And with the heightening touches that every good story-teller bestows upon a story, he described the vision of the lake--the strange woman's face, as he had seen it in the twilight beside the yew trees.

Buntingford gradually dropped his cigarette to listen.

"Very curious--very interesting," he said ironically, as French paused, "and has lost nothing in the telling."

"Ah, but wait till you hear the end!" cried Helena. "Now, it's my turn."

And she completed the tale, holding up the bag at the close of it, so that the tarnished gold of its embroidery caught the light.

Buntingford took it from her, and turned it over. Then he opened it, drew out the handkerchief, and looked at the initials, "'F. M.'" He shook his head. "Conveys nothing. But you're quite right. That bag has nothing to do with a village woman--unless she picked it up."

"But the face I saw had nothing to do with a village woman, either," said French, with conviction. "It was subtle--melancholy--intense--more than that!--_fierce_, fiercely miserable. I guess that the woman possessing it would be a torment to her belongings if they happened not to suit her.

And, my hat!--if you made her jealous!"

"Was she handsome?" asked Lodge.

Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders.

"Must have been--probably--when she was ten years younger."

"And she possessed this bag?" mused Buntingford--"which she or some one bought at Florence--for I've discovered the address of a shop in it--Fratelli Cortis, Via Tornabuoni, Firenze. You didn't find that out, Helena."

He passed the bag to her, pointing out a little printed silk label which had been sewn into the neck of it. Then Vivian Lodge asked for it and turned it over.

"Lovely work--and beautiful materials. Ah!--do you see what it is?"--he held it up--"the Arms of Florence, embroidered in gold and silver thread. H'm. I suppose, Buntingford, you get some Whitsuntide visitors in the village?"

"Oh, yes, a few. There's a little pub with one or two decent rooms, and several cottagers take lodgers. The lady, whoever she was, was scarcely a person of delicacy."

"She was in that place for an object," said Geoffrey, interrupting him with some decision. "Of that I feel certain. If she had just lost her way, and was trespassing--she must have known, I think, that she was trespassing--why didn't she answer my call and let me put her over the lake? Of course I should never have seen her at all, but for that accident of the searchlight."

"The question is," said Buntingford, "how long did she stay there? She was not under the yews when you saw her?"

"No--just outside."

"Well, then, supposing, to get out of the way of the searchlight, she found her way in and discovered my seat--how long do you guess she was there?--and when the bag dropped?"

"Any time between then--and midnight--when Helena found it," said French.

"She may have gone very soon after I saw her, leaving the bag on the seat; or, if she stayed, on my supposition that she was there for the purpose of spying, then she probably vanished when she heard our boat drawn up, and knew that Helena and I were getting out."

"A long sitting!" said Buntingford with a laugh--"four hours. I really can't construct any reasonable explanation on those lines."

"Why not? Some people have a passion for spying and eavesdropping. If I were such a person, dumped in a country village with nothing to do, I think I could have amused myself a good deal last night, in that observation post. Through that hole I told you of, one could see the lights and the dancing on the lawn, and watch the boats on the lake. She could hear the music, and if anyone did happen to be talking secrets just under the yews, she could have heard every word, quite easily."

Involuntarily he looked at Helena, Helena was looking at the grass. Was it mere fancy, or was there a sudden pinkness in her cheeks? Buntingford too seemed to have a slightly conscious air. But he rose to his feet, with a laugh.

"Well, I'll have a stroll to the village, some time to-day, and see what I can discover about your _Incognita_, Helena. If she is a holiday visitor, she'll be still on the spot. Geoffrey had better come with me, as he's the only person who's seen her."

"Right you are. After lunch."

Buntingford nodded assent and went into the house.

The day grew hotter. Lodge and Julian Horne went off for a swim in the cool end of the lake. Peter still slept, looking so innocent and infantine in his sleep that no one had the heart to wake him. French and Helena were left together, and were soon driven by the advancing sun to the deep shade of a lime-avenue, which, starting from the back of the house, ran for half a mile through the park. Here they were absolutely alone. Lady Mary's prying eyes were defeated, and Helena incidentally remarked that Mrs. Friend, being utterly "jacked up," had been bullied into staying in bed till luncheon.

