Part 39 (1/2)

”Only in a childish sort of way, though, I suppose?” pursued Timothy, with a touch of anxiety.

Before his suspicions could be allayed there came a vigorous but rhythmatic tattoo played upon the tiny bra.s.s knocker of the door.

_Tum-ti-tum-ti-tiddle-i-um, Tum-ti-tum-ti-tum-tum!

Officers' Wives getting pudding and pies, Soldiers' Wives get skilly!_

it said. This was Peggy's regulation way of announcing to her patient that she was about to enter the room. When her hands were full she whistled it. Philip knew every beat of it by heart.

After the usual brief interval the door opened and Peggy entered, to announce to Timothy, with her head upon one side in the manner which he had just described with so much tenderness and enthusiasm, that it was time for him to depart.

”I have another visitor,” she said.

The newcomer proved to be a gigantic Scotswoman, of forty or more, with humorous blue eyes and a slow, comprehending smile.

”This is Miss Leslie, Philip,” announced Peggy. ”Mr. Rendle, I want to show you our front door. The exterior is greatly admired.”

III

Miss Leslie sat down in the chair vacated by Timothy, and remarked, in a soft Highland drawl: ”It is very shocking, being left alone with a young man like this.”

She smiled, and Philip's heart warmed to her at once. He felt instinctively that Miss Leslie was going to be a less bewildering companion than Miss Babs Duncombe, for instance.

”My only excuse for my unmaidenly conduct,” continued the visitor, ”is that I am a very old friend of Peggy's. I have known her ever since she was so high.” She indicated Peggy's infant stature by a gesture.

”So have I,” said Philip proudly. ”Did you know?”

No, Miss Leslie did not know: Peggy had not told her; so Philip, with wonderful fluency for him, explained the circ.u.mstances under which he had first entered the house of Falconer.

Miss Leslie chuckled.

”It would be a fine ploy for Montagu,” she said, ”scarifying a little boy. But I am glad you met Peggy's mother, if only for five minutes.”

”She was very kind to me during those five minutes,” remarked Philip.

”She was my greatest friend,” said Miss Leslie simply. ”But she has been dead for seven years now. I suppose you knew that?”

Philip nodded: Peggy had told him.

So the conversation proceeded comfortably, understandingly. Jean Leslie was one of those women in whose presence a man can put his soul into carpet-slippers. It was not necessary to select light topics or invent small-talk for her benefit. She appeared to know all about Philip, and the Brake, and the accident. She also gave Philip a good deal of fresh information about Peggy and her father.

”I hoped,” she said, ”that when Montagu was made an A.R.A. he would be less of a bear. But he is just the same. Success came too late, poor body. He is as morose and pernickety and f.e.c.kless as ever. Peggy is hard put to it sometimes.”

”I expect you help her a good deal,” remarked Philip, with sudden intuition.

Miss Leslie smiled grimly.

”Yes,” she said, ”I put my oar in occasionally. Montagu dislikes me, I am sorry to say. He is not afraid of Peggy,--nor she of him, for that matter,--but she is too soft with him: so whenever I see her overdriven I just step in and get myself disliked a little more. But he usually comes to me when he is in trouble, for all that. I am the only person who has any patience with him.”

After that they talked about London, and Philip's work, and the future of automobilism. Miss Leslie apparently saw nothing either ”pathetic” or ”quaint” or ”tragic” in a man liking to talk about what interested him.

At any rate, she drew him out and lured him on. For all her spinsterhood, Jean Leslie knew something of masculine nature. She knew that the shortest way to the heart of that self-centred creature Man is to let him talk about himself, and his work, and his ambitions. So Philip discoursed, with all his shyness and reticence thawed out of him, upon subjects which must have made his visitor's head ache, but which won her heart none the less. That is the way of a woman. She values the post of confidante so highly that she will endure a man's most uninteresting confidences with joy, because of the real compliment implied by their bestowal.