The Return of the Prodigal Part 29

"Yes. It's coming. There's only one thing, Jimmy. Philippa's coming, too. She's coming to-day, by that four-something train."

"My dear f.a.n.n.y, how you _do_ mix 'em!"

It was his tribute to her enduring quality.

"I asked her before I knew Laurence Furnival was coming."

"_She_ knew?"

"I--I think so."

They looked at each other. Then f.a.n.n.y spoke.

"Jimmy," she said, "do you think you could make love to Philippa?

Just, _just_," she entreated (when, indeed, had she not appealed to him to save her from the consequences of her indiscretions?), "until Furny goes?"

Straker's diplomatic reply was cut short by the appearance of Laurence Furnival and Molly Milner, Nora's niece. They came down the long terrace with the sun upon them. She was all in white, with here and there a touch of delicate green. She was very young; and, yes, she was very like Mrs. Viveash, with all the difference of her youth and of her soul.

Furnival was almost pathetically pleased to see Straker there; and Miss Milner, flushed but serene in the moment of introduction, said that she had heard of Mr. Straker very often from--she hesitated, and Straker saw what f.a.n.n.y had meant when she said that the young girl had a temperament of her own--from Mr. Furnival. Her charming smile implied that she was aware that Straker counted, and aware of all that he had done for Furnival.

As he watched her he began to see how different she was from Nora Viveash. She was grave and extraordinarily quiet, Furnival's young girl. He measured the difference by the power she had of making Furnival--as Straker put it--different from himself. She had made him grave and quiet, too. Not that he had by any means lost his engaging spontaneity; only the spontaneous, the ungovernable thing about him was the divine shyness and the wonder which he was utterly unable to conceal.

It was at its height, it had spread its own silence all around it, when, in that stillness which was her hour, her moment, Philippa appeared.

She came down the terrace, golden for her as it had been two years ago; she came slowly, more slowly than ever, with a touch of exaggeration in her rhythm, in her delay, in the poise of her head, and in all her gestures; the shade too much that Straker had malignly prophesied for her. But with it all she was more beautiful, and, he could see, more dangerous, than ever.

She had greeted the three of them, f.a.n.n.y, Brocklebank, and Straker, with that increase, that excess of manner; and then she saw Furnival standing very straight in front of her, holding out his hand.

"Mr. Furnival--but--how _nice_!"

Furnival had sat down again, rather abruptly, beside Molly Milner, and f.a.n.n.y, visibly perturbed, was murmuring the young girl's name.

Something pa.s.sed over Miss Tarrant's face like the withdrawing of a veil. She was not prepared for Molly Milner. She had not expected to find anything like that at Amberley. It was not what she supposed that Furnival had come for. But, whatever he had come for, that, the unexpected, was what Furnival was there for now. It was disconcerting.

Philippa, in fact, was disconcerted.

All this Straker took in; he took in also, in a flash, the look that pa.s.sed between Miss Tarrant and Miss Milner. Philippa's look was wonderful, a smile flung down from her heights into the old dusty lists of s.e.x to challenge that young Innocence. Miss Milner's look was even more wonderful than Philippa's; grave and abstracted, it left Philippa's smile lying where she had flung it; she wasn't going, it said, to take _that_ up.

And yet a duel went on between them, a duel conducted with proper propriety on either side. It lasted about half an hour. Philippa's manner said plainly to Miss Milner: "My child, you have got hold of something that isn't good for you, something that doesn't belong to you, something that you are not old enough or clever enough to keep, something that you will not be permitted to keep. You had better drop it." Miss Milner's manner said still more plainly to Philippa: "I don't know what you're driving at, but you don't suppose I take you seriously, do you?" It said nothing at all about Laurence Furnival. That was where Miss Milner's manner scored.

In short, it was a very pretty duel, and it ended in Miss Milner's refusing to accompany Furnival to the Amberley woods and in Philippa's carrying him off bodily (Straker noted that she scored a point there, or seemed to score). As they went Miss Milner was seen to smile, subtly, for all her innocence. She lent herself with great sweetness to Brocklebank's desire to show her his prize roses.

Straker was left alone with f.a.n.n.y.

f.a.n.n.y was extremely agitated by the sight of Furnival's capture.

"Jimmy," she said, "haven't I been good to you? Haven't I been an angel? Haven't I done every mortal thing I could for you?"

He admitted that she had.

"Well, then, now you've got to do something for me. You've got to look after Philippa. Don't let her get at him."

"No fear."

But f.a.n.n.y insisted that he had seen Philippa carrying Furnival off under Molly Milner's innocent nose, and that her manner of appropriating him, too, vividly recalled the evening of her arrival two years ago, when he would remember what had happened to poor Nora's nose.

"She took him from Nora."

"My dear f.a.n.n.y, that was an act of the highest moral----"

"Don't talk to me about your highest moral anything. _I_ know what it was."

"Besides, she didn't take him from Nora," she went on, ignoring her previous line of argument. "He took himself. He was getting tired of her."

"Well," said Straker, "he isn't tired of Miss Milner."

"She's taken him off _there_," said f.a.n.n.y. She nodded gloomily toward the Amberley woods.

Straker smiled. He was looking westward over the s.h.i.+ning fields where he had once walked with Philippa. Already they were returning.

Furnival had not allowed himself to be taken very far. As they approached Straker saw that Philippa was pouring herself out at Furnival and that Furnival was not absorbing any of it; he was absorbed in his Idea. His Idea had made him absolutely impervious to Philippa. All this Straker saw.

He made himself very attentive to Miss Tarrant that evening, and after dinner, at her request, he walked with her on the terrace.

Over the low wall they could see Furnival in the rose garden with Miss Milner. They saw him give her a rose, which the young girl pinned in the bosom of her gown.

"Aren't they wonderful?" said Philippa. "Did you ever see anything under heaven so young?"

"She is older than he is," said Straker.

"Do you remember when he wanted to give _me_ one and I wouldn't take it?"

"I have not forgotten."

The lovers wandered on down the rose garden and Philippa looked after them. Then she turned to Straker.

"I've had a long talk with him. I've told him that he must settle down and that he couldn't do a better thing for himself than----"

She paused.

"Well," said Straker, "it _looks_ like it, doesn't it?"

"Yes," said Philippa. "It looks like it."

They talked of other things.

"I am going," she said presently, "to ask Miss Milner to stay with me."

Straker didn't respond. He was thinking deeply. Her face was so mysterious, so ominous, that yet again he wondered what she might be up to. He confessed to himself that this time he didn't know. But he made her promise to go on the river with him the next day. They were to start at eleven-thirty.

At eleven f.a.n.n.y came to him in the library.