Lippa is strangely silent on the way home and all the evening she avoids being alone with Dalrymple, but Jimmy gets uneasy and on saying Good-night adds in a low tone, 'Come into the garden early to-morrow, I want to talk to you.'
'Very well,' she replies, 'I have something to tell you too.' She says this so gravely, and flushes a little, that he ponders for some time on what she can have to tell him, and Philippa goes up to her bedroom, her head throbbing and with a wild desire to cry.
'Good-night, dear,' says Mabel, 'I am so tired I really cannot stay and talk to you to-night, and you, child, you look knocked up, go to bed at once.'
'Good-night,' replies Lippa, and having dispensed with the services of her maid she seems to have no intention of seeking her downy couch, she envelopes herself in a loose wrapper and drawing an armchair up to the window, appears to be contemplating the moon, but her thoughts are far far away from it.
Poor little Miss Seaton, a great battle is going on within her; she will let no one know what she has overheard this afternoon, unless she explains all to Dalrymple and lets him decide as to what ... but no, she will just tell him it is impossible for her to marry him, ten to one if he knew all he would laugh at her fears, and marrying her, would in a few years have to consign his wife to a lunatic asylum; it will be the right thing not to let him have a chance of marrying her; and coming to this conclusion, she tries to forget the man she loves, and her heart is filled with compassion for her mother, and then she remembers Ponsonby's life story. 'How strange,' she murmurs, 'in one day to have learnt all this; but oh, how shall I tell Jimmy, and he will think I love somebody else, but I must do the right thing, I must and I will.'
The clock strikes one as she rises with a little shiver, and is soon in bed, but it is sometime before her eyes close, and even after she is asleep sobs check her breathing. Dear, good little heart it is always hardest to do what seems right, and it seems too, as if it will never be rewarded, but surely, surely it is in the end....
Drip, drip, drip, is what Dalrymple hears as soon as he wakes. 'Wet,' he says to himself turning round, 'no good getting up yet, Philippa is sure not to.' For ten minutes he dozes, and then with two or three loud yawns he pulls himself together, and at length attired in a faultless suit he opens his door. It is still what he calls early, (being half-past eight) and he meets no one as he descends. Whistling gaily, he opens the door of the drawing-room, and finds Philippa there already, standing by the window. She turns as he goes up to her, and when he is about to embrace her she draws back.
'Good-morning,' she says, looking up at him for a moment and then gazing steadily at the carpet; the pattern of which she remembers long afterwards.
'Good-morning,' he replies blankly, and then thinking that perhaps she is shy, he puts his hand on her shoulder, saying, 'Lippa, dearest, what is the matter?' There is an amount of concern in his voice that is almost too much for her, but she has made up her mind to tell him it is impossible for her to marry him, and cost what it may she will do it.
'Mr Dalrymple,' she begins in a low but perfectly calm voice, 'if you remember I told you last night that I had something to say to you—'
'Certainly,' he says, 'that is why I came down so early; but why have you changed so since yesterday?'
'That is exactly it, I have changed since yesterday,' says she, 'I—er—I think I led you to imagine that I would marry you, but—'
'But,' he echoes, bending towards her, 'you have not changed your mind, have you?'
'Yes I have,' replies Philippa clasping her hands tightly behind her back.
'Do you mean it?' he asks in a bewildered tone.
'Yes,' this very low.
'May I ask why you have changed?' and Dalrymple draws himself up and his voice is cold and studiously polite. 'Is it money,—I am not very well off I know, but I did not think you were the kind of girl to mind that?'
'Ah, you see I am different from what you thought, it is a good thing we found it out before it was too late.'
Jimmy looks at her curiously, and then catches her in his arms. 'Oh my dearest,' he says, 'you can't mean it, you could not be so cruel—'
For a second Lippa feels she cannot hold out any longer, but it is only for a second, and then freeing herself from his embrace she says slowly and distinctly—'I mean all I have said.'
'I must go then,' says Jimmy, a world of sorrow in his honest brown eyes.
'Yes,' she replies, not daring to look up till she hears the door shut behind him, and then she realises all she has done: sent away the man she loves, the one man who is 'her world of all the men'; sent him away thinking she is cruel and mercenary. She chokes back the tears that start to her eyes; the others must not know, must not even suspect, but oh the aching at her heart.
It goes on raining steadily all day, and every one is dull and depressed, even Chubby. Dalrymple suddenly discovers that it is absolutely necessary for him to be back at the barracks as soon as possible, and bidding farewell, decamps.
Lady Anne, despite the weather, tramps off to the village to preside at a sewing-class. Philippa is forbidden by Mabel to put her nose out of doors, who then retires to Lady Dadford's private boudoir where she spends the afternoon.
'What shall we do?' asks Lord Helmdon, gazing helplessly round on the remaining guests. 'Miss Seaton, suggest something, do!'
'I can't think of anything,' answers Lippa, longing for some distraction to her thoughts.
'Don't you think a little music would be nice,' says Miss Appleby, 'nothing enlivens one so much on a wet day.'
'Let us have some by all means,' says Helmdon. 'I say Tommy, I'm sure you'll honour us with a song, eh, what?'
Tommy is a very juvenile young man, with light hair parted down the middle, a red face, and pince-nez.
'Anything you like,' he responds gaily.
