Part 154

He laughed gently.

"Heart of a child," he said, half to himself.

"Heart of a man," she answered. "What have I done to deserve you? How can you be so patient with me? ... You, a man already grown, distinguished, ripe with wisdom.... I don't know why you should annoy yourself with me.... It is too wonderful--why you should be my friend--my friend----"

"There is something far more wonderful, Philippa--that you should be my friend. Didn't you know it?"

She laughed.

"I wonder if you know what I would do for you? There is nothing you could ask of me that I would not do----"

She ceased, her voice threatening unsteadiness, but her eyes were clear and she was smiling.

"Words are idle things," she added calmly, "and not necessary, I think, between you and me.... Only, sometimes I feel--a need of telling you--of my devotion.... There have been lonely years--friendless--and a heart sickens under eternal silence--needing an opportunity for self-expression----"

"I know, dear."

"I know you do.... You are very kind to me."

"Philippa, I care more for you than I do for any living person!"

The lovely surprise in her face flushed her to her hair. She looked at him out of confused, incredulous eyes, strove to smile, caught her trembling lip between her teeth.

"Didn't you know it?" he said in a low voice.

She tried to answer, turned sharply and faced the windows with blurred eyes that saw only a glimmering sheet of light there.

He stood motionless, looking at her, intent upon the sudden confusion in his own brain, realizing it, trying to explain it, analyze it coolly, calmly account for it.

If it were any emotion resembling love which was so utterly possessing him, he chose to know it, to inform himself as to the real significance of this loss of logical equilibrium, this mental inadequacy which began to resemble a sort of chaos.

Was he in love with this girl? Was it love? Was this what it all had meant--all, from the very beginning, through all its coincidences, accidents, successive steps and stages?

And suddenly a terrible timidity seized him. Suppose she knew what he was thinking about! What would she think? What would she do? Where would her confidence go? What would become of her trust in him? What would happen to her implicit faith in him?

Of one thing he was suddenly and absolutely certain; love had never entered her mind, never lodged in her heart, never troubled that candid gaze, never altered her fearless smile. With all her devotion to him, all her passionate attachment of a child, never had anything as deep--never had any emotion as profound as love disturbed the mystery of depths where dwelt in virginal immaturity the soul of her, "clean as a flame--"

As for himself--where he now stood--whither he was being led by something which was not reason, not intention, he did not seem able to understand.

The light in the room had become too uncertain to paint by; he released his canvas and carried it away behind a tapestry, setting it slanting, face to the stone wall.

The brushes, mediums, palette, he left on the palette table and pushed it into a corner behind a sofa, where nobody was likely to fall over it before he gave brushes and palette to Asticot to clean.

All the while Philippa stood looking out of the window over the tree tops, her young heart and brain on fire with happiness and throbbing with the wonder of her first innocent passion.

With it, for the first time, had come something she never before had known with Warner--something indefinite, new, inexplicable--a vague sense of shyness almost painful at instants--a consciousness of herself that she had never known--a subtle, instinctive realization of her own maturity which left a faintly delicious sensation in her breast.

Now, for the first time since she had known him, her instinct was not to go to him, not to face him. She did not understand why--did not question herself. From the window she looked out over the forest; she heard him moving quietly about behind her; listened with an odd content in his proximity, but with no desire to turn and join him--no wish to move or stir from the spell which held her there in the enchanted silence of a happiness so wonderful that sky and earth seemed to understand and share it with her.

"Philippa?"

She turned slowly as in a dream.

It was perhaps as well that he had a record on canvas of what she had been--of the young girl he had been painting in all her lovely immaturity. Perhaps the girl who faced him now from the window was even lovelier, but she was not the Philippa of "Philippa Passes."