"I do ask you."
Philippa looked at Warner, then lifted her grey eyes to the elder woman.
"You are very kind, Madame. I—it will be a great happiness to me if you accept my services."
The Countess de Moidrey regarded her, still retaining her hands, still smiling.
"You have a very sweet way of making the acceptance mine and not yours," she said. "Let us accept each other, Philippa. Will you?"
"You are most kind, Madame——"
"Can kindness win you?"
"Madame, it has already."
The American widow of the recent Count de Moidrey felt a curious sensation of uncertainty in the quiet self-possession of this young girl—in her serenity, in her modulated voice and undisturbed manner.
An odd idea persisted that the graciousness was not entirely on her own part; that there was something even more subtle than graciousness on the part of this girl, whose delicate hands lay, cool and smooth, within her own.