“Ah, I have put that off,” said Madge, “I am rather busy!”
“A pity, surely.”
“Well, I have sent the note, I am afraid. Good-night, mother, in case I am in first.”
Philip had already arrived when she got to her cousin’s house, and they went down to dinner. Lord Ellington had got the news of the evening feverishly mixed up in his head, and was disposed to mingle fragments of Stock Exchange with it, forgetful, apparently, that this had been relegated to his wife. But his natural incoherence redeemed the situation, and when dinner was over it was already time to start for the opera. While Gladys got her cloak, however, the two lovers had a few private minutes, as the master of the house remained in the dining-room when they went out. Philip had sent her that day a diamond pendant which she was wearing now.
“It is too good of you, Philip,” she said, “and I can’t tell you how I value it. It is most beautiful. But why should you always be sending me things?”
Philip was usually serious, and always sincere.
“Because I can’t help it,” he said. “I must give you signs of what I feel, and even these clumsy, material signs are something.”
That sincerity touched the girl.
“I know what you feel,” she said. “I want to have it never absent from my mind. I want to think of nothing else but that.”
This was sincere too, the outcome of this long day of thought. But Philip came a little closer to her, and his voice vibrated as he spoke.