“I should like to get back as soon as my sister, if possible,” said Philippa. “I don’t want them to be frightened about me.”
She made no attempt at any explanation of the complications she had risked. She felt now a curious but satisfactory indifference to what her companion thought of the whole affair, rather perhaps an unacknowledged reliance on the kindliness of his judgment. And when he left her within fifty yards or so of the entrance to the Grange, and she had said good-bye, with a word of thanks, she felt amazed at herself.
“What am I made of?” she thought. “An hour ago I felt as if everything worth living for had gone from me—as if I could never trust any one again, or dare to believe in happiness. Is this a phase I must pass through? Will that terrible mortification and disappointment come back again blacker than ever?” She shivered as she thought of it. “Or,” as she stood still for a moment and looked after the sturdy figure of Michael Gresham striding away with little Solomon at his heels, “or am I only extraordinarily superficial and impressionable, or”—yet another “or”—“is there something invigorating about that man? He does feel so true.”
From whatever source her new-found strength had been derived, it stood her in good stead that evening.
Five minutes later the Merle dog-cart drove up, and Duke and Evelyn got down with disturbed faces, which scarcely cleared when they caught sight of her at the hall door, where she had purposely stationed herself to meet them.
“I am so glad I got home first,” she said. “I was afraid you might be uneasy about me. I have only just come in.”
“Uneasy,” repeated Evelyn in a peculiar tone of voice, as she came into the house, Captain Headfort remaining behind to say something to the groom who had accompanied them from Merle, after a furtive and somewhat self-conscious glance in his sister-in-law’s direction. ”‘Uneasy!’ that’s scarcely the word to use, Philippa, under the circumstances. You must know better than that surely.”
“What do you mean?” said Philippa, quietly, already scenting war. “Come into the drawing-room, there’s a good fire there, and I daresay you are feeling cold.”
She had felt uncertain how to meet Evelyn; a word of tenderness or sympathy would have disarmed her, and she would probably have given her sister the fullness of confidence she had been longing to pour out to her mother. But Mrs Headfort’s tone braced her to composure and dignity. For the moment, perhaps, she did not allow herself to do justice to the latter’s natural and by no means altogether selfish disappointment and anxiety.
“It is better,” Philippa thought quickly, “as some explanation is inevitable, to have it out at once, and done with, as far as Evey is concerned. Poor Evey!” she went on to herself, with a sudden revulsion of sympathy towards her sister, as her glance fell on the lines of distress which never seemed natural on Evelyn’s soft, childlike face. But to this sort of feeling she felt she must not yield, “Why are you annoyed with me, Evelyn?” she said, directly, “for of course I know you are so. It is better to speak plainly.”