"Wages, salary—what does it matter what you call them, when both merely mean pay for work performed.... I should like to do something for Madame de Moidrey in return. But she has many servants and a maid and a housekeeper. I thought I was to read to her, write letters for her, amuse her. But she sometimes reads to me and she and Peggy are teaching me to play tennis——" Philippa held out one narrow foot for his inspection. "And yesterday she ordered a horse for me, as well as for herself and her sister, and I wore one of Peggy's riding habits—knee breeches and boots, Jim; and they set me on a horse! That is the way I am earning my wages at the Château des Oiseaux!"
"Why complain?" he asked, much amused.
"Because I am unable to return such favors——"
"Don't worry; whatever they do for you brings its own recompense."
"How?"
"Has it never occurred to you that your society is agreeable, interesting, amusing, and desirable?"
"No," she said, honestly surprised.
"Well, it is! People like you. You yourself amply recompense anybody for anything done for you, by accepting the attentions offered."
"Do you think of me in that way?"
He hadn't quite understood until then that he did feel that way about her, but he felt it now so strongly that it seemed as though he had always been of that mind.