Helena

end the experience had been unprecedented and agitating. She had lived in a world where men and women do not talk much about themselves, and as a rule ins

ny longer for the reticence of the past, who desire to know all they possibly can about themselves, their own thoughts and sensations, their own peculiarities and powers, all of which are endlessly interesting to them; and especially to the intellectual élite among them. Already, before the war, the younger g

an introspection which talks; a psychology which chatters, of all things small and great; asking i

othing had happened. He, like a man of the world, took his cue immediately from her, and the conversation-whether it ran on the return of Karsavina to the Russian Ballet, or the success of "Abraham Lincoln"; or the prospects of the Peace, or merely the weddings and buryings of certain com

en they rose from breakfast, and she made her way to the

e her. "I'm afraid I prefer London. But now on anothe

me!" she said, turn

is the simplest matter in the world. You will appear to give orders. In reality Mrs. Mawson will have everything cut and dried, and you

" murmured

errace outside, made a sudden gest

t something he calls a herbaceous border. You see that border there?"-he pointed-"Well, I barely know a peony from a cabbage. Perhaps you do?" He turned towards her hopef

led in

If not, he'll come into my study, and talk a jargon of which I don't understand a word, for half an hour. And as he's stone deaf, he doesn't understand a word I say. Moreover when he's o

wildered, adding rather desperately, "Bu

ps Helena does! By the way, she

ward, who was still

ng-room for you, Helena. Would y

, jumping up. "And may

s mouth twis

. There is some nice old stuff about, if you look for it. If you send for the odd man he'll move

loor, and opened a door in a

ly!" cri

cabinets and chairs, a chintz-covered sofa, a stand of stuffed humming-birds,

t going to ask if the cases had come. How ever di

cester Square. He sent some one down, and they were all finished before you came

She went to the bookshelves. Poets, novelists, plays, philosophers, economists, some French and Italian books, they

e taken a lot

took all the troubl

caught a piano standi

I thought we agreed

well have it down here. We c

ndows were open. Helena's slim figure in a white dress, the reddish touch in her brown hair, the lovely rounding of her cheek and neck, were thrown sharply against a background of new leaf made by a giant beech tree j

some drivelling work b

che, Helena. Order wha

her to me. Geoffrey com

en to-

ad turned suddenly at his last

her breath-"So he ha

, now at the piano. Her face hardened, and she paid no attention to Mrs. Friend's little c

ed. A friend of mine bought her for me in town-and she was to be here

iend, puzzled by the sudden cloud

'll get my hat and run down. I found out last night where

She recalled the threat of the night before. But no, impossible! Afte

f a mistress in the house she had been long accustomed to rule, was soon melted by the docility of the little lady, and graciously consented to see her own plans approved en bloc, by one so frankly ignorant of how a country house party should be conducted. Then it was the turn of old Fenn; a more difficult matter, since h

doing. She had ventured to ask Fenn for some flowers, and wou

ality. "If I can't keep Miss Pitstone out of mischief, I shan't b

etending to read a magazine, but really, or so it seemed

ook. "He sent me his article in the Market Place, but it's so stiff that I can'

perceived a marked item in the table

it mean?"

t me for liking Diana and Richard Feverel better, because they were easier. And now, nothing's bad enough for Meredith's 'stilted nonsense'-'characters without a spark of life in them'-'horrible mannerisms'-you sho

encies of her own education were becoming terribl

no wiser than before. What did it all mean? She groped, dazzled, among the Meredithian mists and splendours. But Helena read with a growing excitement, as though the

s!-oh, g

olour, the soul's

eaven splendid

, half laughing, half passionate: "You do understand, d

notion what it means!" Helena laughed

coached-regularly coac

Colour?" asked M

outine-and make-believe. It's what makes life worth while. And it is the young who feel it-the young who hear i

-a country lane at evening where a man had put his arm round her and kissed her-her wedding-evening by the sea, when the sun went down, and all the ways were darkened, and the stars came out-and that telegram which put an end to everything

a quick, unspoken sympathy, her

oice, like the voice of an incantation, that she had used the night before. "You are the neatest, daint

aghast at the outrageousness of the comparison, tr

s forty-four. She must be thirty-eight if she is a day. They have both got money-which Cynthia can't do without, for she is horribly extravagant. But I wouldn't give

, her hands round her knees, defiance in every tense feature. Mrs. Friend was consc

ical when he spends all thi

to keep them quiet. But as to the real feast-liberty to discover the world for themselves, make their own experiments-choos

-four hours-not so much! And you do

last night. They don't matter to me. It's the principle involved that mat

" cried M

e brown head made her a ceremonial bow-"as to go up with me to town-we can go to my dressmaker's togethe

!-I can't do anything of the sor

to tell him after lunch. Don't please worry. And good-bye ti

r that had produced her?-and if so, how and why? All that seemed probable was that in two or three weeks' time, perhaps, she

o which she had been plunged with so little warning. Yet when Helena was actually there at her feet, she was hypnotize

stock, one of those solid, grey-haired pillars of Church and State in which rural England abounds, was first dazzled by Miss Pitstone's beauty, and then clearly scandalized b

nied him to the front door, saw him mount his horse, and was

p, I want to

ed up a

a. Will you come

he door behind her, and p

that comforta

. Cousin Philip, did you sen

I told you

e surprised that

derstand wh

bout Lord Donald yesterday; and as I particularly want to see Lord Donald, I sent the new groom to the village this morning with a wire t

ooking apparently at the cigarette

ine, that Mrs. Friend

I would arrange for her to go somew

en to go alone-to meet L

in the lounge at the R

ford laughed-g

ould have wished, that you should be seen at the Ritz alone with Lord Donald. I therefore have her authority with me in asking you either to write or

hy

can't do without spoiling her chances in life-and one of

ain I a

er? I thought I had made it plain that having been devoted to your mother, I was prepa

e been as nice as possible; and anybody who didn't sympathize with my views would think me a nasty, ung

his brow was much in evidence. It might have meant the chronic effort of a short-sighted ma

t your views are," he said at last, throwi

ke than ever, as she stood leaning against Buntingford's writi

le and undesirable-that kind of thing! And you expect me to know the one set, and ignore the other set. Well, we don't see it that way at all. We think that everybody is a pretty mixed lot. I know I am myself. At any rate I'm not going to begin my life by laying down a heap of rules about things I don't u

esent mood she might treat it so as to rouse his own temper-let alone the unseemliness of the discussion it must raise between them. Or should he give her a fairly full biography of Jim Donald, as he happened to know it? He revolted against the notion, astonished to find how strong

resting. I should like some day to discuss them with you. But the immedia

said Helena, her

ns of making it impossible for him to meet you at the Ritz next Wednesd

demanded. She ha

his tone softened-"can't we shake hands on it, and make

ten disguised by the powerful general effect of the man's head and eyes. In a calmer mood she might have said to herself that o

sition should be, which, with the help of pride, would not allow her to drift into mere temper. She put he

s, Cousin Philip, if you are to proceed on these li

for these two years? It was

alm a little

de me give it," she said f

," he said gently. "Hadn't w

opened the door for her,

Buntingford gav

s. How many times a week shall I have to do it? Can't Cynthia

succeeded in quieting his own irritation, and turning his mind t