"She likes him so much," murmured Lucy. "I'm sure she never means to be unkind."

"She isn't unkind!" said Geoffrey with energy. "It's the natural fated thing. We are all the slaves of her car and she knows it. When she was in the stage of quarrelling with us all, it was just fun. But if Helena grows as delicious--as she promised to be last week--" He shrugged his shoulders, with a deep breath--"Well,--she'll have to marry somebody some day--and the rest of us may drown! Only, if you're to be umpire--and she likes you so much that I expect you will be--play fair!"

He held out his hand, and she put hers into it, astonished to realize that her own eyes were full of tears.

"I'm a mass of dust--I must go and change before tea," he said abruptly.

He went into the house, and she was left to some agitated thinking.

An hour later, the broad lawns of Beechmark, burnt yellow by the May drought, were alive with guests, men in khaki and red tabs, fresh from their War Office work; two naval Commanders, and a resplendent Flag-Lieutenant; a youth in tennis flannels, just released from a city office, who seven months earlier had been fighting in the last advance of the war, and a couple of cadets who had not been old enough to fight at all; girls who had been "out" before the war, and two others, Helena's juniors, who were just leaving the school-room and seemed to be all aglow with the excitement and wonder of this peace-world; a formidable grey-haired woman, who was Lady Mary Chance; Cynthia and Georgina Welwyn, and the ill-dressed, arresting figure of Mr. Alcott. Not all were Buntingford's guests; some were staying at the Cottage, some in another neighbouring house; but Beechmark represented the headquarters of a gathering of which Helena Pitstone and her guardian were in truth the central figures.

Helena in white, playing tennis; Helena with a cigarette, resting between her sets, and chaffing with a ring of dazzled young men; Helena talking wild nonsense with Geoffrey French, for the express purpose of shocking Lady Mary Chance; and the next minute listening with a deference graceful enough to turn even the seasoned head of a warrior to a grey-haired general describing the taking of the Vimy Ridge; and finally, Helena, holding a dancing class under the cedars on the yellow smoothness of the lawn, after tea, for such young men as panted to conquer the mysteries of "hesitation" or jazzing, and were ardently courting instruction in the desperate hope of capturing their teacher for a dance that night:--it was on these various avatars of Helena that the whole party turned; and Lady Mary indignantly felt that there was no escaping the young woman.

"Why do you let her smoke--and paint--and _swear_--I declare I heard her swear!" she said in Buntingford's ear, as the dressing-bell rang, and he was escorting her to the house. "And mark my words, Philip--men may be amused by that kind of girl, but they won't marry her."

Buntingford laughed.

"As Helena's guardian I'm not particularly anxious about that!"

"Ah, no doubt, she tells you people propose to her--but is it true?"

snapped Lady Mary.

"You imagine that Helena tells me of her proposals?" said Buntingford, wondering.

"My dear Philip, don't pose! Isn't that the special function of a guardian?"

"It may be. But, if so, Helena has never given me the chance of performing it."

"I told you so! Men will flirt with her, but they _don't_ propose to her!" said Lady Mary triumphantly.

Buntingford, smiling, let her have the last word, as he asked Mrs. Friend to show her to her room.

Meanwhile the gardens were deserted, save for a couple of gardeners and an electrician, who were laying some wires for the illumination of the rose-garden in front of the drawing-room, and Geoffrey French, who was in a boat, lazily drifting across the pond, and reading a volume of poems by a friend which he had brought down with him. The evening was fast declining; and from the shadow of the deep wood which bordered the western edge of the pond he looked out on the sunset glow as it climbed the eastern hill, transfiguring the ridge, and leaving a rich twilight in the valley below. The tranquillity of the water, the silence of the woods, the gentle swaying of the boat, finally wooed him from his book, which after all he had only taken up as a protection from tormenting thoughts. Had he--had he--any chance with Helena? A month before he would have scornfully denied that he was in love with her. And now--he had actually confessed his plight to Mrs. Friend!

As he lay floating between the green vault above, and the green weedy depths below, his thoughts searched the five weeks that lay between him and that first week-end when he had scolded Helena for her offences. It seemed to him that his love for her had first begun that day of the Dansworth riot. She had provoked and interested him before that--but rather as a raw self-willed child--a "flapper" whose extraordinary beauty gave her a distinction she had done nothing to earn. But every moment in that Dansworth day was clear in memory:--the grave young face behind the steering-wheel, the perfect lips compressed, the eyes intent upon their task, the girl's courage and self-command. Still more the patient Helena who waited for him at the farm--the grateful exultant look when he said "Come"--and every detail of the scene in Dansworth:--Helena with her most professional air, driving through soldiers and police, Helena helping to carry and place the two wounded men, and that smiling "good-bye" she had thrown him as she drove away with Buntingford beside her.

