, decided the turning of the scale. The benefit to Philippa herself was not made prominent, though in her heart the mother was almost as glad of the proposed scheme for her daughter’s sake as for her husbands. But Charley was not without his reward. The glow of pleasure which overspread the girl’s face at the first mention of the plan made her brother determine that it should be carried out, and Philippa’s misgivings that it would be “selfish” and wrong to leave home for so long, and that “mamma” should profit by Charley’s generosity rather than herself, were overruled by her father’s assurance that no one except her brother could be as useful to him as his already well-trained little secretary.

Circumstances in other directions too added their influence. Captain Headfort telegraphed his arrival by the next mail but one, and under the new aspect of things it became much easier to arrange for his making his headquarters at Greenleaves—the Raynsworths’ home—with his family for the first few months of the year, during which his eventual plans were to be decided.

“I _could_ not have gone away with any sort of comfort, Phil dear, you see,” said her mother. “And as it is, I shall really enjoy the time at home with Charley and Duke, and helping Evelyn to settle what to do, and with _no_ anxiety about your father on my mind. I think everything has fitted in beautifully.”

And on the whole, Evelyn’s sentiments agreed with her mother’s, though she could not help sighing in private when alone with Mrs Raynsworth over the downfall of her castle-in-the-air.

“I shall not care to go to Mr Gresham’s in the least without Phil, even if he asks us now,” she said, disconsolately. “I suppose I must write to tell him that Duke is really coming, as I promised I would. And, of course, I will tell him that my sister is going abroad. But ten to one before the winter is over we shall hear he is going to be married; men are just like that, even when they do fall in love at first sight, as I shall always firmly believe he did.”

“Still, anything is better than for Philippa to get out of health in any serious way, or to lose her spirits and nerve,” said Mrs Raynsworth. “And there is no doubt, Evey, that that wild affair has had a strange effect upon her; it seems to have been almost a shock to her to realise _how_ wild and rash it was, and how disastrous its consequences might have been. I doubt very much, Evey, if she would have agreed to go to Mr Gresham’s.”

“It would have been very absurd of her to have been afraid of it,” said Evelyn, impatiently. “He never saw her at Wyverston, she allows that herself. And as for the other one—Michael Gresham—I don’t suppose his cousin has him very much at Merle; they did not seem very specially friendly. Besides, he only saw her in the railway, and with those horrid spectacles on. One does not remember every person one meets in a railway carriage. Phil will get quite morbid if she is so fanciful.”

“That is why I am so glad for her to have this complete change,” said Mrs Raynsworth, quietly.

Chapter Fifteen. Maida at Fault.

So, after all, the hobgoblin of a visit to Merle melted into thin air, as often happens with the things we dread the most. Not that, in this case, there was do element of disappointment to Philippa mingled with the very relief she was so grateful for. She had a distinct curiosity about Evelyn’s hero, and a decided wish to see him again, and when, some two months or so later, a letter with the date of “Merle-in-the-Wold,” reached her in her wanderings with her father, she felt it undoubtedly regrettable that she could not, without misgiving, look forward to joining the Headforts in their next visit there, as her sister alluded to.

“You cannot think what a _perfect_ place this is,” wrote Evelyn. “Duke was not very eager to come, so soon after arriving and before he had settled down at all, he said. He _is_ such an old bachelor; he has fallen back into all his fussy methodical ways with being two years away from scatter-brained me. But now he is quite as much in love with it all as I am, and is talking of looking out for a little house somewhere hereabouts, if he decides on leaving his regiment. And he likes Mr Gresham very much; at least he says, as everybody must, what a charming host he is, though I don’t know that he appreciates him _quite_ as much as I do. But he likes talking to him about Wyverston and the Headforts. And oh, by-the-by, the old squire has written _so_ cordially to Duke, as soon as he heard of his arrival. We are to go up there for a week whenever the worst of the winter is over, etc, etc.”

And in a postscript she had scribbled: “Michael Gresham is not here, and his cousin says very little about him. I always told you that I was sure they were not so very intimate. Mr Gresham has just begged me to say that the next time we come he hopes _you_ will accompany us, though he scarcely dares flatter himself that you can remember him.”

