"Good heavens, as if that would matter to me. Whatever she looks like——" he paused, overcome by his feelings.
"Well, I will believe you, though one never knows! Anyway she's not so bad, it's only one side of her face."
"Mrs. Matthews, for goodness' sake don't talk like this; I can't bear it. Just tell me, once for all—does Stella care for me still?"
"Yes, darling, she does; and the best thing you can do is to come down with me and Sir George to-morrow, fishing-rods and all, to The Court, and make her tell you so herself. Will you?"
"Will I?" he scoffed ecstatically. "Mrs. Matthews, you are an angel!"
"Not yet," she assured him. "I don't mean to die young."
* * * * * *
Philip Flint walked up the short drive to The Chestnuts. The air was filled with the peace and the scent of the summer's evening; and as he viewed the old house with its little paved terrace, the lawn sloping down to the stream, the cedar tree, the red wall of the kitchen garden, he felt that it was all familiar to him.
An old lady was seated on the terrace flags—that would be "Grandmamma"; and an austere-looking female emerged from one of the French windows to speak to the old lady—was that Aunt Augusta, or Aunt Ellen? His heart warmed towards them. And as he hesitated, hardly daring to go forward, he caught sight of a form stretched on a long chair beneath the cedar tree.