Lippa Part 6

'Now if I remember rightly,' replies Miss Seaton gravely, 'you haven't asked me to marry you.'

'What have I done then?' asks Dalrymple.

'You've told me you loved me, but that isn't a bit the same, you know.'

'No, of course not, but, dearest, you _will_ marry me?'

'Silly boy,' is the reply, while she suddenly reaches up and kisses him, and then disengaging herself from his detaining arm hurries back to the house, whither he follows her a little more slowly.

CHAPTER VI

''Tis true, 'tis true, 'tis pity, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.'--HAMLET

It is breakfast time, but at present n.o.body has put in an appearance; whoever is punctual the morning after a ball! The drawing-room looks dreadful, all empty and bare, and the candles burnt down in their sockets. 'Ugh!' Lippa shudders as she pokes her head in, just to have a look at the place where Jimmy bade her goodnight. She does even more, for she goes and lays her head against a place on the wall, where she remembers he leant against, and as she does so a happy contented smile hovers round her mouth, and then laughing at herself, she hurries to the dining-room.

'What, no one down yet!' she exclaims, gazing round the empty room.

'Yes; I am,' replies a voice from outside, and Paul appears at the open window. 'Good-morning, how early you are,' he says.

'Only punctual,' replies Philippa; 'isn't it a lovely day again. I can't think how the others can be so lazy. Come into the garden, do.'

Paul acquiesces. He has taken a great liking to Miss Seaton. 'Did you like the ball?' he asks.

'Oh, so much,' replies she, 'wasn't it lovely. I wish it could come all over again.'

'Do you?' he says.

'Well, perhaps not quite all,' she answers, blushing suddenly at the remembrance of her interview with Harkness.

'Which portion could you do without. The quarter of an hour before you ran into the shrubbery and nearly knocked me down?'

'Did I?' is the reply.

'Indeed you _did_,' says Ponsonby, laughing, 'and you looked so fierce I was afraid to go after you and fled in the opposite direction, leaving you to vent your wrath on Dalrymple whom I had just left.'

'I am very glad you did,' says Lippa, with a little conscious laugh.

'Two's company, three's none.'

'Yes,' replies Paul, quietly, and then a pause ensues.

'Oughtn't I to have said that?' asks Philippa, suddenly looking up into his face. 'Because--well ... you see, if you'd been there--now, if I tell you something, promise to keep it a secret,' this very persuasively and slipping her arm through his.

'On my word and honour,' Paul answers.

'Well, Mr Dalrymple asked me--to--marry him--there!'

'What, Jimmy!' exclaims Paul. 'I'm so glad; he's quite the nicest fellow I know. I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart.'

'Thank you,' says Lippa, simply. 'But you won't tell anybody, will you?

n.o.body knows, not even Mabel--'

'But, my dear child, why did you tell _me_, of all people first?' asks he.

'I had to tell somebody, and I know George couldn't keep anything from Mabel, or Mabel from him.'

'I hope you will be very happy, but look, Lady Dadford is beckoning to us--'

'What early birds you are,' says her ladyship. 'I needn't ask if you are the worse for last night's dissipation, for you don't look it, either of you--'

'I'm sure Philippa will say that it did her an immense amount of good,'

replies Paul, with a wink at Lippa, which makes her tremble in her shoes as to what may be coming next.

It has been arranged that the whole of the party should go for a picnic to a spot about five miles off. 'Just to get out of the way,' says Lord Dadford, 'while the house is being put straight again; sort yourselves, sort yourselves,' he adds, standing at the front door, surrounded by guests and vehicles. 'I reserve to myself the pleasure of driving Mrs Mankaster,' (the vicar's wife) for both he and his spouse, a portly lady, resplendent in stiff brown silk, have been invited to take part in the outing.

By degrees the carriages are filled and off they go, Lippa finding to her chagrin that she is seated by Paul in a dog-cart, Jimmy and Lady Anne behind, Lord Helmdon is on in front with some other people.

'I'm sorry for you,' says Ponsonby, 'but if you wish your secret to be kept from the others, you must not be seen too much together.'

Lippa sighs.

'So love-sick already,' says he laughing.

'How rude you are, I wasn't sighing a bit, I caught my breath.'

'Oh, I like that,' is the reply.

'I'm sure you can never have,' hesitatingly, 'been in love, have you?'

and she glances up at him. 'I'm so sorry I said that,' she adds, noticing the pained look that comes into his eyes, and then a silence ensues.

'Look here, Lippa,' says he at length in rather a lower tone, 'don't you know, has no one told you that I was married five years ago.'

'Married?' exclaims Miss Seaton in astonishment, 'oh, I'm so sorry I said that.'

'It does not matter in the least,' he replies, 'but I should think no one has been more desperately in love than I was once.'

'She, your wife, is dead?' asks Lippa quietly.

'I would to Heaven she were,' is the quick reply. 'No, child, don't think of me as a lonely widower,' this with a laugh that is hard and grating, 'I'm worse than that.'

'Poor Paul,' says Lippa gently, while her eyes fill with tears, and she lays her hand on his unoccupied one, the hard look quits his handsome face, and he sighs.

'Good little soul,' he says possessing himself of it.

Meanwhile Dalrymple is devoured with curiosity as to what this earnest conversation can be about. He has listened patiently to Lady Anne, who has gone through all the books she has read lately, arguing on their merits and demerits, and now she is enlarging on the degenerating manners of the rising generation.