"Good night, my son."
Philip kissed his fingers.
Followed a week of disturbing trivialities. Mr. Bancroft was more often in Little Fittledean than at home, and most often at Sharley House. He there met Philip, not once, but many times, hostile and possessive. He laughed softly, and sought to engage Philip in a war of wits, but Philip's tongue was stiff and reluctant. So Mr. Bancroft made covert sport of him and renewed his attentions to Cleone.
Cleone herself was living in a strange whirl. There was much in Mr. Bancroft that displeased her; I do not think she ever had it in her mind to wed him, which was perhaps fortunate, as Mr. Bancroft certainly had it not in his. But homage is grateful to women, and ardent yet dainty love-making fascinating to the young. She played with Mr. Bancroft, but thought no less of Philip. Yet Philip contrived to irritate her. His air of ownership, his angry, reproachful looks, fired the spirit of coquetry within her. Mastery thrilled her, but a mastery that offered to take all, giving nothing, annoyed her. That Philip loved her to distraction, she knew; also she knew that Philip would expect her to bend before his will. He would not change, it would be she who must conform to his pleasure. Philip was determined to remain as he was, faithful but dull. She wanted all that he despised: life, gaiety, society, and frivolity. She weighed the question carefully, a little too carefully for a maid in love. She wanted Philip and she did not want him. As he was, she would have none of him; as she wished him to be, he might have her. But for the present she was no man's, and no man had the right to chide her. Philip had made a mistake in his wooing in showing her how much his own he thought her. All unwitting, he was paving the way to his own downfall.
Despite the lisping conceit of Mr. Bancroft, his polished phrases and his elegancy when compared with Philip's brusqueness threw Philip in the shade. Mr. Bancroft could taunt and gibe at Philip, sure of triumph; Philip tied his tongue in knots and relapsed into silence, leaving Mr. Bancroft to shine in his victory. The man Cleone chose to wed must be a match for all, with words or swords. Cleone continued to smile upon Mr. Bancroft.
At the end of the week the trouble came to a head. In the garden of Sharley House, before Cleone, Mr. Bancroft threw veiled taunts at Philip, and very thinly veiled sneers. He continued to hold the younger man's lack of polish up to scorn, always smiling and urbane.
Cleone recognised the gleam in Philip's eye. She was a little frightened and sought to smooth over the breach. But when she presently retired to the house, Philip arrested Mr. Bancroft, who was following.
"A word with you, sir."
Bancroft turned, brows raised, lips curled almost sneeringly.
Philip stood very straight, shoulders squared.