"Oh, I am sorry!" Phillis looked curiously at her guardian for some outward sign or token of the old Adam. But she saw none. "Perhaps I shall find them out some time, and then I will tell you."
"Heaven forbid!" he said, laughing. "Now, Phillis, I have been asked to dine here, and I am going to be at your service all day. It is only one o'clock. What shall we do, and where shall we go?"
"Anywhere," she replied, "anywhere. Take me into the crowded streets, and let me look at the people and the shops. I like that best of anything. But stay and have luncheon here first."
They had luncheon. Colquhoun confessed to himself that this was a young lady calculated to do him the greatest credit. She acted hostess with a certain dignity which sat curiously on so young a girl, and which she had learned from presiding at many a luncheon in Mr. Dyson's old age among his old friends, when her guardian had become too infirm to take the head of his own table. There was, it is true, something wanting. Colquhoun's practised eye detected that at once. Phillis was easy, graceful, and natural. But she had not—the man of the world noticed what Jack Dunquerque failed to observe—she had not the unmistakable stamp of social tone which can only come by practice and time. The elements, however, were there before him; his ward was a diamond which wanted but a little polish to make her a gem of the first water.
After luncheon they talked again; this time with a little more freedom. Colquhoun told her all he knew of the father who was but a dim and distant memory to her. "You have his eyes," he said, "and you have his mouth. I should know you for his daughter." He told her how fond this straight rider, this Nimrod of the hunting-field, had been of his little Phillis! how one evening after mess he told Colquhoun that he had made a will, and appointed him, Lawrence, with Abraham Dyson, the trustees of his little girl.
"I have been a poor trustee, Phillis," Lawrence concluded. "But I was certain you were in good hands, and I let things alone. Now that I have to act in earnest, you must regard me as your friend and adviser."
They had such a long talk that it was past four when they went out for their walk. Phillis was thoughtful and serious, thinking of the father, whom she lost so early. Somehow she had forgotten, at Highgate, that she once had a father. And the word mother had no meaning for her.
Outside the house Lawrence looked at his companion critically.
"Am I poorly dressed?" she asked, with a smile, because she knew that she was perfectly dressed.
At all events, Lawrence thought he would have no occasion to be ashamed of his companion.