“Of course he is,” Philippa interrupted. “Helen likes him quite as much as I do.”
“Does he make love to Helen, too?” Sir Henry ventured.
“Don't talk nonsense!” Philippa retorted. “He isn't that sort of a man at all. If he has made love to me, he has done so because I have encouraged him, and if I have encouraged him, it is your fault.”
Sir Henry, with an impatient exclamation, rose from his place and took a cigarette from an open box.
“Quite time I stayed at home, I can see. All the same, the fellow's rather a puzzle. I can't help wondering how he succeeded in making such an easy conquest of a lady who has scarcely been notorious for her flirtations, and a young woman who is madly in love with another man. He hasn't—”
“Hasn't what?”
“He hasn't,” Sir Henry continued, blowing out the match which he had been holding to his cigarette and throwing it away, “been in the position of being able to render you or Helen any service, has he?”
“I don't understand you,” Philippa replied, a little uneasily.
“There's nothing to understand,” Sir Henry went on. “I was simply trying to find some explanation for his veni, vidi, vici.”
“I don't think you need go any further than the fact,” Philippa observed, “that he is well-bred, charming and companionable.”