"Ah, I thought so," she laughed triumphantly. "Look at him blushing."

He was pleased that she should think he had been a sad dog, and he changed
the conversation so as to make her believe he had all sorts of romantic
things to conceal. He was angry with himself that he had not. There had
been no opportunity.

Miss Wilkinson was dissatisfied with her lot. She resented having to earn
her living and told Philip a long story of an uncle of her mother's, who
had been expected to leave her a fortune but had married his cook and
changed his will. She hinted at the luxury of her home and compared her
life in Lincolnshire, with horses to ride and carriages to drive in, with
the mean dependence of her present state. Philip was a little puzzled when
he mentioned this afterwards to Aunt Louisa, and she told him that when
she knew the Wilkinsons they had never had anything more than a pony and
a dog-cart; Aunt Louisa had heard of the rich uncle, but as he was married
and had children before Emily was born she could never have had much hope
of inheriting his fortune. Miss Wilkinson had little good to say of
Berlin, where she was now in a situation. She complained of the vulgarity
of German life, and compared it bitterly with the brilliance of Paris,
where she had spent a number of years. She did not say how many. She had
been governess in the family of a fashionable portrait-painter, who had
married a Jewish wife of means, and in their house she had met many
distinguished people. She dazzled Philip with their names. Actors from the
Comedie Francaise had come to the house frequently, and Coquelin, sitting
next her at dinner, had told her he had never met a foreigner who spoke
such perfect French. Alphonse Daudet had come also, and he had given her
a copy of Sappho: he had promised to write her name in it, but she had
forgotten to remind him. She treasured the volume none the less and she
would lend it to Philip. Then there was Maupassant. Miss Wilkinson with a
rippling laugh looked at Philip knowingly. What a man, but what a writer!
Hayward had talked of Maupassant, and his reputation was not unknown to
Philip.

"Did he make love to you?" he asked.

The words seemed to stick funnily in his throat, but he asked them
nevertheless. He liked Miss Wilkinson very much now, and was thrilled by
her conversation, but he could not imagine anyone making love to her.

"What a question!" she cried. "Poor Guy, he made love to every woman he
me