The young man moved restlessly; and the light boat was set rocking. It was curious how he too, like Lucy Friend, only from another point of view, was beginning to reflect on the new intimacy that seemed to be developing between Buntingford and his ward. Philip of course was an awfully good fellow, and Helena was just finding it out; what else was there in it? But the jealous pang roused by the thought of Buntingford, once felt, persisted. Not for a moment did French doubt the honour or the integrity of a man, who had done him personally many a kindness, and had moreover given him some reason to think---(he recalled the odd little note he had received from Buntingford before Helena's first week-end)--that if he were to fall in love with Helena, his suit would be favourably watched by Helena's guardian. He could recall moreover one or two quite recent indications on Buntingford's part--very slight and guarded--which seemed to point in the same direction.

All very well: Buntingford himself might be quite heart-whole and might remain so. French, who knew him well, though there was fourteen years between them, was tolerably certain--without being able to give any very clear reason for the conviction--that Buntingford would never have undertaken the guardianship of Helena, had the merest possibility of marrying her crossed his mind. French did not believe that it had ever yet crossed his mind. There was nothing in his manner towards her to suggest anything more than friendship, deepening interest, affectionate responsibility--all feelings which would have shown themselves plainly from the beginning had she allowed it.

But Helena herself? It was clear that however much they might still disagree, Buntingford had conquered her original dislike of him, and was in process of becoming the guide, philosopher, and friend her mother had meant him to be. And Buntingford had charm and character, and imagination. He could force a girl like Helena to respect him intellectually; with such a nature that was half the battle. He would be her master in time. Besides, there were all Philip's endless opportunities of making life agreeable and delightful to her. When they went to London, for instance, he would come out of the shell he had lived in so long, and Helena would see him as his few intimate friends had always seen him:--as one of the most accomplished and attractive of mortals, with just that touch of something ironic and mysterious in his personality and history, which appeals specially to a girl's fancy.

And what would be the end of it? Tragedy for Helena?--as well as bitter disappointment and heartache for himself, Geoffrey French? He was confident that Helena had in her the capacity for passion; that the flowering-time of such a nature would be one of no ordinary intensity.

She would love, and be miserable--and beat herself to pieces--poor, brilliant Helena!--against her own pain.

What could he do? Might there not be some chance for himself--_now_--while the situation was still so uncertain and undeveloped? Helena was still unconscious, unpledged. Why not cut in at once? "She likes me--she has been a perfect dear to me these last few times of meeting! Philip backs me. He would take my part. Perhaps, after all, my fears are nonsense, and she would no more dream of marrying Philip, than he would dream, under cover of his guardianship, of making love to her."

He raised himself in the boat, filled with a new inrush of will and hope, and took up the drifting oars. Across the water, on the white slopes of lawn, and in some of the windows of the house, lights were appearing. The electricians were testing the red and blue lamps they had been stringing among the rose-beds, and from the gabled boathouse on the further side, a bright shaft from a small searchlight which had been fixed there, was striking across the water. Geoffrey watched it wandering over the dark wood on his right, lighting up the tall stems of the beeches, and sending a tricky gleam or two among the tangled underwood. It seemed to him a symbol of the sudden illumination of mind and purpose which had come to him, there, on the shadowed water--and he turned to look at a window which he knew was Helena's. There were lights within it, and he pictured Helena at her glass, about to slip into some bright dress or other, which would make her doubly fair. Meanwhile from the rose of the sunset, rosy lights were stealing over the water and faintly glorifying the old house and its spreading gardens. An overpowering sense of youth--of the beauty of the world--of the mystery of the future, beat through his pulses. The coming dance became a rite of Aphrodite, towards which all his being strained.

Suddenly, there was a loud snapping noise, as of breaking branches in the wood beside him. It was so startling that his hands paused on the oars, as he looked quickly round to see what could have produced it. And at the same moment the searchlight on the boathouse reached the spot to which his eyes were drawn, and he saw for an instant--sharply distinct and ghostly white--a woman's face and hands--amid the blackness of the wood.

