"No; I shall go home and write some letters, maybe, now I think of it. So good-night."
Philip's "Good-night" was more curt than courteous, and he made his way to the club, where, according to his habit, he crouched his small form into one of the great chairs, drawing his head down between his shoulders, which were thrust upward by the resting of his elbows on the chair-arms. Here he sat long, taking no part in any conversation, but watching the smoke from his cigar.
The next morning he came late to breakfast, and his mother lingered after the rest had left the table, to see that his coffee and chops were right and to mitigate his apparent depression.
"Your little match-making scheme is likely to succeed beautifully," he said to her when the servant had gone.
"What do you mean? I'm sure I had no views of that kind in asking Charley Millard and Phillida. I only wished to encourage Phillida to go more into society."
"Views or no views, what it'll come to will be a match," Philip retorted.
"Well, there'll be no harm done, I suppose."
"Not if you think Charley the best man for her."
There was something of dejection in the tone of this last remark, and a note of reproach to her, that rendered Mrs. Gouverneur uneasy. When Philip had left the table she revolved it in her mind. Was Philip himself in love with Phillida? Or did he know anything to the disadvantage of Millard?
"Tell Mr. Philip I wish to see him before he goes out," she said to one of the maids.