When it was over, he asked her if she would rest.
"No," said Philippa; "I heard the playing of a fountain in the fernery.
I should like to go there."
They went through the magnificent suite of rooms, and then through the
conservatory into the dim, beautiful fernery, where the lamps glowed
like stars, and the cool rippling water fell with a musical rhythm into
the deep basin below. They could hear the distant sound of music from
the ball-room. It was a time when love, if it lay in a man's heart,
would spring, into sweet, sudden life.
"If he loves me," she said to herself, "he will tell me so now."
"I like this better than the ball-room," she said. "By the way, you have
not told me if you like my dress?" she added, anxious to bring him to
the one subject she had at heart. "Do you remember that when we were
children, Norman, you used to criticise my dress?"
"Did I? It was very rude of me. I should not venture to criticise
anything so marvelous now. It is a wonderful dress, Philippa; in the
light it looks like moonbeams, in the shade like snow. Do you suppose I
should ever have the courage to criticise anything so beautiful?"
"Do you really like it, Norman--without flattery?"
"I never flatter, Philippa, not even in jest; you should know that.
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