Part 13 (1/2)
”What's the matter, Phil?”
He starts, but returns her glance openly.
”To tell you the truth, I have come to confide in you--to ask you a favour.”
”Good,” replies Erminie, who has heard many a confidence in her day. ”Go on.”
”You know but little of my wife--she is young, quite a girl--very easily influenced.”
His words come shortly. He breathes hard. ”I would tell _you_ what I could not say to any other creature. It is early days, and we have begun to quarrel. She has made great friends with a frivolous widow--a woman next door--whom I warned her against from the first. I have done all in my power to stop the intimacy, but protestations only appear to strengthen it. This woman has got Eleanor entirely under her thumb, she is like soft clay in her hands. I thought I could mould my wife, who was utterly unformed, a little country farm girl. But Giddy Mounteagle has proved stronger, cleverer than I. Perhaps her method is easier to follow, perhaps I have misunderstood Eleanor from the first. Day by day she drifts farther from me, and yet, _if_ such a thing were possible, I love her more.”
He rises and leans his head on his arms over the mantel-border.
”Help me, Erminie; you might do so much.”
”How?”
”Come and stay with us--use _your_ influence with Eleanor.”
Miss Henderson seems confused.
”I should be delighted. I would do anything for you, but----”
Philip looks up quickly, his eyebrows rise involuntarily.
He has never yet known a ”but” from Erminie's lips, when asking her aid.
”The 'buts' of this world are its stumbling blocks.”
”I am going to be married very shortly, I am in the midst of 'trousseauing'.”
”Ah! I had forgotten,” he replies, smothering his disappointment.
Erminie makes a resolve.
”I'll come, Phil,” she says, holding out her hand.
”But it will be so inconvenient!”
”Never mind. I shall interest Eleanor in my things, and try to win her from the widow. Erminie Henderson _versus_ Giddy Mounteagle. What is the betting, Phil?”
He grasps her hands, and wrings them heartily.
”You are the best little woman that ever lived!” he says.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SHADOWS RISE AND FALL.
”I am so sorry, Giddy, darling,” Eleanor writes, ”but I can't possibly go to town with you this afternoon, as Philip's cousin, Miss Henderson, has just arrived to stay, and her _fiance_, Nelson, is coming too. She is quite jolly, and I thought she would be horrid. Many thanks for sending on that silly little note from Mr. Quinton. Why did he address it to your house? I suppose he forgot 'Lyndhurst' though I told him the name.