第38章

Punctually at 12 o'clock the next morning, Lessingham presented himself at the hotel in Dover Street and was invited by the hall porter to take a seat in the lounge. Philippa entered, a few minutes later, her eyes and cheeks brilliant with the brisk exercise she had been taking, her slim figure most becomingly arrayed in grey cloth and chinchilla.

"I lost Helen in Harrod's," she announced, "but I know she's lunching with friends, so it really doesn't matter. You'll have to take care of me, Mr. Lessingham, until the train goes, if you will."

"For even longer than that, if you will," he murmured.

She laughed. "More pretty speeches? I don't think I'm equal to them before luncheon."

"This time I am literal," he explained. "I am coming back to Dreymarsh myself."

He felt his heart beat quicker, a sudden joy possessed him.

Philippa's expression was obviously one of satisfaction.

"I'm so glad," she assured him. "Do you know, I was thinking only as I came back in the taxicab, how I should miss you."

She was standing with her foot upon the broad fender, and her first little impulse of pleasure seemed to pass as she looked into the fire. She turned towards him gravely.

"After all, do you think you are wise?" she asked. "Of course, I don't think that any one at Dreymarsh has the least suspicion, but you know Captain Griffiths did ask questions, and - well, you're safely away now. You have been so wonderful about Dick, so wonderful altogether," she went on, "that I couldn't bear it if trouble were to come."

He smiled at her.

"I think I know what is at the back of your mind," he said. "You think that I am coming back entirely on your account. As it happens, this is not so."

She looked at him with wide-open eyes.

"Surely," she exclaimed, "you have satisfied yourself that there is no field for your ingenuity in Dreymarsh?"

"I thought that I had," he admitted. "It seems that I am wrong. I have had orders to return."

"Orders to return?" she repeated. "From whom?

He shook his head.

"Of course, I ought not to have asked that," she proceeded hastily, "but it does seem odd to realise that you can receive instructions and messages from Germany, here in London."

"Very much the same sort of thing goes on in Germany," he reminded her.

"So they say," she admitted, "but one doesn't come into contact with it. So you are really coming back to Dreymarsh!"

"With you, if I may?"

"Naturally," she agreed.

He glanced at the clock. "We might almost be starting for lunch," he suggested.

She nodded. " As soon as I've told Grover about the luggage."

She was absent only a few moments, and then, as it was a dry, sunny morning, they walked down St. James Street and along Pall Mall to the Carlton. Philippa met several acquaintances, but Lessingham walked with his head erect, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

"Aren't you sometimes afraid of being recognised?" she asked him.

"There must he a great many men about of your time at Magdalen, for instance?"

"Nine years makes a lot of difference," he reminded her, "and besides, I have a theory that it is only when the eyes meet that recognition really takes place. So long as I do not look into any one's face, I feel quite safe."

"You are sure that you would not like to go to a smaller place than the Carlton?"

"It makes no difference," he assured her. "My credentials have been wonderfully established for me."

"I'm so glad," she confessed. "I know it's most unfashionable, but I do like these big places. If ever I had my way, I should like to live in London and have a cottage in the country, instead of living in the country and being just an hotel dweller in London."

"I wonder if New York would not do?" he ventured.

"I expect I should like New York," she murmured.

"I think," he said, "in fact, I am almost sure that when I leave here I shall go to the United States."

She looked at him and turned suddenly away. They arrived just then at their destination, and the moment passed. Lessingham left his companion in the lounge while he went back into the restaurant to secure his table and order lunch. When he came back, he found Philippa sitting very upright and with a significant glitter in her eyes.

"Look over there," she whispered, "by the palm."

He followed the direction which she indicated. A man was standing against one of the pillars, talking to a tall, dark woman, obviously a foreigner, wrapped in wonderful furs. There was something familiar about his figure and the slight droop of his head.

"Why, it's Sir Henry!" Lessingham exclaimed, as the man turned around.

"My husband," Philippa faltered.

Sir Henry, if indeed it were he, seemed afflicted with a sudden shortsightedness. He met the incredulous gaze both of Lessingham and his wife without recognition or any sign of flinching. At that distance it was impossible to see the tightening of his lips and the steely flash in his blue eyes.

"The whiting seem to have brought him a long way," Philippa said, with an unnatural little laugh.

"Shall I go and speak to him? "Lessingham asked.

"For heaven's sake, no!" she insisted. "Don't leave me. I wouldn't have him come near me for anything in the world. It is only a few weeks ago that I begged him to come to London with me, and he said that he hated the place. You don't know - the woman?"

Lessingham shook his head.

"She looks like a foreigner," was all he could say.

"Take me in to lunch at once," Philippa begged, rising abruptly to her feet. "This is really the last straw."