“Your beautiful dress!” he murmured. Suddenly he stooped lower and kissed it. She did not move, and, emboldened, he touched her hand with his lips, tremblingly at first, and then passionately. When he raised his head she was looking at him with an adorable expression of compassion and tenderness. “Philippa!” he stammered; “I love you. Will you--will you marry me? Oh, you don’t know how I----” For a moment she continued to look at him with an expression he found hard to read, then she rose abruptly, and moving to the mantelpiece, stood leaning against it with averted face. Nevern also rose. For a moment he hesitated, then drawing himself up he followed her. “Philippa,” he said again very simply, “I know I’m not worthy of you. But no one will ever love you better than I love you. Will you marry me?” His boyishness dropped from him as he spoke. Of his customary rather foolish affectation of voice and manner, there was not a trace. A real emotion had given him dignity. Philippa turned. She glanced hurriedly at his face, and paused a moment before she said pleadingly, “Dear Nigel, don’t disturb our friendship--yet. It has been such happiness. I don’t want things altered--at any rate yet awhile.” Nevern hesitated, disappointment struggling with hope. “But later?” he begged at last. “May I some time later----” She smiled. “We shall see. Let us leave things as they are indefinitely--well, for the present at all events. And now, dear friend, I think you must go.” She put out her hand, smiling her rare, elusive smile. Nevern seized it and covered it with kisses before she gently withdrew it. “I may come again? Soon?” he whispered, hoarsely. “Yes; but not till I write.” She watched him, still smiling, as he went to the door, and turned for a last look at her. When the hall door slammed, she drew herself up with a long, weary sigh. How badly everything was arranged! Why could she not have met Nigel Nevern a year ago instead of---- She went slowly into her bedroom, and returned with a photograph at which she gazed long and earnestly, and finally put down with a sigh. Robert was very attractive. And she was in love with him, of course. She was almost angry to remember that Nigel Nevern had two thousand a year. CHAPTER XIV