"
Helen rose suddenly to her feet. Her eyes were fixed upon a figure
approaching through the wood.
"You really aren't respectable, Philippa," she declared. "Throw
away your cigarette, for heaven's sake, and sit up. Some one is
coming."
Philippa only moved her head lazily. The sunlight, which came down
in a thousand little zigzags through the wind-tossed trees, fell
straight upon her rather pale, defiant little face, with its
unexpressed evasive charm, and seemed to find a new depth of colour
in the red-gold of her disordered hair. Her slim, perfect body was
stretched almost at full length, one leg drawn a little up, her hands
carelessly drooping towards the grass. The cigarette was still
burning in the corner of her lips.
"I decline," she said, "to throw away my cigarette for any one."
"Least of all, I trust," a familiar voice interposed, "for me."
Philippa sat upright at once, smoothed her hair and looked a little
resentfully at Lessingham. He was wearing a brown tweed
knickerbocker suit, and he carried a gun under his arm.
"Whatever are you doing up here," she demanded, "and do you know
anything about our game laws? You can't come out into the woods
here and shoot things just because you feel like it."
He disposed of his gun and seated himself between them.
"That is quite all right," he assured her.
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