Philippa smiled a little as she read the last words.

“Well, perhaps,” she said to herself, “perhaps I may go there some time or other without any misgiving. It will be curious if I never come across Solomon’s master again. He _was_ kind, after all, though rather gruff about it. And I am sure he is to be relied upon. But the _feeling_ of being there with him, knowing that he knew, and that he knew I knew he knew! Oh, it would be insufferable.”

She made a gesture as if to shake off the very thought of such a thing. But her nerves and spirits were fast recovering themselves. Charley’s plan had been a grand success. Mr Raynsworth and his daughter had enjoyed themselves to their heart’s content—nor had they been idle. Philippa had taken her part in all her father’s researches and explorings, for the new book he had in view dealt largely with the history of the old Italian towns which they had been staying at, one after the other, since leaving home.

Three months fled only too quickly. At the expiration of that time, just as they were deciding, not without reluctance, that they must turn homewards—for with all the good management in the world money develops very slippery qualities in travelling!—a letter from Cannes somewhat altered their plans. It was from Miss Lermont, with whom, since her visit to Dorriford, Philippa had kept up a regular correspondence, so that Maida was quite _au courant_ of her young relative’s whereabouts.

The Lermonts had been spending the winter, or a part of it, in the south, and now, by her father’s and mother’s request, she wrote to beg Mr Raynsworth and his daughter to join them in their villa for two or three weeks.

“I do not see why we should not do so,” said Mr Raynsworth, “I should like to see something more of the Lermonts, and the quiet time would enable me to arrange my papers and notes a little better than it has been possible to do so far. They seem all right at home—eh, Philippa?—and you would like a week or two with Maida?”

“Very much, very much indeed,” his daughter replied.

So it came to pass that it was not at Dorriford, but in the sunny south that Philippa met again the friend she had already learnt to prize.

“You are changed, Philippa,” said her cousin, the first morning when they were strolling about in the pretty garden of the Lermonts’ villa. “Changed somehow, though I scarcely can say how.”

“Am I?” said the girl, “and yet it is only six months, barely that indeed, since you saw me last.”

But she _was_ changed, and the consciousness of it made her colour deepen, even though she knew how much more cause for her remark Maida would have had, had they met before Philippa’s winter in Italy.

“I know, that is what makes me notice it the more. One expects to see change at your age after an interval of a year or two—I counted you scarcely grown-up when you came to us last year. But in six months! No, I can’t quite make it out.”

“What is it?” said Philippa, lightly. “Am I fatter, or thinner, or paler, or what?”

Miss Lermont looked at her scrutinisingly, which did not tend to increase the young girl’s composure.

“No,” said the elder woman at last, “it is not in that sort of way so much—though you _are_ thinner, rather thinner, and perhaps a little paler. Nevertheless you have grown still—prettier,” checking herself in the use of a more imposing adjective. “I am not afraid of telling you so, as I know you are not the _least_ conceited. But you have changed otherwise. You are not _quite_ as bright and self-reliant as you were—you look anxious every now and then, and sometimes you are rather absent. Tell me, my dear child, have you fallen in love with any one?”

It was the greatest relief to Philippa that Maida’s kindly cross-questioning should have turned in this direction. For even if she herself had thought it well to take Miss Lermont into her confidence as to her adventures, she was not free to do so, Mrs Raynsworth having bound her down to tell no one the story without first consulting herself. The laugh, therefore, with which the young girl prefaced her reply was quite natural and unconstrained.

“No indeed,” she said, “I can’t fancy myself falling in love with any one unless I were very sure that the person in question had first fallen very thoroughly in love with me. And—I can scarcely picture such a state of things as that.”

“Naturally,” said Miss Lermont. “I don’t think any girl—not a girl such as you are, at least, dear Philippa—_can_ picture it till it comes to pass.”

Philippa hesitated.

