He did not wish for any great preponderance of brains or culture. There were times when Miss Raynsworth struck him as having been too severely educated for his standard. Femininity was his sine quâ non. So long as a little Greek and Latin, some notion of mathematics even, did not unduly harden or stiffen a woman, he would not exactly object to them, though any approach to obtrusive learning he strongly deprecated. But Philippa was too unaffected, too self-forgetful, to jar him by any such putting forward of her acquirements—acquirements which, in contrast with the real learning of her father and brother, seemed to her, as indeed they were, but the merest sips of the “spring.” And above all, he was so sure of her perfect propriety—there was no slightest taint of “fastness” or “loudness,” or any such horror, in this irreproachable girl, no love of eccentricity or Bohemianism, no possibility of mad escapades turning up in which she had taken a part!
“No,” thought the master of Merle, “there could be no risk—no risk whatever in it. Of course, people would be surprised at the marriage, but what do I care for that! Everybody knows,” and he smiled half cynically; “everybody knows that my possibilities of choice have not been restricted.”
And this was certainly true.
Nor would it be fair to accuse the young man of fatuity, inasmuch as he was little troubled by any misgiving as to his personal acceptability to Miss Raynsworth, should he decide to go through with his suit. He had every possible grounds for believing in it; he knew himself to be attractive and good-looking far beyond the average; he believed himself also to be affectionate and endowed with all the qualifications for making a good husband (though he did not add, “to a wife who would see everything through his eyes and have no will but his”); and so far—for this résumé of Mr Gresham’s views of the whole situation is somewhat ante-dated—that is to say, as the day drew near for Philippa and her father to leave Cannes, he had no reason to doubt that the young girl liked his society, and was in a fair way to feeling still more attracted by him.
This fortnight in the beautiful south was propitious in the extreme to pleasant projects. The weather was faultless, and not as hot as is sometimes the case, even early in the spring. The circle of residents and visitors, to whom the Lermonts had come temporarily to belong, seemed specially anxious to make the last weeks of their southern sojourn agreeable. Scarcely a day passed without some plan being set on foot for diversion or amusement in which even Maida could take part, and few, if any, guessed how many of these were really skilfully initiated by Mr Gresham, who was well aware that it would have been of little use to try to decoy Philippa away from her cousin.
So there was no question of balls or large evening parties for the girl. Such would have been quite out of her father’s line; nor could she have expected Mrs Lermont, quietly congratulating herself that such exertions for herself were over, to have begun again the arduous duties of chaperon. One exception only in this direction was made, and that was in the case of a large private dance on the very eve of the Raynsworths’ departure, at which kind Lady Mary Bertram set her heart on Philippa’s appearing. But before this there had been gaieties, or what seemed such to the young girl, in constant succession, and such as she had little dreamt of taking part in when she left home.
Her letters to Evelyn described fully all that was going on, and Evelyn’s spirits rose high.
“Nothing could be better,” she said to her mother, just as she herself was starting with her husband for Wyverston. “Now, mamma, was I not sensible when I made you get and send her those two new dresses, as soon as we heard of the Cannes visit?”
And Mrs Raynsworth could not but agree with her. “I don’t suppose it could ever have occurred to Mrs Lermont to give her the pretty blue evening-dress Phil is so pleased with, unless she had arrived with one or two decent things. It would have been just like her and papa to say they had nothing but travelling clothes with them, and could go nowhere and see nobody. I cannot tell you how delighted I am for the poor dear to have some fun at last. And,” she added to herself, “to see something of Bernard Gresham,” though she dared not say this, in so many words, to her mother!
Picnics were among the favourite amusements of the moment at Cannes, and picnics on the luxurious scale that these were carried out were new to Philippa, whose only experience of out-of-doors entertainments was a holiday tea-drinking in the Marlby woods, when one old donkey carried on his back the whole material part of the repast. After two or three of these expeditions she found, it is true, that they began to pall a little. Still, it was always a pleasure to be with Maida, especially in the charming surroundings of lovely scenery and weather; and, more, probably, than she would have allowed herself to own, never did Mr Gresham show to greater advantage than on these occasions. His tact was wonderful; without making her or himself in the least conspicuous he yet succeeded in giving her the feeling that she was never forgotten, that her amusement and enjoyment were his first consideration, and that once satisfied that these were insured, his own pleasure was complete. No girl, certainly no girl of Philippa’s sensitive and responsive nature, could have been unconscious of this subtle and delicate consideration; to her, singularly free from vanity in any form, unspoilt and unselfish, there was something almost intoxicating in this refinement of homage.