“May I show myself in?” said a voice in the doorway.
“If you please, ma’am,” she began, “there’s a gentleman called to see you. I told him you were very busy, but he would come in, while I told you. Mr Gresham is his name.”
“Where is he?” said Evelyn, getting up as she spoke, for she had been kneeling in front of a packing-case—her face rosier than usual. “What room did you show him into? Not into the drawing-room, assuredly,” she went on, with a laugh, to Philippa, “for it is blockaded with ladders and scaffolding, and—”
“May I not show myself in?” said a voice in the doorway. “I have only just come down and heard of your being here,” and so saying the new-comer came forward.
He shook hands cordially with Evelyn; the circumstances made anything like formality impossible, yet Philippa thought she detected a touch of constraint in his manner as he turned to her. For the moment she had not leisure to ask herself if this pained or gratified her; her whole efforts being devoted to the maintaining in herself an entirely calm exterior, and this Evelyn’s ready tact greatly assisted. She chatted merrily to Mr Gresham about the house, and the furniture, and their future plans, till her two companions grew completely at ease, to all outward appearance at least. But it was not till shortly before Mr Gresham left, that Philippa allowed herself to yield to the happy consciousness which had gilded the last days of her stay at Cannes.
For it was not fancy—he did hold her hand, for a moment longer than conventionality permitted, and though he addressed Evelyn as he made plans for meeting again on the morrow, it was Philippa’s eyes that his sought.
“Yes, you must all come over to luncheon,” he said, “and leave the packing-cases to themselves. I only wish you would come to Merle altogether while you are in the neighbourhood.”
Chapter Twenty Two.
On the Way to the Fish-Ponds.
During the next few days all outward circumstances seemed to combine in one direction. The weather was perfect; Evelyn the most tactful of chaperons; Merle itself surpassed in beauty all that the sisters had heard of it. Their host—for such he practically was, as nearly every day saw them Mr Gresham’s guests—quietly exerted all the powers he possessed to enhance the charms of his home. And Philippa lived in the sunshine of the present, in happy confidence as to the future.