A sudden light dawned on Helena.

"The Romney? No! And I've been showing it to everybody as the loveliest thing going!"

"There--you see!"

Helena's face composed itself.

"I don't know why I should be flattered. She was a horrid minx. That no doubt was what the likeness consisted in!"

Mrs. Friend laughed, but said nothing. Helena rose from the grass, pausing to say as she turned towards the house:

"We're going to dance in the drawing-room, Mawson says. They've cleared it."

"Doesn't it look nice?"

Helena assented. "Let me see--" she added slowly--"this is the third dance, isn't it, since I came?"

"Yes--the third."

"I don't think we need have another"--the tone was decided, almost impatient--"at least when this party's over."

Mrs. Friend opened her eyes.

"I thought you liked to dance every week-end?"

"Well--ye-es--amongst ourselves. I didn't mean to turn the house upside-down every week."

"Well, you see--the house-parties have been so large. And besides there have been neighbours."

"I didn't ask _them_," said Helena. "But--we won't have another--till we go to Town."

"Very well. It might be wise. The servants are rather tired, and if they give warning, we shall never get any more!"

Mrs. Friend watched the retreating figure of Helena. There had indeed been a dizzy succession of week-end parties, and it seemed to her that Lord Buntingford's patience under the infliction had been simply miraculous. For they rarely contained friends of his own; his lameness cut him off from dancing; and it had been clear to Lucy Friend that in many cases Helena's friends had been sharply distasteful to him. He was, in Mrs. Friend's eyes, a strange mixture as far as social standards were concerned. A boundless leniency in some cases; the sternest judgment in others.

For instance, a woman he had known from childhood had lately left her husband, carried off her children, and joined her lover. Lord Buntingford was standing, stoutly by her, helping her in her divorce proceedings, paying for the education of the children, and defending her whenever he heard her attacked. On the other hand, his will had been iron in the matter of Lord Donald, whose exposure as co-respondent in the particularly disreputable case had been lately filling the newspapers.

Mrs. Friend had seen Helena take up the _Times_ on one of the days on which the evidence in this case had appeared, and fling it down again with a flush and a look of disgust. But since the day of the Dansworth riot, she had never mentioned Lord Donald's name.

Certainly the relations between her and her guardian had curiously changed. In the first place, since her Dansworth adventure, Helena had found something to do to think about other than quarrelling with "Cousin Philip." Her curiosity as to how the two wounded police, whom she had driven to the County Hospital that day, might be faring had led to her going over there two or three times a week, either to relieve an overworked staff, or to drive convalescent soldiers, still under treatment in the wards.

The occupation had been a godsend to her, and everybody else. She still talked revolution, and she was always ready to spar with Lord Buntingford, or other people. But all the same Lucy Friend was often aware of a much more tractable temper, a kind of hesitancy--and appeasement--which, even if it passed away, made her beauty, for the moment, doubly attractive.

Was it, after all, the influence of Lord Buntingford--and was the event justifying her mother's strange provision for her? He had certainly treated her with a wonderful kindness and indulgence. Of late he had returned to his work at the Admiralty, only coming down to Beechmark for long week-ends from Friday to Monday. But in these later week-ends he had gradually abandoned the detached and half-sarcastic attitude which he had originally assumed towards Helena, and it seemed to Lucy Friend that he was taking his function towards her with a new seriousness. If so, it had affected himself at least as much as the proud and difficult girl whose guidance had been so hurriedly thrust upon him. His new role had brought out in him unexpected resources, or revived old habits. For instance he had not ridden for years; though, as a young man, and before his accident, he had been a fine horseman. But he now rode whenever he was at Beechmark, to show Helena the country; and they both looked so well on horseback that it was a pleasure of which Lucy Friend never tired to watch them go and to welcome them home.

Then the fact that he was a trained artist, which most of his friends had forgotten, became significant again for Helena's benefit. She had some aptitude, and more ambition--would indeed, but for the war, have been a South Kensington student, and had long cherished yearnings for the Slade.

He set her work to do during the week, and corrected it with professional sharpness when he reappeared.

And more important perhaps than either the riding or the drawing, was the partial relaxation for her benefit of the reserve and taciturnity which had for years veiled the real man from those who liked and respected him most. He never indeed talked of himself or his past; but he would discuss affairs, opinions, books--especially on their long rides together--with a frankness, and a tone of gay and equal comradeship, which, or so Mrs.

