"How funny," laughed Camilla. "You asked me that twice before."
"Did I? I forgot," said Mrs. Paige with a shrug; and, bending over
again, became exceedingly busy with her trowel until the fire in
her cheeks had cooled.
"Every woman that ever saw him becomes infatuated with Phil
Berkley," said Camilla cheerfully. "I was. You will be. And the
worst of it is he's simply not worth it."
"I--thought not."
"Why did you think not?"
"I don't know why."
"He can be fascinating," said Camilla reflectively, "but he
doesn't always trouble himself to be."
"Doesn't he?" said Ailsa with a strange sense of relief.
Camilla hesitated, lowered her voice.
"They say he is fast," she whispered. Ailsa, on her knees, turned
and looked up.
"Whatever that means," added Camilla, shuddering. "But all the
same, every girl who sees him begins to adore him immediately until
her parents make her stop."
"How silly," said Ailsa in a leisurely level voice. But her heart
was beating furiously, and she turned to her roses with a blind
energy that threatened them root and runner.
"How did you happen to think of him at all?" continued Camilla
mischievously.
"He called on--Mrs. Craig this afternoon."
"I didn't know she knew him."
"They are related--distantly--I believe----"
"Oh," exclaimed Camilla. "I'm terribly sorry I spoke that way
about him, dear----"
"I don't care what you say about him," returned Ailsa Paige
fiercely, emptying some grains of sand out of one of her gloves;
resolutely emptying her mind, too, of Philip Berkley.
"Dear," she added gaily to Camilla, "come in and we'll have tea and
gossip, English fashion. And I'll tell you about my new duties at
the Home for Destitute Children--every morning from ten to twelve,
my dear, in their horrid old infirmary--the poor little
darlings!--and I would be there all day if I wasn't a selfish,
indolent, pleasure-loving creature without an ounce of womanly
feeling--Yes I am! I must be, to go about to galleries and dances
and Philharmonics when there are motherless children in that
infirmary, as sick for lack of love as for the hundred and one
ailments distressing their tender little bodies."
But over their tea and marmalade and toast she became less
communicative; and once or twice the conversation betrayed an
unexpected tendency to drift toward Berkley.