"Philip!" he said, with a frown of irritation. "What has Philip to do with it?"
"He arrives to-night by the London train."
He resumed his walk beside her, in silence, pushing his bicycle. Had she done it of malice prepense? No—impossible! He had only telegraphed his own movements to her late on the previous evening, much too late to make any sudden arrangement with Philip, who was coming from an Eastern county.
"He is coming to find out your plans?"
"I suppose so. But I have no plans."
He stole a look at her. Yes—there was change in her, even since they had met last:—a richer, intenser personality, suggested by a new self-mastery. She seemed to him older—and a thought remote. Fears flew through him. What had been passing in her mind since he had seen her last? or in Philip's? Had he been fooled after all by those few wild words from Peter, which had reached him in Lancashire, bidding him catch his opportunity, or rue the loss of it for ever?
She saw the effervescence in him die down, and became gracious at once. Especially because they were now in sight of the inn, and of Lucy Friend sitting in the little garden beside the road. Geoffrey pulled himself together, and prepared to play the game that Helena set him, until the afternoon and the walk she could not deny him, should give him his chance.
The little meal passed gaily, and after it Lucy Friend watched—not without trepidation—Helena's various devices for staving off the crisis. She had two important letters to write; she must go and watch Mr. McCready sketching, as she had promised to do, or the old fellow would never forgive her; and finally she invited the fuming M.P. to fish the preserved water with her, accompanied by the odd-man as gilly. At this Geoffrey's patience fairly broke. He faced her, crimson, in the inn parlour; forgetting Lucy altogether and standing in front of the door, so that Lucy could not escape and could only roll herself in a curtain and look out of the window.
"I didn't come here to fish, Helena—or to sketch—but simply and solely to talk to you! And I have come a long way. Suppose we take a walk?"
Helena eyed him. She was a little pale—but composed.