So that in the green sunflecked shadow of the limes, Geoffrey had--if Helena so pleased--a longer _tete-a-tete_ before him, and a more generous opportunity, even, than the gods had given him on the lake. His pulses leapt; goaded, however, by alternate hope and fear. But at least he had the chance to probe the situation a little deeper; even if prudence should ultimately forbid him anything more.

Helena had chosen a wooden seat round one of the finest limes. Some books brought out for show rather than use, lay beside her. A piece of knitting--a scarf of a bright greenish yellow--lay on the lap of her white dress. She had taken off her hat, and Geoffrey was passionately conscious of the beauty of the brown head resting, as she talked, against the furrowed trunk of the lime. Her brown-gold hair was dressed in the new way, close to the head and face, and fastened by some sapphire pins behind the ear. From this dark frame, and in the half light of the avenue, the exquisite whiteness of the forehead and neck, the brown eyes, so marvellously large and brilliant, and yet so delicately finished in every detail beneath their perfect brows, and the curve of the lips over the small white teeth, stood out as if they had been painted on ivory by a miniature-painter of the Renaissance. Her white dress, according to the prevailing fashion, was almost low--as children's frocks used to be in the days of our great-grandmothers. It was made with a childish full bodice, and a childish sash of pale blue held up the rounded breast, that rose and fell with her breathing, beneath the white muslin. Pale blue stockings, and a pair of white shoes, with preposterous heels and pointed toes, completed the picture. The mingling, in the dress, of extreme simplicity with the cunningest artifice, and the greater daring and _joie de vivre_ which it expressed, as compared with the dress of pre-war days, made it characteristic and symbolic:--a dress of the New Time.

Geoffrey lay on the grass beside her, feasting his eyes upon her--discreetly. Since when had English women grown so beautiful? At all the weddings and most of the dances he had lately attended, the brides and the _debutantes_ had seemed to him of a loveliness out of all proportion to that of their fore-runners in those far-off days before the war. And when a War Office mission, just before the Armistice, had taken him to some munition factories in the north, he had been scarcely less seized by the comeliness of the girl-workers:--the long lines of them in their blue overalls, and the blue caps that could scarcely restrain the beauty and wealth of pale yellow or red-gold hair beneath. Is there something in the rush and flame of war that quickens old powers and dormant virtues in a race? Better feeding and better wages among the working-classes--one may mark them down perhaps as factors in this product of a heightened beauty. But for these exquisite women of the upper class, is it the pace at which they have lived, unconsciously, for these five years, that has brought out this bloom and splendour?--and will it pass as it has come?

Questions of this kind floated through his mind as he lay looking at Helena, melting rapidly into others much more peremptory and personal.

"Are you soon going up to Town?" he asked her presently. His voice seemed to startle her. She returned evidently with difficulty from thoughts of her own. He would have given his head to read them.

"No," she said hesitatingly. "Why should we? It is so jolly down here.

Everything's getting lovely."

"I thought you wanted a bit of season! I thought that was part of your bargain with Philip?"

"Yes--but"--she laughed--"I didn't know how nice Beechmark was."

His sore sense winced.

"Doesn't Philip want you to go?"

"Not at all. He says he gets much more work done in Town, without Mrs.

Friend and me to bother him--"

"He puts it that way?"

"Politely! And it rests him to come down here for Sundays. He loves the riding."

"I shouldn't have thought the Sundays were much rest?"

"Ah, but they're going to be!" she said eagerly. "We're not going to have another party for a whole month. Cousin Philip has been treating me like a spoiled child--stuffing me with treats--and I've put an end to it!"

And this was the Helena that had stipulated so fiercely for her week-ends and her pals! The smart deepened.

"And you won't be tired of the country?"

"In the winter, perhaps," she said carelessly. "Philip and I have all sorts of plans for the things we want to do in London in the winter. But not now--when every hour's delicious!"

"_Philip and I_!"--a new combination indeed!

She threw her head back again, drinking in the warm light and shade, the golden intensity of the fresh leaf above her.

"And next week there'll be frost, and you'll be shivering over the fire,"