“Well, perhaps,” she said to herself, “perhaps I may go there some time or other without any misgiving. It will be curious if I never come across Solomon’s master again. He was kind, after all, though rather gruff about it. And I am sure he is to be relied upon. But the feeling of being there with him, knowing that he knew, and that he knew I knew he knew! Oh, it would be insufferable.”
She made a gesture as if to shake off the very thought of such a thing. But her nerves and spirits were fast recovering themselves. Charley’s plan had been a grand success. Mr Raynsworth and his daughter had enjoyed themselves to their heart’s content—nor had they been idle. Philippa had taken her part in all her father’s researches and explorings, for the new book he had in view dealt largely with the history of the old Italian towns which they had been staying at, one after the other, since leaving home.
Three months fled only too quickly. At the expiration of that time, just as they were deciding, not without reluctance, that they must turn homewards—for with all the good management in the world money develops very slippery qualities in travelling!—a letter from Cannes somewhat altered their plans. It was from Miss Lermont, with whom, since her visit to Dorriford, Philippa had kept up a regular correspondence, so that Maida was quite au courant of her young relative’s whereabouts.
The Lermonts had been spending the winter, or a part of it, in the south, and now, by her father’s and mother’s request, she wrote to beg Mr Raynsworth and his daughter to join them in their villa for two or three weeks.
“I do not see why we should not do so,” said Mr Raynsworth, “I should like to see something more of the Lermonts, and the quiet time would enable me to arrange my papers and notes a little better than it has been possible to do so far. They seem all right at home—eh, Philippa?—and you would like a week or two with Maida?”
“Very much, very much indeed,” his daughter replied.
So it came to pass that it was not at Dorriford, but in the sunny south that Philippa met again the friend she had already learnt to prize.
“You are changed, Philippa,” said her cousin, the first morning when they were strolling about in the pretty garden of the Lermonts’ villa. “Changed somehow, though I scarcely can say how.”
“Am I?” said the girl, “and yet it is only six months, barely that indeed, since you saw me last.”
But she was changed, and the consciousness of it made her colour deepen, even though she knew how much more cause for her remark Maida would have had, had they met before Philippa’s winter in Italy.