'Come along then,' and away starts Chubby to the drawing-room followed by the others. 'Now, ladies and gentlemen,' he begins having opened the piano, 'I give you fair warning that every one of you will have to contribute to the entertainment.'
'Catch me,' says George Seaton, and on the earliest opportunity slips away to the smoking-room.
Miss Appleby is called upon to begin and sings a dear little song with very few words in it.
'Tommy, it's your turn next,' says Paul, 'I'll accompany you!'
'Oh, thanks awfully,' and settling his pince-nez firmly on his very small nose, sings with an air of sweet simplicity—'Because my mother told me so,' which sends Chubby into shrieks of laughter.
When Philippa's turn comes, she goes to the piano knowing that Paul is watching her, she feels he has guessed that something is up, so tries to mislead him by singing a merry song, but he is not taken in. Helmdon produces a banjo and sings several nigger songs lustily.
'Do you know, Chubby,' says Tommy, 'do you know that you are just made for that kind of music, you'd do so well at the Christy Minstrels.'
'Ah, my boy,' replies he, 'I'm glad you've found an occupation for me in which I should excel, for it is more than I have done myself; but I'm afraid the sameness would bore me. If I do anything I shall go in for music-hall singing, there one would have more scope for one's dramatic talent.'
By degrees they all disperse, some to play billiards, others to write letters, and Philippa is left alone, seated on one of the deep window sills, a book in her hand, but her eyes are fixed on the distant horizon, where the sun has suddenly appeared from behind the clouds, and is shedding a yellow haze over the dripping trees.
So absorbed is she that she does not hear Paul come. He goes up to where she is, and says, 'What has happened?'
She starts and turning round replies, 'Nothing,' while a tell-tale blush dyes her cheeks.
'Yes, there is,' he persists, 'why did Jimmy leave so suddenly?'
'He told Lady Dadford that he must get back to the Barracks to-night,' she replies.
'Do you think I believe that?' says Paul.
'Why shouldn't you?'
'Now child, I know that something is wrong,' and Paul sits down by her side, 'you told me yesterday you had promised to marry him, why has he gone away to-day; you have not already disagreed?'
'I don't see that you have any right to question me like this,' she answers evasively, 'but I suppose I had better tell you that I am not going to marry Mr Dalrymple,' she says it so firmly that Ponsonby can see that she is not joking.
'Why not?' he asks.
'For many reasons,' is the reply. 'For one he has not much to live on, and—there are circumstances which would make it impossible—'
'Whew!—may I ask if the circumstances prevent him from marrying you or you him.'
'I think there is no occasion for me to answer you,' replies Lippa coldly, 'and I will beg you will mention to no one what I have told you either yesterday or just now.'
'I shall write to Dalrymple to-night,' says he meditatively.
'I hope you will do no such thing,' and Miss Seaton rises hastily. 'I think it would be extremely out of place for you to interfere in any way.'
There is a marked emphasis on the 'you' that makes Paul start while he bites fiercely the ends of his moustache, and Philippa walks quickly out of the room, rushes up to her own, and flinging herself on the bed gives way to tears. 'Oh dear, oh dear,' she sobs, 'why does everything go wrong and only a little time ago I was so happy, and now I have hurt Paul's feelings, and ...'
'Paul!'
Ponsonby on his way to bed is surprised at hearing himself called.
'Yes,' he replies.
'I want to tell you something,' is the answer.
The gas has been turned out and all the other men are just turning in for the night.
'What do you want?' he says, going into the sitting-room, from whence the voice issues, a solitary candle burns on the table, and discloses Philippa.
'You here?' he exclaims surprised.
'Yes,' she says. 'I am afraid I vexed you this afternoon, and I wanted to tell you I was sorry, and ...—'
'Don't think about it again, but really you know you ought not to be here—'
'I only waited to tell you that,' she says, turning towards the door feeling utterly miserable, and the tears that she has tried to keep back break forth, and covering her face with her hands she cries as though her heart would break.
Paul goes up to her. 'Philippa, my dear,' he says very gently, 'there is something very wrong, can't you tell me why Jimmy went away—'
'No, no,' she sobs. 'I told him to go, but I can't tell you why—'
'How cold you are,' he says. 'Stop crying and go to bed at once, or you will make yourself ill.'
'Very well,' replies she, meekly. 'But you [sob] you won't tell Mabel—'
'I won't tell a soul.'
'And you're not vexed with me?'
'No; why should I be. Good-night.'
'Good-night,' such a sad little face she turns to him, that he stoops and kisses it.
'What a child she is,' he thinks, as he watches her down the passage. 'I wonder what induced her to throw Jimmy over. Couldn't have been better off as regards a husband. Money! as if that would ever enter into her head. Can't make it out at all. She likes him I can see.'
For some time, Paul puzzles his handsome head about Philippa, and then when sleep has come, he dreams of the woman he loved; she to whom he gave his love, his faith, his all, only to be abused; the woman who has blighted his life. Oh! it is a strange world. It is like a puzzle that everyone tries to make, but does not succeed because the principal parts are missing. Will they ever be found, the missing links, the pieces of the puzzle, the answer to the 'whys' and 'wherefores?'
'We run a race to-day, and find no halting place, All things we see be far within our scope And still we peer beyond with craving face.'