"Because," she said, "there seems to be a cloud--a shadow--between us
that I do not remember to have existed before."

"We are both older," he explained, "and the familiarity of childhood
cannot exist when childhood ceases to be."

"I would rather be a child forever than that you should change to me,"
she said, quickly.

"I think," he returned, gravely, "that the only change in me is that I
admire you more than I have ever done"

And these words filled her with the keenest sense of rapture yet they
were but commonplace enough, if she had only realized it.




Chapter VIII.



Lord Arleigh raised his hat from his brow and stood for a few minutes
bareheaded in the starlight. He felt like a man who had been in the
stifling atmosphere of a conservatory; warmth and perfume had dazed him.
How beautiful Philippa was--how bewildering! What a nameless wondrous
charm there was about her! No wonder that half London was at her feet,
and that her smiles were eagerly sought. He was not the least in love
with her; admiration, homage, liking, but not love--anything but
that--filled him; yet he dreamed of her, thought of her, compared her