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'No one you ever knew, replies Mabel, guessing the question that she would ask. 'Ah! and Lippa breathes a sigh of relief, 'is it a friend of George's or Paul's? 'wife' she is going to say but hesitates. 'No, replies Mabel, 'it is someone who has been in an asylum for many years, she pauses wondering how to go on when Philippa spares her the trouble by saying, 'My mother?
Between these two people there was no sincere friendship such as existed later between Boccaccio and Joanna, and they were but playing with the dangerous fire of passion, which they ever fanned to a greater heat. Philippa the Catanese, as she is called in history, stands for the spirit of intrigue in this history; and well she may, as she has a most wonderful and tragic history.
It was not until after dinner that Noel emerged from his lair in the gun-room and announced everything to be in readiness. He called Chris out on to the terrace to assist him, and Aunt Philippa and Bertrand were left an ill-assorted couple to watch and admire the result of his efforts.
"I was growing impatient, Norman," she said; and then, remembering his criticisms on the wooing of women, she hastened to add "impatient at the want of novelty; it seems to me that in London ball-rooms all the men talk in the same fashion." Lord Arleigh laughed. "What are they to do, Philippa?" he asked. "They have each one the same duties to perform to please their partners and amuse themselves.
It took him barely five minutes to discover nothing. With an air of relief he rearranged everything. When Philippa returned, he was sitting on the lounge, going through the charts which they had looked out together. "Well?" she asked. "There is nothing here," he decided, "which will help me very much. With your permission I will take this," he added, selecting one at random.
Philippa laid down the book which she had been reading, and turned to face her husband. He made a little grimace. "Don't look so severe," he begged. "You frighten me before you begin." "I'm sorry," she said, "but my face probably reflects my feelings. I am hurt and grieved and disappointed in you, Henry." "That's a good start, anyway," he groaned.
The fact was that that night, when he had been so near death, he had heard Philippa, in his first dim moments of returning consciousness, stammering out those distracted words: "Perhaps God will forgive me." To John Fenn those words meant the crowning of all his efforts: she had repented!
"Philippa is a dear," Helen declared enthusiastically. "Just for a moment, though, I was terrified. She has a wonderful will." "How long has she been married?" "About six years." "Are there any children?" Helen shook her head. "Sir Henry had a daughter by his first wife, who lives with us." "Six years!" Lessingham repeated. "Why, she seems no more than a child.
At the time when this story was written, I was misled to follow this supposition, though I had already seen that in that case, Isabel, and not Alianora, must have been the mother of Philippa. Some months after the story was first published, I began to suspect that this was also the case with regard to Mary L'Estrange.
There was but one music in the world for her, and that was the music of Lord Arleigh's voice. Nothing could ever drown that for her. The band was playing, the captain talking, the duchess conversing, in her gay, animated fashion; but above all, clearly and distinctly, Philippa heard every word that fell from Lord Arleigh's lips, although he did not know it.
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