In the course of the early spring, news of Mr Hilton’s death came to the travellers, and then Philippa, who had hitherto avoided talk of Harry, allowed herself to launch forth into an account of what he had given up for his father’s sake.
“And the poor man so irritable! I dare say it was caused by illness, but really he made every one’s life a burden. Harry’s patience was not to be told.”
Claudia expressed no opinion, but she listened. Further, she sent a message to Mrs Hilton and her son, and, that being over, appeared to forget them. She and Philippa left Rome in April, and travelled so as to reach London by the middle of May, going for two or three days to a hotel in South Kensington. There, on the morning after their return, Harry Hilton walked in.
This time the girl showed no displeasure; it seemed to Philippa that she looked at him with an air of reflection. Philippa herself hailed him with delight.
“I am so tired of taking care of myself!” she announced one morning, “and as Claudia allows me no conveyance more luxurious than a ’bus—in which she flatters herself she is paying homage to Socialism—I am thankful to have a man to find the right one.”
Claudia laughed gaily.
“There’s a mission for you!”
He did not seem to object. He went everywhere with them, and Philippa, reading in his face that he meant again to put his fate to the touch before long, grew nervous herself, uncertain whether to utter a warning or not. She dropped the idea, but it touched her to the quick when she pictured a second rebuff.
Their last morning they spent in the Park, where the rhododendrons were breaking into flower. Philippa met with an old friend, and Harry suggested to Claudia that they should stroll on and look at the Serpentine. She assented without hesitation, yet, as they silently walked, side by side, something in the silence set her heart fluttering, and, to her amazement, she became conscious of a painful want of breath. She would have given a good deal to have spoken, to have gone back, but she dared not trust herself, for the strange excitement, for which she could not account, was depriving her of her self-possession. Just before, she had been calm, talking to Harry with the ease of an old friend, and now something—she knew not what—had raised an unexpected tumult, and swept the rudder out of her hand. There was a din in her ears, and suddenly she heard his voice, hoarse and changed—
“Only give me one crumb of hope to live upon. Claudia, can’t you love me?”