he did say was having a remarkable effect on his neighbour. Then, before the table knew what it was all about, it was over. Lord Buntingford had turned resolutely away, and was devoting himself to conversation with Lady Cynthia, while his ward was waging a fresh war of repartee with the distinguished soldier beside her, in which her sharpened tones and quick breathing suggested the swell after a storm.
Mrs. Friend too had noticed. She had been struck with the sudden tightening of the guardian's lip, the sudden stiffening of his hand lying on the table. She wondered anxiously what was the matter.
In the library afterwards, Lady Cynthia, Mrs. Friend, and the two girls—his daughter and his guest—who had come with Mr. Parish, settled into a little circle near the wood-fire which the chilliness of the May evening made pleasant.
Helena Pitstone meanwhile walked away by herself to a distant part of the room and turned over photographs, with what seemed to Mrs. Friend a stormy hand. And as she did so, everyone in the room was aware of her, of the brilliance and power of the girl's beauty, and of the energy that like an aura seemed to envelop her personality. Lady Cynthia made several attempts to capture her, but in vain. Helena would only answer in monosyllables, and if approached, retreated further into the dim room, ostensibly in search of a book on a distant shelf, really in flight. Lady Cynthia, with a shrug, gave it up.
Mrs. Friend felt too strange to the whole situation to make any move. She could only watch for the entry of the gentlemen. Lord Buntingford, who came in last, evidently looked round for his ward. But Helena had already flitted back to the rest of the company, and admirably set off by a deep red chair into which she had thrown herself, was soon flirting unashamedly with the two young men, with Mr. Parish and the Rector, taking them all on in turn, and suiting the bait to the fish with the instinctive art of her kind. Lord Buntingford got not a word with her, and when the guests departed she had vanished upstairs before anyone knew that she had gone.
"Have a cigar in the garden, Vivian, before you turn in? There is a moon, and it is warmer outside than in," said Lord Buntingford to his cousin, when they were left alone.
"By all means."
So presently they found themselves pacing a flagged path outside a long conservatory which covered one side of the house. The moon was cloudy, and the temperature low. But the scents of summer were already in the air—of grass and young leaf, and the first lilac. The old grey house with its haphazard outline and ugly detail acquired a certain dignity from the night, and round it stretched dim slopes of pasture, with oaks rising here and there from bands of white mist.
"Is that tale true you told me before dinner about Jim Donald?" said Lord
Buntingford abruptly. "You're sure it's true—honour bright?"
The other laughed.
"Why, I had it from Jim himself!" He laughed. "He just made a joke of it.
But he is a mean skunk! I've found out since that he wanted to buy
Preston out for the part Preston had taken in another affair. There's a
pretty case coming on directly, with Jim for hero. You have heard of it."
"No," said Buntingford curtly; "but in any case nothing would have induced me to have him here. Preston's a friend of mine. So when Helena told me at dinner she had asked him for Saturday, I had to tell her I should telegraph to him to-morrow morning not to come. She was angry, of course."
Captain Lodge gave a low whistle. "Of course she doesn't know. But I think you would be wise to stop it. And I remember now she danced all night with him at the Arts Ball!"
CHAPTER III
There was a light tap on Mrs. Friend's door. She said "Come in" rather unwillingly. Some time had elapsed since she had seen Helena's fluttering white disappear into the corridor beyond her room; and she had nourished a secret hope that the appointment had been forgotten. But the door opened slightly. Mrs. Friend saw first a smiling face, finger on lip. Then the girl slipped in, and closed the door with caution.
"I don't want that 'very magnificent three-tailed Bashaw' to know we are discussing him. He's somewhere still."
"What did you say?" asked Mrs. Friend, puzzled.
"Oh, it's only a line of an old poem—I don't know by whom—my father used to quote it. Well, now—did you see what happened at dinner?"
Helena had established herself comfortably in a capacious arm-chair opposite Mrs. Friend, tucking her feet under her. She was in a white dressing-gown, and she had hastily tied a white scarf round her loosened hair. In the dim light of a couple of candles her beauty made an even more exciting impression on the woman watching her than it had done in the lamp-lit drawing-room.
"It's war!" she said firmly, "war between Buntingford and me. I'm sorry it's come so soon—the very first evening!—and I know it'll be beastly for you—but I can't help it. I won't be dictated to. If I'm not twenty-one, I'm old enough to choose my own friends; and if Buntingford chooses to boycott them, he must take the consequences." And throwing her white arms above her head, her eyes looked out from the frame of them—eyes sparkling with pride and will.
Mrs. Friend begged for an explanation.
"Well, I happened to tell him that I had invited Lord Donald for Sunday. I'll tell you about Lord Donald presently—and he simply—behaved like a brute! He said he was sorry I hadn't told him, that he couldn't have Donald here, and would telegraph to him to-morrow—not to come. Just think of that! So then I said—why? And he said he didn't approve of Donald—or some nonsense of that sort. I was quite calm. I reminded him he had promised to let me invite my friends—that was part of the bargain. Yes—he said—but within limits—and Donald was the limit. That made me savage—so I upped and said, very well, if I couldn't see Donald here, I should see him somewhere else—and he wouldn't prevent me. I wasn't going to desert my friends for a lot of silly tales. So then he said I didn't know what I was talking about, and turned his back on me. He kept his temper provokingly—and I lost mine—which was idiotic of me. But I mean to be even with him—somehow. And as for Donald, I shall go up to town and lunch with him at the Ritz next week!"
"Oh, no, no, you can't!" cried Mrs. Friend in distress. "You can't treat your guardian like that! Do tell me what it's all about!" And bending forward, she laid her two small hands entreatingly on the girl's knee. She looked so frail and pitiful as she did so, in her plain black, that Helena was momentarily touched. For the first time her new chaperon appeared to her as something else than a mere receiver into which, or at which, it suited her to talk. She laid her own hand soothingly on Mrs. Friend's.
"Of course I'll tell you. I really don't mean to be nasty to you. But all the same I warn you that it's no good trying to stop me, when I've made up my mind. Well, now, for Donald. I know, of course, what Cousin Philip means. Donald ran away with the wife of a friend of his—of Buntingford's, I mean—three or four weeks ago."
Mrs. Friend gasped. The modern young woman was becoming altogether too much for her. She could only repeat foolishly—"ran away?"
"Yes, ran away. There was no harm done. Sir Luke Preston—that's the husband—followed them and caught them—and made her go back with him. But Donald didn't mean any mischief. She'd quarrelled with Sir Luke—she's an empty-headed little fluffy thing. I know her a little—and