“I mean more than that,” she said. “I do not feel as if I were the sort of girl a man is likely to care for in that way. I am not—oh, not yielding, and appealing, and all that sort of thing. There is something of a boy about me. Long ago, when I was a tiny girl, the nurses used to tell me I had no ‘pretty ways.’” Maida could not help smiling at Philippa’s self-deprecation. But as the girl looked down at her—Miss Lermont was by this time established in her invalid-chair, her cousin standing beside her—with a certain wistfulness in her expression, it struck the elder woman still more strongly that Philippa _was_ changed, softened and somewhat saddened. Her present estimate of herself was far less correct now than a few months ago. “You forget,” Maida replied, “that tastes differ as to human beings’ attraction for each other, luckily for the peace of society, more widely than in any other direction. It is not every man, by any means, whose ideal woman is of the type which _you_ evidently think the most winning. But all the same, my dear child, you are much more—‘womanly,’ shall I say?—less self-confident and gentler than you were at Dorriford. _Something_ has changed you. Don’t you feel conscious of it yourself?”

“Growing older perhaps,” said Philippa, trying to speak lightly. But it was impossible for her to be anything but genuine with Maida. “No,” she continued, with a sudden alteration of voice, “I will not talk nonsense. I know that I have changed; you are very quick and discriminating to have found it out, and I wish I could tell you all about it. But I cannot, not at present at any rate. So don’t let us talk any more about it. I do want to enjoy this delightful place and weather and _you_ to the very utmost.”

She sat down beside her cousin and looked at her with what she meant to be a perfectly happy smile. But somewhat to Maida’s surprise the pretty mouth was quivering a little, and there was a suspicious glistening in the deep brown eyes.

“My dear child!” Maida exclaimed, impulsively, her anxiety increasing. “Can you not—”

“No, dear,” Philippa replied to the uncompleted inquiry, “I cannot explain anything. But there is nothing to be anxious about—really nothing.”

“Only tell me,” Miss Lermont persisted, “this trouble, whatever it is, or—”

“It is quite over,” said Philippa.

“Or has been, then—have you had to keep it altogether to yourself? Have you been unable to confide in any one?”

“Oh, no,” Philippa replied. “They all—at least Evey and papa and mamma—knew about it, and _mamma_ knows everything, yes, _everything_. And if she had known I was to be with you, here, I daresay she would have wished me to tell you; at least I think she would have done, but—but—I am not quite sure. After all, it isn’t anything very dreadful, only it opened my eyes to my own self-will and presumption, and I don’t feel as if I ever could trust myself again.”

“Poor dear,” said Maida, tenderly. “Remember it is not the ‘thinking we stand’ that keeps us from falls. I am quite happy now I know that your mother knows it all, and whether you ever tell me the whole or not is a matter of no consequence. Put it out of your head, dear, and let us enjoy this treat—for a treat it is to _me_.”

“And most certainly to me, too,” said her cousin, affectionately. “I had no idea Cannes was so charming, Maida.”

“It has been an exceptionally good winter, even for Cannes,” said Miss Lermont. “Lots of people we know have been here. Almost too many sometimes, as I am so stupidly easily knocked up and mother has bustle enough at home all the year round. Now, the visitors are dropping off a little, but we know a good many of the so-called residents. That is to say, the people who have permanent houses here which they inhabit for four or five months of the year. By-the-by, Philippa, did you not see the Bertrams when you were at Dorriford?”

“Yes,” Philippa replied, “I did. But they are not here?”

There was the slightest possible—so slight that at the time Miss Lermont thought her ears must have misled her—inflection of anxiety in the girl’s tone as she made the inquiry.

“Here—yes indeed, very much here,” Maida replied. “Captain Bertram and Lady Mary, and all the five children, and an army of governesses, and nurses, and maids, and horses, and grooms. They are very rich, you know. And they have had friends visiting them or coming to be near them, all the time, several of whom we knew, so that has helped to extend our acquaintance here. Oh, yes, by-the-by, that Mr Gresham, ‘the silent man,’ as we called him, is staying with them now. He has just arrived; do you remember him one day at Dorriford? I had forgotten about it, but he asked me when he called with Lady Mary, if I had heard from you lately, and—”

Philippa interrupted her.

“Evelyn and Duke have been staying with him,” she said, speaking with studied deliberateness; “that must have reminded him of me, as Evey is far too fond of talking about me.”

