At that instant, as if in reply to her uncompleted sentence, came the rush and scamper of a long-bodied, four-footed creature across the crackly ground.
“Solomon!” exclaimed Philippa, with mingled joy and dismay. “My dear boy, where have you come from? And how did you know I was here?” for that he did recognise her and was full of delight at the meeting, was only too evident! He jumped up on her, he pawed her, he snuffed her, ending by trotting off a few paces and looking back wistfully with unmistakable invitation in his affectionate eyes.
Half thoughtlessly Philippa followed him.
“Where do you want to go to?” she said, laughingly. “Do you think I don’t know the way back to the house?—And, by-the-by, I must be quick,” she added, “or I shall be too late for breakfast.”
But as this misgiving struck her she came to a sudden standstill.
Chapter Nine.
Mingled Feelings.
For there before her, as might most naturally have been expected, stood Solomon’s master, Mr Gresham the younger. He was clad in a rough shooting-suit, which, even in that moment of annoyance, struck Philippa as becoming him better than his more civilised attire of the day before.
“He is ugly,” she thought, “but far from insignificant. That square, sturdy sort of figure has something manly about it,” and as at that moment a slight involuntary smile parted his lips, and she caught sight of two rows of perfect teeth, another item in his favour was added to her estimate of the outer man of Michael Gresham.
So swiftly, however, did these impressions pass through her, that almost before she realised them she felt conscious of the vivid colour rushing to her face.
What was he smiling at?—or rather, what was he staring at, now that the smile had faded? Was there anything extraordinary in her appearance? Mechanically she raised her hand to her hair, which had indeed got blown out of the prim neatness which was an important part of her present personification, but it was not the touch of the truant locks which startled her fingers as they touched her face.