The last pink rays of the sun fell across the little iron table, flooding the garden with an enchanted light: already the evening perfume of clove pinks had become exquisitely apparent; a belated bumblebee blundered out of the reseda and, rising high in the calm air, steered his bullet flight into the west. Ariadne, on the table, stretched herself, yawned, and looked about her, now thoroughly awake for the rest of the night.
"Minette!" murmured Philippa, caressing her and laying her cheek against the soft fur.
"You are sunburned," remarked Halkett.
"And badly freckled, Monsieur——" She looked mischievously at Warner, laughed at their secret agreement concerning cosmetics, then turned again to Halkett:
"You have heard, I suppose, of the happy understanding between Mr. Warner and me?"
"I think so," said Halkett, subduing an inclination to laugh.
"The future, for me, is entirely secure," continued Philippa happily. "I am permitted to assist Mr. Warner in his art. It is a very wonderful future, Mr. Halkett, destined for me without doubt by God." She added, half to herself: "And a lifetime on my knees would be too short a time to thank Him in."
Both men became silent and constrained, Warner feeling more helpless than ever in the face of such tranquil confidence; Halkett remembering what Warner had once said about the soul of Philippa—but still pleasantly and gently inclined to skepticism concerning this fille de cabaret.
Philippa, leaning forward on the table between them, joined her slender hands and looked at Warner.
"It is pleasant to be accepted as a friend by such men as you are," she said thoughtfully.... "I have met other gentlemen of your station in life, now and then. But their attitude toward me has been different from yours.... I once supposed that, in a cabaret, all men resembled each other where women were concerned. I have been very happily mistaken."