“Have you twisted your ankle?” he was beginning to ask, when he caught sight of one or two of the servants who had followed in a char-à-banc, and who were now busily unpacking the provisions, just emerging from the courtyard, as he and Philippa passed the entrance. And one of these, a middle-aged woman, unexceptionable in appearance as a superior maid, to his surprise stopped short, as if about to accost his companion.
“Miss Ray!” she exclaimed; “you here!” were the words that he thought he heard. And the two first, seeming so like the beginning of Philippa’s name, would probably not have struck him curiously—the woman might have been a former servant of the family’s for all he knew—but for the familiarity of the ejaculation that followed, a familiarity so unmistakable that he instinctively glanced past his companion as if in search of the person to whom they were addressed, so impossible did it seem to him that the woman was speaking to Miss Raynsworth.
But there was no one else behind or near themselves. And again he saw that Philippa’s face was still very pale, though she walked on rather more quickly than before, taking not the very slightest notice of the person who had spoken. And she on her side, after throwing a curious glance in Miss Raynsworth’s direction, in like manner passed on with her two or three companions.
“Did that woman speak to you? What did she say? Is she insane?” said Mr Gresham, in a tone of annoyance.
Philippa turned to him with a slight smile, but her lips were quivering a little.
“She—she certainly startled me,” she said. “I am afraid you will think I have no nerves at all. It is absurd to be so easily startled.”
“But she said your name, or something like it,” persisted Mr Gresham. “What could she have been thinking of?”
“I—I don’t think she said my name,” replied Philippa. “She must have—have taken me for some one else.”
Her companion felt strangely annoyed. There was something about Miss Raynsworth’s manner that he could not define. In spite of her having been so visibly startled, she did not seem “natural,” scarcely, in a sense, surprised at this curious incident, almost as if she were too absent-minded to have taken it in! Then a new and more agreeable explanation of her nervousness occurred to him. What had they been talking about just at the moment they met the woman? Yes, Miss Raynsworth was in the act of answering what he had said about her coming to Merle, perhaps that was it; perhaps, and the thought touched him with a certain tenderness, at that moment it had flashed upon her for the first time that he was beginning to care for her specially; that it was not every girl he would show himself so anxious to meet again; no wonder it was rather bewildering and startling. She was so unsophisticated, so free from vanity and that detestable aplomb of young women in society! Mr Gresham felt satisfied that he had hit the right nail on the head.
So though he muttered something about “impertinence,” “how could any one make such an extraordinary mistake,” his annoyance at the incident gradually subsided. Only for a moment or two it was in danger of reviving, as Philippa, shaking off her dreaminess with an effort, looked up quietly and inquired with perfect calm: