“You’re going to be the most brilliant woman in London, Cis; do you know that? In your scintillating _salon_, statesmen shall bow the knee, journalists shall grovel. It shall be chock-full of fair ladies loving you like poison----” “But I shall only admit _one_ distinguished traveller,” said Cecily, gayly. His face changed. “Really?” he asked, softly, “that will be kind.” All that he had been studiously keeping out of his voice, out of his face, came suddenly to both. Cecily hesitated. “And he will be in armor,” she said. It was almost an appeal. She had been so glad to find a friend! His words had braced her like strong wine. But if she must think of him as a would-be lover, if she could not think of him as a friend? The pitiful look which, in her unguarded moments, had often unnerved Mayne, came back, and now it strengthened him. “All right, Cis,” he said. “Don’t you bother. It’s a tight-fitting suit.” She smiled at him gratefully, as he held open for her the little gate leading from the fields into the lower garden. CHAPTER X The moment had come for which Robert, on that day at least, had scarcely dared to hope. He was alone with Philippa! He changed his seat for one nearer to her, and looked at her ardently. Philippa returned his gaze with a smile of wistful tenderness. Renunciation, a burning sense of duty, tempered by potential passion, was expressed partly by the smile, partly by the direct gaze of her melancholy eyes. Robert acknowledged the former emotion with respectful admiration, and derived unacknowledged hope from the latter. Three months ago he had met Philippa Burton in the reading-room of the British Museum, and had made her acquaintance with a degree of unconventionality hereafter so frequently alluded to by Philippa as “our beautiful meeting,” that he had come to attribute to it something of mystic import--an indication of soul affinity.