She did not turn away as she spoke, and her whole manner was peculiarly calm, but to Miss Lermont’s amazement the colour surged up into her cheeks, leaving them again as suddenly—she herself apparently unconscious, or determined to appear unconscious, that it was so.

Maida felt completely taken aback. She was not of an inquisitive frame of mind, and was eminently unsuspicious when she had once learnt to give her confidence. But she was very observant by nature, and as has been already mentioned, in her peculiar, semi-invalid life, the post of spectator had often fallen to her, and she had come to feel great interest in the affairs of her neighbours—interest which in an inferior class of mind might have degenerated into love of gossip. And aware of this danger, Miss Lermont was specially careful to keep her concern for “other people’s business” well within bounds, even where conscious that real affection and sympathy prompted her.

So for a moment or two she hesitated before putting to Philippa the question that most naturally rose to her lips. Then an instant’s reflection showed her that the refraining from so simple an inquiry would of itself suggest some possibly annoying suspicion.

“Have you never seen him again, then? Somehow his manner seemed to imply that he knew more of you than that one afternoon’s introduction, when he did _not_ distinguish himself by either ‘feast of reason or flow of soul.’”

Before Philippa replied, her cousin _felt_ that she hesitated. Yet nothing could be more straightforward than her reply when it came.

“I have never met Mr Gresham since that day at Dorriford,” and the substitution of the vaguer participle for the more definite “seen,” did not catch Miss Lermont’s attention. Yet her perplexity increased.

“She _did_ change colour when she heard his name and she _was_ uneasy when she heard of the Bertrams being here,” thought Maida. “Yet I know she is not only truthful, but candid. The very way she told me there was something she _could_ not tell, shows it. Can it be merely that her sister has got it into her head that Mr Gresham would be a good _parti_, which I suppose he would be, for her sister, and that some hints of hers have annoyed Philippa? She _is_ almost morbidly sensitive, I know. I suppose it must be that.”

But feeling the girl’s eyes fixed upon her, she hastened to reply to her last words.

“You are pretty sure to meet him _here_” she said. “There is scarcely a day on which we do not see or hear something of the Bertrams. So we shall have an opportunity of finding out if our silent friend can talk when he chooses to do so.”

“But you have had an opportunity of that already, have you not?” said Philippa. “Did you not say you had seen Mr Gresham since his arrival?”

“Yes, the day before yesterday, but only for a few minutes. He did talk, I must allow. He found time, as I said, to ask if I had heard from you lately. He _may_ have said something of Evelyn and her husband having been with him, but if so, I did not pay attention. He is certainly a very handsome man, and the Bertrams think everything of him. I suppose he is made a great deal of, and if he is a little affected and spoilt, it is excusable.”

“Did he strike you as affected?” said Philippa. Now that she had got over the first start of hearing Mr Gresham’s name, she had pulled herself together and regained her composure. After all, it was not _Michael_; and when she recalled that quite recently she had been contemplating the possibility of accompanying the Headforts before very long on another visit to Merle, she realised the inconsistency of shrinking from meeting her sister’s late host in the present easy and informal circumstances. “I don’t think I can take Evelyn’s account of him quite without a grain of salt. She seems so fascinated by him.”

“And your brother-in-law?” said Maida. “I always like to hear a man’s opinion of a man, as well as a woman’s.”

“Oh, yes, Duke likes him very much, I think,” said Philippa. “He would not appreciate his charm of manner as Evelyn does, very possibly. Duke is a regular man, something of a boy about him, don’t you know, a little too rough and ready, perhaps. Then Evelyn knows Mr Gresham better. She saw a good deal of him at—at Wyverston,” and Philippa suddenly stooped to pick an innocent daisy looking up in her face from the grass at her feet, only to fling it down again impatiently, poor daisy!

Why had she mentioned Wyverston, she asked herself; why trench quite unnecessarily on ground where she could not be open and communicative with her friend, as she loved to be?

“I am a perfect idiot,” she thought, and again the expression on her face struck Miss Lermont as unusual.

“At Wyverston,” she repeated. “_The_ Headforts’ place. Oh, yes, I remember your telling me in your very first letter from home about Evelyn’s going there. But you never said anything more—as to how the visit went off and if she enjoyed it. You were not very well about that time, if I remember rightly. I think your mother wrote and said so?”

