Philippa, remaining beside Warner, stood watching them through the lighted windows.
She was wearing her first evening gown—one of Peggy’s gifts—a dainty affair of palest blue; and her full, smooth cheeks and throat accented the slim immaturity of her arms and shoulders.
She looked up, smiled faintly, and moved nearer with that unconscious instinct of youth for seeking contact where confidence and trust is placed. Her slim fingers, touching his, nestled into his hand with an eloquence unmistakable of innocent possession satisfied.
"You _are_ only a very little girl yet, aren’t you, Philippa?" he said, smiling, but touched by the youth of her and her frail shoulder resting lightly against his own.
"I know I am, Jim. I seem to be growing younger under the warm shelter of your kindness—under the security of this roof and the quiet sense of protection everywhere.
"It is as though I had been arrested in development since I left school—as though youth and growth had stopped and only my mind had continued growing older and older and more tired during these last six years—dull, bewildering, ignoble years—lonely, endless years that dragged their days after them like a chain, heavier, heavier——"
She pressed a little closer to his shoulder:
"I had _nobody_. Do you understand? I seem to know right from wrong, but I don’t know how I know it. Yet, I am old in some things—old and wearied with a knowledge which still, however, remains personally incomprehensible to me. It’s just a vast accumulation of unhappy facts concerning life as it is lived by many.... I always knew there were such people as you—as these dear and gentle friends of yours; I never saw them—never saw even any young girls after I left school—only the women, young and old, who came to the cabaret, or who came and went through the Ausone streets, or who sat knitting and gossiping under the trees on the quay."
She laid her cheek against his shoulder with a little sigh.
"You are very wonderful to me," she murmured, partly to herself.
The night air had become a little fresher: he thought that she should have some sort of wrap, so they entered the billiard room together, where Peggy, awaiting her shot, slipped one arm around Philippa’s waist, detaining her to caress her and whisper nonsense.