He had only a moment in which to see them, in which to catch a glimpse of a figure among the trees, before the light was gone, leaving a double gloom behind it.

Mysterious! Who could it be? Was it some one who wanted to be put across the pond? He shouted. "Who is that?"

Then he rowed in to the shore, straining his eyes to see. It occurred to him that it might be a lady's maid brought by a guest, who had been out for a walk, and missed her way home in a strange park. "Do you want to get to the house? I can put you across to it if you wish," he said in a loud voice, addressing the unknown--"otherwise you'll have to go a long way round."

No answer--only an intensity of silence, through which he heard from a great distance a church clock striking. The wood and all its detail had vanished in profound shadow.

Conscious of a curious excitement he rowed still further in to the bank, and again spoke to the invisible woman. In vain. He began then to doubt his own eyes. Had it been a mere illusion produced by some caprice of the searchlight opposite? But the face!--the features of it were stamped on his memory, the gaunt bitterness of them, the brooding misery.

How could he have imagined such a thing?

Much perplexed and rather shaken in nerve, he rowed back across the pond--to hear the band tuning in the flower-filled drawing-room, as he approached the house.

CHAPTER IX

About ten o'clock on the night of the ball at Beechmark, a labourer was crossing the park on his way home from his allotment. Thanks to summertime and shortened hours of labour he had been able to get his winter greens in, and to earth up his potatoes, all in two strenuous evenings; and he was sauntering home dead-tired. But he had doubled his wages since the outbreak of war and his fighting son had come back to him safe, so that on the whole he was inclined to think that the old country was worth living in! The park he was traversing was mostly open pasture studded with trees, except where at the beginning of the eighteenth century the Lord Buntingford of the day had planted a wood of oak and beech about the small lake which he had made by the diversion of two streamlets that had once found a sluggish course through the grassland.

The trees in it were among the finest in the country, but like so much of English woodland before the war, they had been badly neglected for many years. The trees blown down by winter storms had lain year after year where they fell; the dead undergrowth was choking the young saplings; and some of the paths through the wood had practically disappeared.

The path from the allotments to the village passed at the back of the wood. Branching off from it, an old path leading through the trees and round the edge of the lake had once been frequently used as a short cut from the village to the house, but was now badly grown up and indeed superseded by the new drive from the western lodge, made some twenty years before this date.

The labourer, Richard Stimson, was therefore vaguely surprised when he turned the corner of the wood and reached the fork of the path, to see a figure of a woman, on the old right-of-way, between him and the wood, for which she seemed to be making.

It was not the figure of anyone he knew. It was a lady, apparently, in a dark gown, and a small hat with a veil. The light was still good, and he saw her clearly. He stopped indeed to watch her, puzzled to know what a stranger could be doing in the park, and on that path at ten o'clock at night. He was aware indeed that there were gay doings at Beechmark. He had seen the illuminated garden and house from the upper park, and had caught occasional gusts of music from the band to which no doubt the quality were dancing. But the fact didn't seem to have much to do with the person he was staring at.

And while he stared at her, she turned, and instantly perceived--he thought--that she was observed. She paused a moment, and then made an abrupt change of direction; running round the corner of the wood, she reached the path along which he himself had just come and disappeared from view.

The whole occurrence filliped the rustic mind; but before he reached his own cottage, Stimson had hit on an explanation which satisfied him. It was of course a stranger who had lost her way across the park, mistaking the two paths. On seeing him, she had realized that she was wrong and had quickly set herself right. He told his wife the tale before he went to sleep, with this commentary; and they neither of them troubled to think about it any more.

Perhaps the matter would not have appeared so simple to either of them had they known that Stimson had no sooner passed completely out of sight, leaving the wide stretches of the park empty and untenanted under a sky already alive with stars, than the same figure reappeared, and after pausing a moment, apparently to reconnoitre, disappeared within the wood.

"A year ago to-day, where were you?" said one Brigadier to another, as the two Generals stood against the wall in the Beechmark drawing-room to watch the dancing.

"Near Albert," said the man addressed. "The brigade was licking its wounds and training drafts."

The other smiled.

"Mine was doing the same thing--near Armentieres. We didn't think then, did we, that it would be all over in five months?"

"It isn't all over!" said the first speaker, a man with a refined and sharply cut face, still young under a shock of grey hair. "We are in the ground swell of the war. The ship may go down yet."

"While the boys and girls dance? I hope not!" The soldier's eyes ran smiling over the dancing throng. Then he dropped his voice:

"Listen!"