“If you don’t care for me, it can’t hurt you to look at me and say so. I will let you go the moment you do.”
“It’s very wrong of you to tempt me to tell a story,” said Philippa, with a sigh.
“By all means tell the truth, then.”
“But then you won’t let me go. There! I knew it.”
“Then you do care? Tell the truth, Phil.”
“Just a little.” For one moment the blue eyes met Mansfield’s, then they were hidden; but he was satisfied.
“Ugh! it is cold,” cried Usk, throwing his reins to a gorgeously apparelled groom. “What a blessing to get in out of this beastly wind!”
It was the second of January, and the genial, if unseasonable, weather of the past month had been succeeded by hard frosts and biting blasts, most difficult to cope with in a summer city like Damascus. Usk and Mr Judson dismounted from their horses and entered the hotel, stamping vigorously to warm their frozen feet.
“A cup of Phil’s hottest tea suggests itself as a suitable restorative,” Usk went on. “After all, there are some advantages in her choosing to sit over the stove with her young man instead of facing the wintry wind. Come in, Judson. The family party is assembled, you see. What!” with an instantaneous change of tone as his eye fell upon Philippa’s dark-blue habit and Mansfield’s leggings, “you unblushing pair of frauds, do you mean to say that you went out, after all?”
“Oh, we had a little ride on our own account,” said Philippa calmly.