"She will lodge my passage money at once," continued the girl. "I have only to send a wire—perhaps you would read her letter?" and she held it up to him. Philip took it and read it over, slowly; Lady Augusta's writing was scratchy and illegible, but he gathered that she was devoted to her grandchild, and the whole epistle breathed a passionate longing to see her once more.
Yes, it was all very well, he said to himself, as he mechanically folded up the letter, but why should an injurious influence be exerted over this fresh young life? Angel, although such an old, worldly-wise child of nine, was, thanks to Miss Morton, and a curious twist in her own character, as simple as nine, at the age of nineteen, simple-minded and sincere, for all her gay flirtations and her physical sorceries.
Yet this letter was the key to his difficulties. If Angel returned home to her grandmother, the Lady Augusta Gascoigne, who dared lift up a voice against her?—and he was free! He looked at the girl's profile against the crimson sunset, and asked himself, Was he free? Had he not, like all her acquaintance, fallen under the spell of this charming, bewitching, destroying Angel? What was she thinking about as she sat motionless, her face turned fixedly towards the West—that she would return to the West once more? No, no, no. He would never suffer her to pass into Lady Augusta's hands again.
Suddenly the impulse came upon him there and then—he determined to speak.
"What do you say?" she asked. "Have you anything to suggest—any alternative?" and her eyes were full of frank earnestness.
"Yes," he replied, "that you remain out here."
"How? Do you mean with Mrs. Gordon?—what an awful incubus for her—always."
"No—Angel——" and, as he spoke, he took off his cap and twisted it in his hands, and stood before her bare-headed. "But as—my wife."
"Wife," she repeated, and a flood of colour rushed into her face. "Of course, this is a joke," she exclaimed, rising and speaking with a firm, almost passionate dignity.
"No—you and I are old friends, Angel—I—see—I've rather startled you—but I've been considering this question for some time. I'm seventeen years older than you are—I'm not the sort of lover—or husband you might naturally expect—but I'll do—my very best to make you happy."