“Yes,” Philippa replied, “I did. But they are not here?”
There was the slightest possible—so slight that at the time Miss Lermont thought her ears must have misled her—inflection of anxiety in the girl’s tone as she made the inquiry.
“Here—yes indeed, very much here,” Maida replied. “Captain Bertram and Lady Mary, and all the five children, and an army of governesses, and nurses, and maids, and horses, and grooms. They are very rich, you know. And they have had friends visiting them or coming to be near them, all the time, several of whom we knew, so that has helped to extend our acquaintance here. Oh, yes, by-the-by, that Mr Gresham, ‘the silent man,’ as we called him, is staying with them now. He has just arrived; do you remember him one day at Dorriford? I had forgotten about it, but he asked me when he called with Lady Mary, if I had heard from you lately, and—”
Philippa interrupted her.
“Evelyn and Duke have been staying with him,” she said, speaking with studied deliberateness; “that must have reminded him of me, as Evey is far too fond of talking about me.”
She did not turn away as she spoke, and her whole manner was peculiarly calm, but to Miss Lermont’s amazement the colour surged up into her cheeks, leaving them again as suddenly—she herself apparently unconscious, or determined to appear unconscious, that it was so.
Maida felt completely taken aback. She was not of an inquisitive frame of mind, and was eminently unsuspicious when she had once learnt to give her confidence. But she was very observant by nature, and as has been already mentioned, in her peculiar, semi-invalid life, the post of spectator had often fallen to her, and she had come to feel great interest in the affairs of her neighbours—interest which in an inferior class of mind might have degenerated into love of gossip. And aware of this danger, Miss Lermont was specially careful to keep her concern for “other people’s business” well within bounds, even where conscious that real affection and sympathy prompted her.
So for a moment or two she hesitated before putting to Philippa the question that most naturally rose to her lips. Then an instant’s reflection showed her that the refraining from so simple an inquiry would of itself suggest some possibly annoying suspicion.
“Have you never seen him again, then? Somehow his manner seemed to imply that he knew more of you than that one afternoon’s introduction, when he did not distinguish himself by either ‘feast of reason or flow of soul.’”
Before Philippa replied, her cousin felt that she hesitated. Yet nothing could be more straightforward than her reply when it came.