‘If it must be.—Good-bye, sweetheart, I shall never forget,’ he said. And Carrie, as she raised her lips to his, smiled an almost happy smile.
They vowed at that moment an unspoken vow, and parted undoubtingly.
‘Come, dearest sir!’ said Carrie a moment later, when Phil was gone; ‘shall we return to London to-night—you and I?’
‘There! if you wish to see the last of him,’ said Sebastian. He pointed out to the courtyard, where the ostler had led out Phil’s horse.
‘Lord! what a temper the boy hath!’ said Sebastian, for Phil, without one backward look to the window where Carrie stood, gave a savage lash at the horse, which bounded out through the archway, and swung round the turn that led into the Wynford road with scant direction from its rider.
‘The Lord send him safe at Fairmeadowes,’ said Carrie softly, under her breath.
CHAPTER XXIII
Carrie and her father found it a little difficult to explain her sudden flight to Lady Mallow; but they patched up some sort of story that held together after a fashion, and before very long her Ladyship had forgotten all about Carrie’s escapade, as she considered it.
Carrie meantime had returned to London with her father, and the time passed slowly enough at first. But Carrie had not the nature that broods over the inevitable, and she quieted her heart better than most girls of her age would have done in the same trying circumstances. There were all the cheerful businesses of home to attend to—Carrie was a notable housekeeper,—and these, after the forced idleness and gentility of her stay at Lady Mallow’s, seemed doubly delightful. It was much more agreeable to eat the pasties and cakes of one’s own making, she thought, than those prepared by the most practised cook, and, moreover, there was a new and inspiring thought at work in Carrie’s brain. Some day she would be cooking all these good things for Philip! She did not stop to consider that Phil, like Lady Mallow, had servants to cook for him, so every day she would be trying new dishes, till Sebastian complained that the cuisine was too rich for his simple tastes, and Carrie blushed, and murmured something about her book of recipes. The afternoons, when her father was busy and her housekeeping labours were over for the day, were the longest time to get through. Carrie would take her needlework then and sit by the window, but she found plenty time for thought while she sewed, and her thoughts seemed always to travel in the direction of Wynford. Had Phil gone back to Oxford yet? she wondered; or was it possible he was come to town? When could she see him again? What was he doing? All the ingeniously ridiculous questions and suppositions of lovers passed through her head in these long afternoons of sewing. In the evenings Sebastian would take her out to walk or to the play, and Carrie could not be insensible of the admiration she excited in public places. Then summer wore away and winter was come. Carrie indulged in some new and very becoming winter garments, and was more fidgety than was her wont over the fit and the style of them. When these were ready she persuaded her father one fine Saturday afternoon to take her for an airing in the Mall. Sebastian hesitated a little, and professed himself too busy, but at last consented, and Carrie—exquisitely bewitching in her furry hood—walked at a slow pace down the Mall by his side, the admired of all admirers. Now there exists between some people a mysterious sympathy—telepathy, we call it in the nineteenth century, in the eighteenth it was not named—which premonishes them of meeting, just as the quicksilver in an aneroid will foretell the weather of the coming day. When Carrie dressed herself in all her bravery, and prayed her father for his escort, she was convinced deep down in her heart that she would meet Phil that day. She had no reason whatever to suppose that he was in town; she had walked out every day since they parted and never met him, but to-day she felt certain she would do so. It came to her therefore as no surprise to hear her father say—
‘Carrie, there comes Philip Meadowes.’ She did not need to be admonished of the fact.