“It was only for one instant,” said Nina, appealingly. “He asked me to tell you—they are leaving to-morrow morning—to tell you that he will call this evening to say good-bye, and he hopes he may see us.”
Lettice’s face had grown harder.
“I thought they were already gone,” she said, as if speaking to herself. Then second thoughts intervened. “I suppose we must see him. I don’t want to be rude. Besides, he is a friend of Godfrey’s. Yes; perhaps you had better tell Marianne that if he calls she can let him in.”
The permission was not too gracious, but it was more than Nina had hoped for.
“It is evidently for Godfrey’s sake,” she reflected. “And yet, when he was here, Lettice was so seldom the least pleasant to him.”
Philip did call. He was nervous, and yet with a certain determination about him that impressed Lettice in spite of herself, and she felt exceedingly glad to hear him repeat that he and his sister were leaving the next morning.
“I shall look forward to seeing you again, before very long, in England,” he said manfully, as he got up to go.
“I don’t know much about our plans,” said Lettice, and her tone was not encouraging. “We have only taken a house for the summer. I don’t know what we shall do then.”
“Faxleham is not so very far from my part of the country,” said Philip.
“Is it not?” said Lettice suspiciously; and she looked at Mr Dexter in a way that made the young man’s face flush slightly. He was one of those fair-complexioned men who change colour almost as quickly as a girl, and whose good looks are to themselves entirely destroyed by their persistent boyishness. At five and twenty he looked little more than nineteen.