They had to awaken the old lodge keeper, who pulled the chain from where he lay in bed.
Through the wicket and across the road they went, over a stile, and out across country where the fields flashed with dew and the last shreds of mist drifted high among the trees of the woods which they skirted.
Philippa wore her peasant dress—scarlet waist and skirt with the full, fine chemisette; and on her chestnut hair the close little bonnet of black velvet—called bonnet à quartiers or bonnet de béguin—an enchanting little headdress which became her so wonderfully that Warner found himself glancing at her again and again, wondering whether the girl's beauty was growing day by day, or whether he had never been properly awake to it.
Her own unconsciousness of herself was the bewitching part of her—nothing of that sort spoiled the free carriage of her slender, flexible body, of the lovely head carried daintily, of the grey eyes so clear, so intelligent, so candid, so sweet under the black lashes that fringed them.
"Very wonderful," he said aloud, unthinking.
"What?" asked Philippa.
He reddened and laughed:
"You—for purposes of a painter," he said. "I think, if you don't mind, I shall start a portrait of you when we return. I promised Madame de Moidrey, you know."
Philippa smiled:
"Do you really suppose she will hang it in that beautiful house of hers—there among all those wonderful and stately portraits? Wouldn't that be too much honor—to be placed with such great ladies——"