Friend imagined, had had a disarming and rather bewildering effect on Helena. The girl indeed seemed often surprised and excited. It was evident that they had never got on during her mother's lifetime, and that his habitual bantering or sarcastic tone towards her while she was still in the school-room had roused an answering resentment in her. Hence the aggressive mood in which, after two or three months of that half-mad whirl of gaiety into which London had plunged after the Armistice, she had come down to Beechmark.

They still jarred, sometimes seriously; Helena was often provocative and aggressive; and Buntingford could make a remark sting without intending it. But on the whole Lucy Friend felt that she was watching something which had in it possibilities of beauty; indeed of a rather touching and rare development. But not at all as the preliminary to a love-affair. In Buntingford's whole relation to his ward, Lucy Friend, at least, had never yet detected the smallest sign of male susceptibility. It suggested something quite different. Julian Horne, who had taken a great fancy to Helena's chaperon, was now recommending books to her instead of to Helena, who always forgot or disobeyed his instructions. With a little preliminary lecture, he had put the "Greville Memoirs" in her hands by way of improving her mind; and she had been struck by a passage in which Greville describes Lord Melbourne's training of the young Queen Victoria, whose Prime Minister he was. The man of middle-age, accomplished, cynical and witty, suddenly confronted with a responsibility which challenged both his heart and his conscience--and that a responsibility towards an attractive young girl whom he could neither court nor command, towards whom his only instrument was the honesty and delicacy of his own purpose:--there was something in this famous, historical situation which seemed to throw a light on the humbler situation at Beechmark.

Four o'clock! In another hour the Whitsuntide party for which the house stood ready would have arrived. Helena's particular "pals" were all coming, and various friends and kinsfolk of Lord Buntingford's; including Lady Mary Chance, a general or two, some Admiralty officials, and one or two distinguished sailors with the halo of Zeebrugge about them. The gathering was to last nearly a week. Mrs. Mawson had engaged two extra servants, and the master of the house had resigned himself. But he had laid it down that the fare was to be simple--and "no champagne." And though of course there would be plenty of bridge, he had given a hint to Vivian Lodge, who, as his heir-apparent, was his natural aide-de-camp in the management of the party, that anything like high play would be unwelcome. Some of Helena's friends during the latter week-ends of May had carried things to extremes.

Meanwhile the social and political sky was darkening in the June England.

Peace was on the point of being signed in Paris; but the industrial war at home weighed on every thinking mind. London was dancing night after night; money was being spent like water; and yet every man and woman of sense knew that the only hope for Britain lay in work and saving.

Buntingford's habitual frown--the frown not of temper but of oppression--had grown deeper; and on their long rides together he had shown a great deal of his mind to Helena--the mind of a patriot full of fear for his country.

A man came across the lawn. Lucy Friend was glad to recognize Geoffrey French, who was a great favourite with her.

"You are early!" she said, as they greeted.

"I came down by motor-bike. London is hateful, and I was in a hurry to get out of it. Where is Helena?"

"Gone to change her dress. She has been riding."

Frank mopped his brow in silence for a little. Then he said with the half-mischievous smile which in Lucy Friend's eyes was one of his chief physical "points."

"How you and Philip have toned her down!"

"Oh, not I!" said Lucy, her modesty distressed. "I've always admired her so! Of course--I was sometimes surprised--"

Geoffrey laughed.

"I daresay we shall all be surprised a good many times yet?" Then he moved a little closer to the small person, who was becoming everybody's confidante. "Do you mind telling me something--if you know it?" he said, lowering his voice.

"Ask me--but I can't promise!"

"Do you think Helena has quite made up her mind not to marry Dale?"

Mrs. Friend hesitated.

"I don't know--"

"But what do you think?"

She lifted her gentle face, under his compulsion, and slowly, pitifully shook her head.

Geoffrey drew a long breath.

"Then she oughtn't to ask him here! The poor little fellow is going through the tortures of the damned!"

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Isn't there anything we can do?" cried Mrs. Friend.

"Nothing--but keep him away. After all he's only the first victim."

Startled by the note in her companion's voice, Mrs. Friend turned to look at him. He forced a smile, as their eyes met.

"Oh, we must all take our chance! But Peter's not the boy he was--before the war. Things bowl him over easily."