“I don’t think there was much the matter with me,” said Philippa, “but mamma was a little anxious. They will think me looking brilliantly well when I go home after this splendid holiday, I am sure. You were asking about Evey’s visit? Yes, she enjoyed it very much, and it was a great success. She took to the Headforts and they to her wonderfully.”

“Then,” began Miss Lermont, “but don’t answer if it is indiscreet of me to ask, do you think the old man is going to recognise your brother-in-law as his heir and—to treat him accordingly?”

“We don’t quite know,” said Philippa, “and after all, as Duke says, there is no hurry _to_ know. The squire is not a very old man, and he must be wiry to have lived through the shocks he has had. He knows nothing almost of Duke except by hearsay, though there is nothing but good to hear of him. All he has said has been to express a wish that Duke should give up India and settle down at home, and he worded it as if he meant to help him to do so. Of course we shall know more after they have met.”

“Will that be soon?” asked Miss Lermont.

“Yes, I believe Evey and he are going north very shortly after we get back,” said Philippa. “And they are taking the boy, Bonny, with them. The Wyverston people have specially invited him.”

“I think that all looks very promising,” said Maida. “You would be very glad for your sister not to have to go abroad again, would you not?”

“_Very_,” said Philippa, heartily. “It would be the greatest comfort in the world; even if they had to go to live in the north, it would seem delightful after India.”

“Is Wyverston a pretty place?” said Maida, but she checked herself almost as she said the words. “Of course you have never been there, so how could you know.”

“Evelyn thought it a fine place, a good comfortable old house, though with nothing very striking about it, except, perhaps, the contrast with the great lonely moorland, on one side at least, round about it. There is something very impressive about moorland—so grim and yet pathetic,” said Philippa, half dreamily. Her eyes seemed to be gazing on the scene she suggested; and it was so. At that moment, instead of the sunny terrace, with the orange trees in their green tubs, and down below, the blue Mediterranean gleaming sapphire-like in the sun, with overhead the deep, all but cloudless sky, she was picturing to herself the cold grey morning aspect of the far-stretching lands on the east of Wyverston. She felt the very wind on her cheek, the breeze “with a flavour of the sea,” as the Headforts were fond of saying; she saw the tops of the trees in the pine woods to the left, and then emerging from their shade she seemed again to catch sight of the long smooth body of poor Solomon, ready to wriggle with pleasure at her approach. And Solomon’s master in his rough tweed suit and honest, kindly face—yes, it _was_ an honesty kindly face—not far behind! What a pity—what a pity that he had come to think so poorly of her; there was something about the man that made her feel he would have been a good and steady friend. She could have learnt to like him. If ever—but here she was startled back into the present by Maida Lermont’s rallying tones.

“_Philippa_,” it said, “for the third time of asking! The thought of the moors up there in that bleak north seems to have bewitched you. Has Evelyn such graphic powers of description, for you have never been there yourself? What are you dreaming about? I spoke to you three times without your hearing me.”

Philippa turned to her cousin.

“I _was_ dreaming about the moors; the moors and the pine woods,” she said simply. “It is not necessary to have seen places to think about them, is it? I often feel as if I knew all about scenes and countries I have even _heard_ but little of; do you not feel so, sometimes? When I was little I used to fancy I must have seen places in my dreams—in real dreams, I mean, not daydreams.”

“Yes,” Maida agreed. “I think I have had the same fancy. And what is almost as curious is the way in which the slightest association brings back scenes that we had practically forgotten. A word, or a touch in a picture, or very often with me a scent or smell, is like magic. I find myself recalling certain events, or remembering minutely certain scenes and perhaps people that I had not thought of for years and years. It does seem as if what we are so often told must be true—that we do not _really_ forget anything. But I think, dear, we must be going in; the sun gets very hot on this terrace. We shall drive a little later, and there is some plan about meeting the Bertrams—going there to afternoon tea, I think. So we shall probably see Evelyn’s hero.”

Chapter Sixteen. Sunshiny Days.

