第32章

Sir Henry was obviously not in the best of tempers. For a mild-mannered and easy-going man, his expression was scarcely normal.

"That fellow was making love to you," he said bluntly, as soon as the door was closed behind Lessingham.

Philippa looked up at her husband with an air of pleasant candour.

"He was doing it very nicely, too," she admitted.

"You mean to say that you let him?"

"I listened to what he had to say," she confessed. "It didn't occur to you, I suppose," her husband remarked, with somewhat strained sarcasm, "that you were another man's wife?"

"I am doing my best to forget that fact," Philippa reminded him.

"I see! And he is to help you?"

"Possibly."

Sir Henry's irritation was fast merging into anger.

"I shall turn the fellow out of the house," he declared.

Philippa shrugged her shoulders.

"Why don't you?"

He seated himself on the couch by his wife's side. "Look here, Philippa, don't let's wrangle," he begged. "I'm afraid you'll have to make up your mind to see a good deal less of your friend Lessingham, anyway."

Philippa's brows were knitted. She was conscious of a vague uneasiness.

"Really? And why?"

"For one thing," her husband explained, "because I don't intend to have him hanging about my house during my absence."

"The best way to prevent that would be not to go away," Philippa suggested.

"Well, in all probability," he announced guardedly, "I am not going away again - at least not just yet."

Philippa's manner suddenly changed. She laid down her work. Her hand rested lightly upon her husband's shoulder.

"You mean that you are going to give up those horrible fishing excursions of yours?"

"For the present I am," he assured her.

"And are you going to do something - some work, I mean?" she asked breathlessly.

"For the immediate present I am going to stay at home and look after you," he replied.

Philippa's face fell. Her manner became notably colder.

"You are very wise," she declared. "Mr. Lessingham is a most fascinating person. We are all half in love with him - even Helen."

"The fellow must have a way with him," Sir Henry conceded grudgingly.

"As a rule the people here are not over-keen on strangers, unless they have immediate connections in the neighbourhood. Even Griffiths, who since they made him Commandant, is a man of many suspicions, seems inclined to accept him."

"Captain Griffiths dined here the other night," Philippa remarked, "and I noticed that he and Mr. Lessingham seemed to get on very well."

"The fellow's all right in his way, no doubt," Sir Henry began.

"Of course he is," Philippa interrupted. "Helen likes him quite as much as I do."

"Does he make love to Helen, too?" Sir Henry ventured.

"Don't talk nonsense!" Philippa retorted. "He isn't that sort of a man at all. If he has made love to me, he has done so because I have encouraged him, and if I have encouraged him, it is your fault."

Sir Henry, with an impatient exclamation, rose from his place and took a cigarette from an open box.

"Quite time I stayed at home, I can see. All the same, the fellow's rather a puzzle. I can't help wondering how he succeeded in making such an easy conquest of a lady who has scarcely been notorious for her flirtations, and a young woman who is madly in love with another man. He hasn't - "

"Hasn't what?"

"He hasn't," Sir Henry continued, blowing out the match which he had been holding to his cigarette and throwing it away, "been in the position of being able to render you or Helen any service, has he?"

"I don't understand you," Philippa replied, a little uneasily.

"There's nothing to understand," Sir Henry went on. "I was simply trying to find some explanation for his veni, vidi, vici."

"I don't think you need go any further than the fact," Philippa observed, "that he is well-bred, charming and companionable."

"Incidentally," Sir Henry queried, "do you happen to have come across any one here who ever heard of him before?"

"I don't remember any one," Philippa replied. "He was at college with Richard, you know."

Sir Henry nodded.

"Of course, that's a wonderful introduction to you and Helen," he admitted. "And by-the-by, that reminds me," he went on, "I never saw such a change in two women in my life, as in you and Helen.

A few weeks ago you were fretting yourselves to death about Dick.

Now you don't seem to mention him, you both of you look as though you hadn't a care in the world, and yet you say you haven't heard from him. Upon my word, this is getting to be a house of mysteries!"

"The only mystery in it that I can see, is you, Henry," she declared.

"Me?" he protested. "I'm one of the simplest-minded fellows alive.

What is there mysterious about me?"

"Your ignominious life," was the cold reply.

"Jove, I got it that time!" he groaned, - "got it in the neck! But didn't I tell you just now that I was turning over a new leaf?"