A Knight on Wheels Part 13

Philip retired in good order and closed the door softly, leaving them together.

Once in the hall, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his cap and coat and slipped out of the front door. The afternoon light was fading.

There was still a chance, he thought.

He broke into a run.

CHAPTER VIII

THE HAMPSTEAD HEATH CONSPIRACY

HE was right, but it was touch and go. Peggy was climbing down from her gate as Philip cantered up.

"Hallo, Pegs!" he said breathlessly.

Miss Falconer greeted him coldly.

"Hallo!" she replied. "Going for a walk?"

"What walk?" asked the bewildered Philip. "Didn't you expect to meet me?"

"Certainly not. Why should I? I wasn't thinking about you at all,"

replied Eve's daughter.

"But you promised to meet me here at half-past three," cried Philip in dismay.

"And now it's a quarter to five!" blazed Peggy, abandoning her strategical position, woman-like, in order to score a tactical point.

Sure enough, the sound of a church chime fell musically on their ears through the still evening air.

"I'm awfully sorry," said Philip.

"It doesn't matter at all," replied Peggy, still inflexible.

"Good-night!"

"Good-night!" said Philip quietly. He was const.i.tutionally incapable of forcing his society where it was not wanted. He turned to go. "It's a pity I'm late," he added regretfully. "The most exciting things have been happening, and I wanted to tell you about them."

The small damsel's _hauteur_ melted in an instant. She deliberately resumed her perch upon the gate.

"You can come and sit up here if you like," she intimated, holding out her hand.

Philip accepted the invitation with alacrity, but the touch of Peggy's froggy paw brought a look of concern into his face.

"I say," he said, "you are cold! Put on my greatcoat."

Peggy declined.

"You'll want it yourself," she said.

But Philip was insistent.

"You simply must," he urged. "You are s.h.i.+vering all over. You can give me a corner of it to sit on if you like."

The argument came to an end, and presently they were installed side by side upon the gate, like two sociable sparrows. Peggy, whose teeth were chattering, snuggled gratefully into the warmth of the big coat, while Philip balanced himself on the rail beside her, sitting on a very liberal allowance of corner.

"Are you comfortable now?" he asked.

"Yes," said Peggy gratefully. "I'm glad you came," she added with characteristic honesty.

"Why?" enquired Philip. He did not know that one must never ask a lady for her reasons.

But the little girl answered quite frankly:--

"I was getting frightened."

And she slipped her arm round Philip's neck.

If Philip had been to a boys' school he would have received this familiarity with open alarm or resentment. Being what he was, nothing but a very gallant little gentleman, he responded by putting his own arm in a protective fas.h.i.+on round his companion's slim shoulders.

"Now we are all right," he said comfortably.

"Tell me your news," commanded Peggy.

Philip related the whole amazing story. Peggy listened breathlessly, her eyes and lips forming three round O's. When the recital was finished, she remarked:--

"She must have been the lady Mother meant when she said that was the question only one woman could give the answer to only she never would."

"Yes," said Philip, catching the general sense of this unusual pa.s.sage of syntax. "It was the same name--a funny name--Vivien."

"How do you know?" asked Peggy curiously.

"Uncle Joseph told me all about her," said Philip. "I forgot, you haven't heard that bit."

And at the pressing invitation of Miss Falconer, he recited the tale of Colonel Meldrum's love-affair.

Peggy's verdict came hot and emphatic.

"She was a beast to treat him like that."

"Well, she has come back to him in the end," said broader-minded Philip.

"Will they get married, do you think?" asked Peggy, all in a feminine flutter.