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?”
“Then prove it,” Philippa pleaded. “Let me write to Rayton and beg him
to use his influence to get you something to do. I am sure you would be
happier, and I can't tell you what a difference it would make to me.”
“It's that indoor work I couldn't stick, old thing,” he confided. “You
know, they're saying all the time it's a young man's war. They'd make me
take some one's place at home behind a desk.”
“But even if they did,” she protested, “even if they put you in a coal
cellar, wouldn't you be happier to feel that you were helping your
country? Wouldn't you be glad to know that I was happier?”
Sir Henry made a wry face.
“It seems to me that your outlook is a trifle superficial, dear,” he
grumbled. “However--now what the dickens is the matter?”
The door had been opened by Mills, with his usual smoothness, but Jimmy
Dumble, out of breath and excited, pushed his way into the room.
“Hullo? What is it, Jimmy?” his patron demanded.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” was the almost incoherent reply. “I've run all
the way up, and there's a rare wind blowing. There's one of our--our
trawlers lying off the Point, and she's sent up three green and six
yellow balls.”
“Whiting, by God!” Sir Henry exclaimed.
“Whiting!” Philippa repeated, in agonised disgust. “What does this mean,
Henry?”
“It must be a shoal,” her husband explained. “It means that we've got to
get amongst them quick. Is the Ida down on the beach, Jimmy?”
“She there all right, sir,” was the somewhat doubtful reply, “but us'll
have a rare job to get away, sir. That there nor'easter is blowing great
guns again and it's a cruel tide.”
“We've got to get out somehow,” Sir Henry declared. “Mills, my oilskins
and flask at once. I sha'n't change a thing, but you might bring a
cardigan jacket and the whisky and soda.”
Mills withdrew, a little dazed. Philippa, whose fingers were clenched
together, found her tongue at last.
“Henry!” she exclaimed furiously.
“What is it, my dear?”
“Do you mean to tell me that after your promise,” she continued, “after
what you have just said, you are starting out to-night for another
fishing expedition?”
“Whiting, my dear,” Sir Henry explained. “One can't possibly miss
whiting. Where the devil are my keys?--Here they are. Now then.”
He sat down before his desk, took some papers from the top drawer,
rummaged about for a moment or two in another, and found what seemed
to be a couple of charts in oilskin cases. All the time the wind was
shaking the windows, and a storm of rain was beating against the panes.
“Help yourself to whisky and soda, Jimmy,” Sir Henry invited, as he
buttoned up his coat. “You'll need it all presently.”
“I thank you kindly, sir,” Jimmy replied. “I am thinking that we'll both
need a drink before we're through this night.”
He helped himself to a whisky and soda on the generous principle of
half and half. Philippa, who was watching her husband's preparations
indignantly, once more found words.
“Henry, you are incorrigible!” she exclaimed. “Listen to me if you
please. I insist upon it.”
Sir Henry turned a little impatiently towards her. “Philippa, I really
can't stop now,” he protested. “But you must! You shall!” she cried.
“You shall hear this much from me, at any rate, before you go. What I
said the other day I repeat a thousandfold now.”
Sir Henry glanced at Dumble and motioned his head towards the door. The
fisherman made an awkward exit.
“A thousandfold,” Philippa repeated passionately. “You hear, Henry? I do
not consider myself any more your wife. If I am here when you return, it
will be simply because I find it convenient. Your conduct is disgraceful
and unmanly.”
“My dear girl!” he remonstrated. “I may be back in twenty-four--possibly
twelve hours.”
“It is a matter of indifference to me when you return,” was the curt
reply. “I have finished.”
The door was thrown open.
“Your oilskins, sir, and flask,” Mills announced, hurrying in, a little
breathless. “You'll forgive my mentioning it, sir, but it scarcely seems
a fit night to leave home.”
“Got to be done this once, Mills,” his master replied, struggling into
his coat.
The young people from the billiard room suddenly streamed in. Nora, who
was still carrying her cue, gazed at her father in amazement.
“Why, where's Dad going?” she cried.
“It appears,” Philippa explained sarcastically, “that a shoal of whiting
has arrived.”
“Very uncertain fish, whiting,” Sir Henry observed, “here to-day and
gone to-morrow.”
“You won't find it too easy getting off to-night, sir,” Harrison
remarked doubtfully.
“Jimmy will see to that,” was the confident reply. “I expect we shall be
amongst them at daybreak. Good-by, everybody! Good-by, Philippa!”
His eyes sought his wife's in vain. She had turned towards Lessingham.
“You are not hurrying off, are you, Mr. Lessingham?” she asked. “I want
you to show me that new Patience.”
“I shall be delighted.”
Sir Henry turned slowly away. For a moment his face darkened as his eyes
met Lessingham's. He seemed about to speak but changed his mind.
“Well, good-by, every one,” he called out. “I shall be back before
midnight if we don't get out.”
“And if you do?” Nora cried.
“If we do, Heaven help the whiting!”