“Some other time, perhaps, I may be more fortunate,” he murmured, and mentally contrasting him with his cousin, by no means to the latter’s advantage, Evelyn thanked him with graceful cordiality.
All this was what she now had to relate to her sister.
“Did you ever hear of such a lucky escape, by the skin of our teeth?” she concluded, with exuberant self-congratulation; and Philippa, lying there pale and fagged-looking after her rare fit of violent crying, could not but agree with her.
“I don’t know,” she said, wearily, “I don’t know what we should have done if he had travelled with us in the same train. It would have been worse now for it all to have been found out than even at the beginning, now when we are within forty-eight hours of being safe at home! Oh dear, dear! I am sure I shall never want to leave it again. I wish I had not gone to Dorriford; somehow that seems to have begun it all. The meeting Mr Gresham there!”
“You are too depressing,” said Evelyn, impatiently, “instead of being delighted that I managed to get out of it so beautifully.”
“I don’t quite see that you did get out of it,” said Philippa, rather maliciously; “as far as I understand, it seems to have been Michael Gresham who came to the rescue.”
“No thanks to him,” said Evelyn; “it was very horrid and interfering of him. I do believe he is jealous of his cousin. And I was forgetting to tell you that afterwards I believe he was conscious of having seemed very disagreeable, for he came and sat down beside me and began talking far more nicely than he has ever done yet, rather as if he wanted to ‘make up,’ you know.”
“I don’t quite know why you have taken a dislike to him,” said Philippa, listlessly. “I should think he’s nice in some ways, kind-hearted perhaps, or else his dog wouldn’t be so fond of him.”
“I don’t know how you can judge,” said Evelyn; “you have only seen him in the train.”
Philippa did not reply. She was up again by this time, and busying herself as usual with the preparations of Evelyn’s evening attire, and before her sister left her, a promise had been extracted that the girl would not sit up till Evelyn’s reappearance that night.