“I know, I know,” he said bitterly. “No one can fill her place, no one.” His face had grown suddenly wan and almost haggard, and Philip remembered in an instant the fair young wife of whom Lillie had said that she was as beautiful as an angel, and that she had only lived a year after their marriage. He stole up to Lord Ashden and slipped his small hand into his; the other turned and looked down upon him with a swift change of expression.
“Thanks, my little man; I think we understand each other, do we not? And see here, let us make a compact, with Dash as a witness, that from this day forward you and I shall be friends, eh?—what do you say, my boy?”
“Oh, Lord Ashden!” cried Philip delightedly; “do you really mean it?”
“Here’s my hand on it,” he replied. “Did I hurt you? I’m not used to such a scrap of a hand, you see. Come now, we will go down and see if we can persuade your aunt and uncle to let you come over to Ashden again, day after to-morrow. I want your opinion on a violin I am thinking of buying, and then perhaps I may let you try it yourself. Did you ever handle a bow? But see here: if you are going to look like a transfigured seraph every time I speak of music, I sha’n’t let you hear a note until you have learned to row me about on the lake. But now if we don’t go downstairs and join the rest of the party, they will think that the ghost of the beautiful countess has made away with us.”
Mrs. Seldon looked up in surprise as she saw Lord Ashden and Philip advancing toward her, hand in hand, across the lawn, Dash following closely at their heels.
“Only see, my dear,” she said to her husband, “Frederick is actually smiling. I really believe that dear child could make the Sphinx love him; and he grows so like his father! Frederick must see it, and perhaps—who knows?—little Philip may help to fill the vacant place in that big, lonely heart.”
“Ah, Philip,” she said as they came nearer, “so you and Lord Ashden are friends already?”
“Oh, we find that we have met before,” said Lord Ashden, smiling, “and we have come especially to ask you, please, to lend me your Philip now and then for a day at Ashden. It is insufferably dull and lonely here for me, you know, Aunt Delia, but I believe if I had Philip and Dash to help me it would not be so difficult to kill time at Ashden.”
“You shall have my boy as often as you wish, on one condition,” said Aunt Delia, beaming on the pair through her spectacles, “and that is that you promise to come over to Lowdown each time to fetch him, and that when you bring him back you will stay for supper at the rectory.”
“Agreed,” said Lord Ashden with a handshake, the heartiness of which made the old lady wince; “but now, Philip, let us go and find the little girls and take them for a row on the lake. We must not forget the ladies, you know.”