“How nice of Mr. Alvin!” said Mrs. Barrimore. “But where are your uncle and Dan?”
“Just behind,” said Philip. “I left them talking to some parson at the gate. I did not know him, and I came in for fear of an introduction. I never hit it off with parsons somehow!”
During dinner Philip astonished everyone by speaking freely of the Alvins: speaking as if he had never been so intimately, so tragically near to them. Mrs. Barrimore admired what she thought his splendid self-control. Dan was hurt at what he considered the man’s callousness. Uncle Robert said to himself: “I was right. The wound is healed.” Phyllis was too much interested in watching Dan to attend to Philip’s remarks.
“I think,” said Philip, in his “laying-down-the-law” tone, “that Alvin ought to leave the neighborhood now Miss Le Breton has recovered her reason, and give her a chance. Here everyone knows of her former condition.”
“I quite agree with you, dear Philip,” said his mother. (When did she not agree with dear Philip?) “No one will call on them, because Miss Le Breton is so beautiful, and they would be afraid for their sons. The poor girl should scarcely marry.”
“She is beautiful,” rejoined Philip critically, “but not necessarily a danger on that account. Men like to toy with a beautiful woman, but those who are sensible think twice about marrying them. For my part, I think if ever I chose to marry, it would not be a beautiful woman I should make my wife.”
“How bravely he hides his wound!” thought Mrs. Barrimore.
“Old Alvin is not the brute I imagined,” went on Philip to the table generally. “He talked to me as we drove along, almost entirely of Miss Le Breton. He is profoundly anxious about her future. He seemed very fond of her, I thought. After all, those two women have no claim on him whatever. He can’t be a bad sort to voluntarily burden himself with them.”
“I entirely disagree with you on that point, Philip,” broke out Uncle Robert. “Both women had a natural claim on the money Thomas Alvin has become possessed of. I am glad Alvin had the grace to see it.”
“The odd thing is,” went on Philip, ignoring somewhat impolitely his uncle’s observation. “The odd thing is, that Miss Le Breton is fond of this uncouth Colonial—I gathered that.”