She looked up with her pretty, half-startled eyes, a slight pink rising to her cheeks, as she held out her hand.
“You have heard from Evelyn more recently than I have done, then,” she said. “Were they all well? Did she give you any ‘family’”—with a smile—“news?”
Mr Gresham was inwardly triumphant. How well he had managed this first introductory move! Nothing could have happened better than the whole combination of events. Here, at Cannes, a few days would be worth weeks elsewhere; the life was so much less formal, the opportunities of meeting so much more frequent and less observed. He would have ample time in which to judge further of this girl, whose strong individuality, whose “uncommonness” had even at first sight so attracted him, ferré à glace though he believed himself, and that not altogether without reason, in such matters.
So he at once stepped on to the platform which his own tact, and Philippa’s simplicity, and circumstances, the accidental isolation in which she momentarily found herself for one, had erected.
“News,” he said, pleasantly; “oh, dear, yes, any amount. The actual reason of my being honoured with a letter just now was that Mrs Headfort thought it would interest me, which it certainly does, extremely, to hear that she and Duke are going up to Wyverston next week.”
Philippa’s eyes sparkled.
“Are they really?” she said. “I had not heard of it. At least I knew that they were to go some time or other, but I fancied not till I—father and I, I should say—were home again.”
She was so interested that all her constraint and self-consciousness disappeared. Nothing could have suited Mr Gresham better. His superior information from Greenleaves put him in the position of being applied to by Miss Raynsworth, and set her and himself at once on friendly and almost confidential relations.
He glanced round. They were still both standing, and near Lady Mary, who was eagerly talking to Miss Lermont, and not noticing any one else’s movements. There were no seats close at hand, but some tempting wicker lounges stood just outside on the balcony, on to which opened the long low windows.
“Won’t you come outside?” said Mr Gresham. “It is crowded in here; and then I can glance through what Mrs Headfort says.”