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Page 40
"Are we going to stay in here, Mummy, or are we going into the
drawing-room?" Nora asked.
"In here, I think," he heard Philippa reply.
Then they both came in, followed by Helen. Nora was the first to
see him and rushed forward with a little cry of surprise.
"Why, here's Dad!" she exclaimed, flinging her arms around his neck.
"Daddy, how dare you be sitting here all by yourself whilst we are
having dinner! When did you get back? What a fish!"
Sir Henry closed down his desk, embraced his daughter, and came
forward to meet his wife.
"Fine fellow, isn't he, Nora!" he agreed. "Well, Philippa, how are
you? Pleased to see me, I hope? Another new frock, I believe, and
in war time!"
"Fancy your remembering that it was war time!" she answered, standing
very still while he leaned over and kissed her.
"Nasty one for me," Sir Henry observed good-humouredly. "How well
you're looking, Helen! Any news of Dick yet?"
Helen attempted an expression of extreme gravity with more or less
success.
"Nothing fresh," she answered.
"Well, well, no news may be good news," Sir Henry remarked
consolingly. "Jove, it's good to feel a roof over one's head again!
This morning has been the only patch of decent weather we've had."
"This morning was lovely," Helen assented. "Philippa and I went and
sat up in the woods."
Philippa, who was standing by the fire, turned and looked at her
husband critically.
"We have some men dining," she said. "They will be out in a few
minutes. Don't you think you had better go and make yourself
presentable? You smell of fish, and you look as though you hadn't
shaved for a week."
"Guilty, my dear," Sir Henry admitted. "Mills is just getting me
something to eat in the gun room, and then I am going to have a
bath and change my clothes."
"And shave, Dad," Nora reminded him.
"And shave, you young pest," her father agreed, patting her on the
shoulder. "Run away and play billiards with Helen. I want to talk
to your mother until my dinner's ready."
Nora acquiesced promptly.
"Come along, Helen, I'll give you twenty-five up. Or perhaps you'd
like to play shell out?" she proposed. "Arthur Sinclair says I have
improved in my potting more than any one he ever knew."
Sir Henry opened the door and closed it after them. Then he returned
and seated himself on the lounge by Philippa's side. She glanced up
at him as though in surprise, and, stretching out her hand towards
her work-basket, took up some knitting.
"I really think I should change at once, if I were you," she
suggested.
"Presently. I had a sort of foolish idea that I'd like to have a
word or two with you first. I've been away for nearly a fortnight,
haven't I?"
"You have," Philippa assented. "Perhaps that is the reason why
I feel that I haven't very much to say to you."
"That sounds just a trifle hard," he said slowly.
"I am hard sometimes," Philippa confessed. "You know that quite
well. There are times when I just feel as though I had no heart
at all, nor any sympathy; when every sensation I might have had
seems shrivelled up inside me."
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