“If you had offended me,” she replied with a look which was yet more convincing than her words, “the question would have been unnecessary.”
Their steps had lingered, had become slower and slower, till now they stopped by the corner of the house which just screened them from Harlberg and Galabin.
“You are too good,” Von Tressen said in a half whisper, “to let me speak to you like this. You will not forget, Fräulein, if ever you are in trouble, you owe me the privilege of coming to your help.”
She gave a little laugh which stopped short of gaiety. “Let us hope,” she said, “it will not be necessary.”
“And if it be?”
“Then I shall call you.”
There was earnest beneath the half jest, and each intuitively recognized it, although perhaps neither quite imagined how near the surface it lay. As Philippa spoke the last words she put out her hand to emphasize, as it were, the promise. Von Tressen grasped it in both his, and was lifting it to his lips, when he suddenly raised his bent head almost in dismay. Philippa had snatched her hand back. A shadow darkened the angle of the wall, and Count Zarka stood before them, the ever-ready smile on his face, this time a smile of detection.
“You are fond of playing hide and seek, gnädige Fräulein,” he said.
CHAPTER X
WHO IS THIS MAN?
“Your taste, my dear Osbert, is unimpeachable,” Galabin remarked as they left the farm; “the Fräulein is delightful. And yet——”