The Bertrams were the most hospitable people in the world. Wherever you came across them, in London, or at their own rambling country-house, in a villa at Cannes, or on board a dahabeeyah on the Nile, it was all one. They were always delighted to see you, and uneasy till you promised to stay with them indefinitely, or, at least, to come to luncheon or dinner as long as you were within hail.

And all this in spite of a constant amount of things to see to, none of which were neglected by her, and very far from robust health on little Lady Mary’s part! Her Irish ancestry explained a good deal, said some, “Irish people are _so_ hospitable, you know,” As if the virtue in question was an inherited quality for which no credit was due to the possessor. “Her kind heart,” for surely no kinder heart ever beat, had something to say to it, said those who knew and loved her as she deserved, among whom Maida Lermont was certainly to be reckoned.

Yet, notwithstanding the prepossessions in their favour which Philippa could not but feel, when it came to the actual moment of her following Mrs Lermont and her daughter into the pretty drawing-room where Lady Mary was fluttering about among her guests and her children, the girl could not but be conscious of an exceeding wish that Egypt, or Algeria, or any other of their various haunts, had this winter attracted the Bertrams elsewhere.

For control herself as she would, the thought of meeting Mr Gresham again, without even the support of Evelyn’s presence, made her nervous.

“Supposing—just _supposing_” she said to herself, “that he _did_ see me at Wyverston, or that his cousin by some inadvertence had given the least hint of any secret.”

It was a mistake to allow her imagination to dwell on such possibilities; but the effect on herself personally was scarcely to be regretted. For there was a certain timidity and wistfulness in her manner which had not been there before, and which, in the eyes of one of those present at least, added greatly to her charm.

“She is even lovelier than I thought,” said Bernard Gresham to himself, “and she has lost that touch of the girl-of-the-day self-confidence which jarred a little.”

For the first time they had met, that autumn afternoon at Dorriford, Philippa in her cheerful inexperience had taken it for granted that the handsome silent man was probably “rather shy,” and had exerted herself to “draw him out” in consequence.

Two or three other women entered the room almost at the same moment as the Lermonts and their young cousin. And the names were not clearly announced. But Mr Gresham from the farther side of the room “spotted” Miss Raynsworth at once, and managed cleverly to place himself in her way as she turned, with some little uncertainty of bearing, from shaking hands with her hostess. He was far too much a man, not only of the world, but of drawing-rooms, to run any risk of making her or himself conspicuous, yet he was resolved at once to take the place which he intended to hold while the fates left Philippa in his vicinity—that of a former acquaintance. So he would ask for no fresh introduction, but stepped forward with quiet matter-of-fact ease to greet her.

So he stepped forward with quiet matter-of-fact ease to greet her.

“How do you do, Miss Raynsworth?” he said. “You arrived yesterday? I knew you were coming, as I had a letter from Mrs Marmaduke Headfort two or three days ago.”

He brought in Evelyn’s name purposely, being in his heart slightly doubtful of the girl’s immediate recognition of him, little dreaming of the familiarity to her of his whole personality among the guests she had so often watched from Evelyn’s window at Wyverston! But even without that, she would have known him again.

She looked up with her pretty, half-startled eyes, a slight pink rising to her cheeks, as she held out her hand.

“You have heard from Evelyn more recently than I have done, then,” she said. “Were they all well? Did she give you any ‘family’”—with a smile—“news?”

Mr Gresham was inwardly triumphant. How well he had managed this first introductory move! Nothing could have happened better than the whole combination of events. Here, at Cannes, a few days would be worth weeks elsewhere; the life was so much less formal, the opportunities of meeting so much more frequent and less observed. He would have ample time in which to judge further of this girl, whose strong individuality, whose “uncommonness” had even at first sight so attracted him, _ferré à glace_ though he believed himself, and that not altogether without reason, in such matters.

So he at once stepped on to the platform which his own tact, and Philippa’s simplicity, and circumstances, the accidental isolation in which she momentarily found herself for one, had erected.

“News,” he said, pleasantly; “oh, dear, yes, any amount. The actual reason of my being honoured with a letter just now was that Mrs Headfort thought it would interest me, which it certainly does, extremely, to hear that she and Duke are going up to Wyverston next week.”

Philippa’s eyes sparkled.

