“I have enjoyed myself so much,” she said, as she put on her hat.
“I meant you to enjoy yourself,” returned Mrs. Cheyne, quietly, as she drew the girl’s face down to hers. “I have given you such a bad impression that you look on me as a sort of moral bugbear. I can be very different, when I like, and I have liked to be agreeable to-night.” And then this strange woman took up a rich cashmere shawl from the couch where she was lying, and folded it around Phillis’s shoulders. “The evenings are chilly. Jeffreys can bring this back with her;” for Mrs. Cheyne had already decided that this time her maid should accompany Phillis to the cottage. 245
Phillis laughed in an amused fashion as she saw the reflection of herself in one of the mirrors: her figure looked quite queenly enveloped in the regal drapery. “She has forgotten all about the dressmaking,” she thought to herself, as she tripped downstairs.
It was a lovely moonlight evening; the avenue was white and glistening in the soft light; the trees cast weird shadows on the grass. Phillis was somewhat surprised to see in the distance Mr. Dancy’s tall figure pacing to and fro before the lodge-gate. He was evidently waiting for her; for as she approached he threw away his cigar and joined her at once. Jeffreys, who thought he was some old acquaintance, dropped behind very discreetly, after the manner of waiting-women.
“How long you have stayed this evening! I have been walking up and down for more than an hour, watching for you,” he began, with curious abruptness.
This and no more did Jeffreys hear before she lingered out of earshot. The lady’s maid thought she perceived an interesting situation, and being of a susceptible and sympathetic temperament, with a blighted attachment of her own, there was no fear of her intruding. Phillis looked around once, but Jeffreys was absorbed in her contemplations of the clouds.
“I thought you were never coming,” he continued; and then he stopped all at once, and caught hold of the fringe of the shawl. “This is not yours: I am sure I have seen Magdalene in it. Pshaw! what am I saying? the force of old habit. I knew her once as Magdalene.”
“It is dreadfully heavy, and, after all, the evening is so warm,” returned Phillis, taking no notice of this incoherent speech.
“Let me carry it,” he rejoined, with singular eagerness; “it is absurd, a wrap like that on such a night.” And, while Phillis hesitated, he drew the shawl from her shoulders and hung it over his arm, and all the way his disengaged right hand rested on the folds, touching it softly from time to time, as though the mere feeling of the texture pleased him.
“How was she to-night?” he asked, coming a little closer to Phillis, and dropping his voice as he spoke.