For a very young boy and girl had come to stand in front of them. The boy had just parted from a girl a good deal older than himself, who had nodded to him a rather patronizing farewell, as she glided back into the dance with a much decorated Major.

"These pre-war girls are rather dusty, aren't they?" said the boy angrily to his partner.

"You mean they give themselves airs? Well, what does it matter? It's _we_ who have the good time now!" said the little creature beside him, a fairy in filmy white, dancing about him as she spoke, hardly able to keep her feet still for a moment, life and pleasure in every limb.

The two soldiers--both fathers--smiled at each other. Then Helena came down the room, a vision of spring, with pale green floating about her, and apple-blossoms in her brown hair. She was dancing with Geoffrey French, and both were dancing with remarkable stateliness and grace to some Czech music, imposed upon the band by Helena, who had given her particular friends instruction on the lawn that afternoon in some of the steps that fitted it. They passed with the admiring or envious eyes of the room upon them, and disappeared through the window leading to the lawn. For on the smooth-shaven turf of the lawn there was supplementary dancing, while the band in the conservatory, with all barriers removed, was playing both for the inside and outside revellers.

Peter Dale was sitting out on the terrace over-looking the principal lawn with the daughter of Lady Mary Chance, a rather pretty but stupid girl, with a genius for social blunders. Buntingford had committed him to a dance with her, and he was not grateful.

"She is pretty, of course, but horribly fast!" said his partner contemptuously, as Helena passed. "Everybody thinks her such bad style!"

"Then everybody is an ass!" said Peter violently, turning upon her. "But it doesn't matter to Helena."

The girl flushed in surprise and anger.

"I didn't know you were such great friends. I only repeat what I hear,"

she said stiffly.

"It depends on where you hear it," said Peter. "There isn't a man in this ball that isn't pining to dance with her."

"Has she given you a dance?" said the girl, with a touch of malice in her voice.

"Oh, I've come off as well as other people!" said Peter evasively.

Then, of a sudden, his chubby face lit up. For Helena, just as the music was slackening to the close of the dance, and a crowd of aspirants for supper dances were converging on the spot where she stood, had turned and beckoned to Peter.

"Do you mind?--I'll come back!" he said to his partner, and rushed off.

"Second supper dance!" "All right!"

He returned radiant, and in his recovered good humour proceeded to make himself delightful even to Miss Chance, whom, five minutes before, he had detested.

But when he had returned her to her mother, Peter wandered off alone. He did not want to dance with anybody, to talk to anybody. He wanted just to remember Helena's smile, her eager--"I've kept it for you, Peter, all the evening!"--and to hug the thought of his coming joy. Oh, he hadn't a dog's chance, he knew, but as long as she was not actually married to somebody else, he was not going to give up hope.

In a shrubbery walk, where a rising moon was just beginning to chequer the path with light and shade, he ran into Julian Horne, who was strolling tranquilly up and down, book in hand.

"Hullo, what are you doing here?" said the invaded one.

"Getting cool. And you?"

Julian showed his book--_The Coming Revolution_, a Bolshevist pamphlet, then enjoying great vogue in manufacturing England.

"What are you reading such rot for?" said Peter, wondering.

"It gives a piquancy to this kind of thing!" was Horne's smiling reply, as they reached an open space in the walk, and he waved his hand towards the charming scene before them, the house with its lights, on its rising ground above the lake, the dancing groups on the lawn, the illuminated rose-garden; and below, the lake, under its screen of wood, with boats on the smooth water, touched every now and then by the creeping fingers of the searchlight from the boathouse, so that one group after another of young men and maidens stood out in a white glare against the darkness of the trees.

"It will last our time," said Peter recklessly. "Have you seen Buntingford?"

"A little while ago, he was sitting out with Lady Cynthia. But when he passed me just now, he told me he was going down to look after the lake and the boats--in case of accidents. There is a current at one end apparently, and a weir; and the keeper who understands all about it is in a Canada regiment on the Rhine."

"Do you think Buntingford's going to marry Lady Cynthia?" asked Peter suddenly.

Horne laughed. "That's not my guess, at present," he said after a moment.

As he spoke, a boat on the lake came into the track of the searchlight, and the two persons in it were clearly visible--Buntingford rowing, and Helena, in the stern. The vision passed in a flash; and Horne turned a pair of eyes alive with satirical meaning on his companion.

"Well!" said Peter, troubled, he scarcely knew why--"what do you mean?"

Horne seemed to hesitate. His loose-limbed ease of bearing in his shabby clothes, his rugged head, and pile of reddish hair, above a thinker's brow, made him an impressive figure in the half light--gave him a kind of seer's significance.

"Isn't it one of the stock situations?" he said at last--"this situation of guardian and ward?--romantic situations, I mean? Of course the note of romance must be applicable. But it certainly is applicable, in this case."

Peter stared. Julian Horne caught the change in the boy's delicate face and repented him--too late.

"What rubbish you talk, Julian! In the first place it would be dishonourable!"

"Why?"

"It would, I tell you,--damned dishonourable! And in the next, why, a few weeks ago--Helena hated him!"

"Yes--she began with 'a little aversion'! One of the stock openings,"

laughed Horne.

"Well, ta-ta. I'm not going to stay to listen to you talking bosh any more," said Peter roughly. "There's the next dance beginning."

He flung away. Horne resumed his pacing. He was very sorry for Peter, whose plight was plain to all the world. But it was better he should be warned. As for himself, he too had been under the spell. But he had soon emerged. A philosopher and economist, holding on to Helena's skirts in her rush through the world, would cut too sorry a figure. Besides, could she ever have married him--which was of course impossible, in spite of the courses in Meredith and Modern Literature through which he had taken her--she would have tired of him in a year, by which time both their fortunes would have been spent. For he knew himself to be a spendthrift on a small income, and suspected a similar propensity in Helena, on the grand scale. He returned, therefore, more or less contentedly, to his musings upon an article he was to contribute to _The Market Place_, on "The Influence of Temperament in Economics." The sounds of dance music in the distance made an agreeable accompaniment.

Meanwhile a scene--indisputably sentimental--was passing on the lake.

Helena and Geoffrey French going down to the water's edge to find a boat, had met halfway with Cynthia Welwyn, in some distress. She had just heard that Lady Georgina had been taken suddenly ill, and must go home. She understood that Mawson was looking after her sister, who was liable to slight fainting attacks at inconvenient moments. But how to find their carriage! She had looked for a servant in vain, and Buntingford was nowhere to be seen. French could do no less than offer to assist; and Helena, biting her lip, despatched him. "I will wait for you at the boathouse."

He rushed off, with Cynthia toiling after him, and Helena descended to the lake. As she neared the little landing stage, a boat approached it, containing Buntingford, and two or three of his guests.

"Hullo, Helena, what have you done with Geoffrey?"

She explained. "We were just coming down for a row."

"All right. I'll take you on till he comes. Jump in!"

She obeyed, and they were soon halfway towards the further side. But about the middle of the lake Buntingford was seized with belated compunction that he had not done his host's duty to his queer, inarticulate cousin, Lady Georgina. "I suppose I ought to have gone to look after her?"

"Not at all," said Helena coolly. "I believe she does it often. She can't want more than Lady Cynthia--_and_ Geoffrey--_and_ Mawson. People shouldn't be pampered!"

Her impertinence was so alluring as she sat opposite to him, trailing both hands in the water, that Buntingford submitted. There was a momentary silence. Then Helena said:

"Lady Cynthia came to see me the other day. Did you send her?"

"Of course. I wanted you to make friends."