A Knight on Wheels Part 14

Philip pondered.

"I suppose so," he said at last. "But they are pretty old."

"If they do," continued Peggy, "what will happen to you?"

Philip pondered again. Life had suddenly turned a corner, and new vistas were opening before him.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "I don't want to go back home at all.

For one thing, I don't see how I can. I have broken an order. I told Uncle Joseph about meeting you, and he forbade me to speak to you again so long as I lived under his roof. I shouldn't have come this afternoon--"

"Oh!" said Peggy reproachfully.

"You can't disobey an order," explained Philip gently. "But when I saw Uncle Joseph and the lady--like"--he coughed modestly--"like the way they were, I thought I might."

"He had broken his own orders," observed Miss Falconer jesuitically.

"Besides," continued Philip, "I am not going to live under his roof any longer. I hate it all so."

"Hate what?"

Philip recollected himself.

"The work I have to do," he said. "I used to like it once; but now--now I don't think it is very good work. Anyhow, I hate it. I can't go back to it. I only went on because--well, because of Uncle Joseph. He was very good to me, and I was some use to him."

"My dear, he won't want you now," said Peggy shrewdly.

Philip was conscious of a sudden thrill.

"Won't he?" he said. "I never thought of that. Then I _needn't_ go back?"

"You'll have to go somewhere, though," observed his sage counsellor.

"Where are you going to?"

"I should like to go about a bit. I have never even been to school. I don't know any other boys. I want to grow up and be a man, and travel about all over the world," said Philip, his eager spirit das.h.i.+ng off into futurity at once.

"I see," said Peggy, suddenly cold again.

"Yes," continued Philip. He was fairly soaring now. "Have you read 'The Idylls of the King'?"

Peggy shook her head blankly.

"No," she said. "Is it a story?"

"Yes. It's all about a Round Table, and some knights who met there. They used to ride out and do the most splendid things."

"What sort?" asked Peggy absently.

The sudden revelation of the eternal masculine in Philip, exemplified by his desire to roam, was jangling the chords of the eternal feminine in herself.

"Dangerous things," explained Philip enthusiastically.

"What for?"

"Well, they very often did them just out of bravery; but the very best things a knight did were always in honour of his Lady."

"Oh! Then you would require a Lady?" said Peggy, growing distinctly more attentive.

"Rather!" said Philip. "To serve, you know. Whenever a knight performed any great deed he wouldn't care anything about himself. He would just feel he had done it for his Lady, and she would reward him."

"How?"

Philip's brow wrinkled. He had not considered the point before. With him, service always came far above reward.

"Well," he said at last, "she would praise him, and go on being his Lady, and n.o.body else's."

At this point in the conversation Philip was conscious of a sudden constriction round his neck. Peggy appeared to be about to make some remark; but she relaxed her arm again, and enquired calmly:--

"When are you going to begin?"

"I shall have to grow up a bit first, I suppose," said the prospective Galahad regretfully. "But I don't want to go back to Uncle Joseph till then."

"Why should you?" urged the small temptress at his side. "He won't require you now that his Lady has come back to him. You are free to be anything you like."

"The difficult part," remarked the practical Philip, "will be to make a start at being anything. To begin with, I don't know where to go."

"Come to us," said Miss Falconer promptly.

Swiftly she sketched out her plans to her mesmerised companion.

"I will take you up to the house now," she said. "I will put you into the studio: Dad is never there after dark. You can stay all night--"

She paused, and turned to Philip enquiringly.

"You won't be frightened?" she enquired, half-apologetically.

"Knights are never frightened," replied Philip axiomatically.

"You can sleep on the model-throne," continued Peggy, taking all obstacles in her stride. "I will bring you in some supper, and no one will know. Then, when Mother comes to see me in bed, I shall tell her about you, and we will settle what to do next. But you mustn't--not on _any_ account--let Dad see you, or he would have one of his tempers.

Come on!"

It was almost dark by this time, and Peggy's voice had sunk to an excited and ghostly whisper. She dropped off the gate, dislodging her companion--who it will be remembered had been accommodated with a seat upon a portion of her apparel--with some suddenness.

"We are rather late," she said. "I am not allowed to stay out after dark. Let's run! Give me your hand."

They trotted through the gloaming, and presently came to a house standing by itself, well back from the road. Breathing heavily, the two small conspirators stole round to the north side of the house, and presently came to a halt close under the wall. Above their heads, eight feet up, Philip could see a small window. It stood open.

"Take me on your back," said Peggy. "Stoop down."

Philip obeyed.