“That was nothing. Mrs Wharton’s very nice, isn’t she? I’m very sorry they’re leaving to-morrow.”
“Are they? I hope I shall see them again before they go. Wharton’s a rare good sort although he’s a parson. Don’t look shocked. I’m afraid I don’t get on with ‘the cloth’ over well. I daresay it’s my own fault though.”
“I daresay it is,” she returned with a laugh.
During the latter days of his captivity Philip had not been without visitors. The British subject, when outside his (or her) native land, is the proprietor of a far more abundant and spontaneous fount of the milk of human kindness than when hedged around by the stovepipe-hat-cum-proper-introductions phase of respectability within the confines of the same. Several of the people sojourning in the hotel had looked in upon the weary prisoner to lighten the irksomeness of his confinement with a little friendly chat, and foremost among them had been Mrs Daventer.
“Are you doing anything particular this morning, Mrs Daventer? Because, if not, I wish you’d get a chair—I can’t get one for you, you see—and sit and talk to me,” said Phil, in that open, taking manner of his that rendered him almost as attractive to the other sex as his handsome face and fine physique.
“Well, I suppose I must,” she answered with a smile.
“It would be a real act of Christian charity. And—”
He broke off in confused amazement, caused by the arrival of a third person upon the scene. “A good-looking girl,” was his mental verdict. “Wentworth was right, by Jove!”
“Laura, dear, see if there are any chairs in the hall,” said Mrs Daventer. “Thanks, love,” she went on, as her daughter returned, bearing a light garden-chair. “Mr Orlebar claims that it is a Christian duty on our part to sit and gossip with him. I suppose one must concede him the privileges of an invalid.”
“I am glad your ankle is so much better,” said the girl, quite unaffectedly, but with the slightest possible tinge of shyness, which added an indescribable piquancy to her rich Southern type of beauty. “It must be so hideously trying to see every one else going about enjoying themselves, while you feel yourself literally chained.”