Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/101

 the dark skin. He was aware that the two women were watching him, secretly, as they might watch a man who was a little unbalanced: they had been doing so without cessation since his return. They were a little like two purring cats watching prey all innocent of their intentions. 

It was impossible, of course, for the three of them to continue playing the game of hide-and-seek, pretending that Philip and Naomi had not returned or that Philip was too ill to go out; it was impossible for Naomi to go about forever disguised by a thick veil. Even Emma's eternal policy of allowing things to work themselves out appeared after a month to be productive of no result, for Philip's "mental condition" showed no signs of improvement. He remained, rocklike, in his determination, while the two women watched, stricken with uneasy fears because the Philip whom they had once known so well that they could anticipate and control his every impulse, now seemed a creature filled with vague and mysterious moods and ideas that lay quite beyond the borders of their understanding.

Their watching became at times unbearable to him, for it gave him the suffocating sense of being a maniac who was not to be trusted alone. He took to spending more and more time away from the house, either walking the country roads or wandering through the black Flats where he was safe from encountering any one or anything, save the gray figure of Irene Shane, going her tireless rounds. Once he had a glimpse of the old lady herself—Irene's mother—riding by