“Are they really?” she said. “I had not heard of it. At least I knew that they were to go some time or other, but I fancied not till I—father and I, I should say—were home again.”

She was so interested that all her constraint and self-consciousness disappeared. Nothing could have suited Mr Gresham better. His superior information from Greenleaves put him in the position of being applied to by Miss Raynsworth, and set her and himself at once on friendly and almost confidential relations.

He glanced round. They were still both standing, and near Lady Mary, who was eagerly talking to Miss Lermont, and not noticing any one else’s movements. There were no seats close at hand, but some tempting wicker lounges stood just outside on the balcony, on to which opened the long low windows.

“Won’t you come outside?” said Mr Gresham. “It is crowded in here; and then I can glance through what Mrs Headfort says.”

So within five minutes of the dreaded entrance into Lady Mary’s drawing-room, Philippa found herself seated most comfortably beside the very man whose presence had been the cause of her nervous misgiving.

No one could have reproached Mr Gresham with “silence.” He exerted himself to the utmost, without seeming to do so in the least; he talked, though not too much; he made the girl forget everything (little as he suspected that there was anything for her to forget) except the present pleasant intercourse. For he believed that all the opportunity he wished to obtain for himself depended upon this first _tête-à-tête_, and, however he might hereafter judge it expedient to alter or modify his tactics, he had no doubt as to the advisability of his present exertions.

Maida Lermont, from the couch which was quickly provided for her in a corner of the room, started with surprise when she heard her young cousin’s peculiarly pretty and musical laugh ring out, as some half-hour or so later, Philippa, followed by Mr Gresham, made her way back into the drawing-room, and looking round for her special friend, drew forward a low chair to Miss Lermont’s side.

“She used to laugh like that at Dorriford,” thought Maida, “but it is the first time I have heard it here. And it is Mr Gresham who has made her look so bright and happy? Yet she has only seen him once before, and I am sure she was rather nervous about meeting him—I cannot make it out.”

But if—and this possibility she would doubtless, if taxed with it, have indignantly denied—_if_ any shadow of misgiving as to Philippa’s ingenuousness momentarily crossed her mind, it was dispelled the instant the sweet face approached her own, as the girl said, in a somewhat low voice:

“Isn’t it nice! Mr Gresham has given me such good news of them all at home, especially about Duke and Evey; they are going—but no, I must wait to tell you all about it afterwards,” and here Mr Gresham, who had half heard, half guessed the drift of her words, interposed with the gentle considerateness which marked his bearing to the invalid Miss Lermont:

“Shall I get you a cup of tea, or an ice, or whatever you would like best?” he said. “I can easily bring it here—it is all in the next room.”

“Thank you, thank you very much,” Maida replied. “Yes, I should like some tea and a sandwich very much.—And you, Philippa, you have had nothing?”

“I will go and get something for myself when Mr Gresham brings your tea,” said Philippa, and the young man noted her words approvingly. This was not the sort of girl, he thought, to care to have a man—or “_the_ man” would probably have more accurately described his thought—dragging about after her in any conspicuous way. No, there was no doubt of it, she was a type apart. And he smiled to himself, half apologetically, at the idea that, after all his several years’ experience of society, and the caution with which he had steered his way amidst manoeuvring mammas and scarcely less sophisticated daughters, he might be about to fall a victim to the common malady—to find himself, if he did not take care, as genuinely in love as any Henry Hawkins of the people!

But the very candour with which he realised the possibility, showed that so far he had himself well in hand. And well in hand he intended to keep himself. For it would be a complete mistake to suppose that this was in any sense a case of “love at first sight.” Mr Gresham had long vaguely intended to marry, if—a great “_if_”—he came across the woman who completely satisfied his fastidious taste, and seemed likely to prove the realisation of his ideal. An ideal, not perhaps of the very loftiest, but admirable enough so far as it went. “She” must be endowed with all the orthodox and specially feminine virtues and graces; she must be refined and “unworldly”—to insure, indeed, the last qualification, he was prepared to sacrifice some amount of conventional “style” or “fashion;” that indescribable touch of finish which tells of a certain position in the world of the day. The very words employed to define it, testifying to its variability and intangible characteristics.