"Oh, that doesn't matter. Perhaps Helena does! By the way, she hasn't seen her sitting-room."

He turned towards his ward, who was still reading at the table.

"I have arranged a special sitting-room for you, Helena. Would you like to come and look at it?"

"What fun!" said Helena, jumping up. "And may I do what I like in it?"

Buntingford's mouth twisted a little.

"Naturally! The house is at your disposal. Turn anything out you like--and bring anything else in. There is some nice old stuff about, if you look for it. If you send for the odd man he'll move anything.

Well, I'd better show you what I arranged. But you can have any other room you prefer."

He led the way to the first floor, and opened a door in a corner of the pillared gallery.

"Oh, jolly!" cried Helena.

For they entered a lofty room, with white Georgian panelling, a few pretty old cabinets and chairs, a chintz-covered sofa, a stand of stuffed humming-birds, a picture or two, a blue Persian carpet, and a large book-case full of books.

"My books!" cried Helena in amazement. "I was just going to ask if the cases had come. How ever did you get them unpacked, and put here so quickly?"

"Nothing easier. They arrived three days ago. I telephoned to a man I know in Leicester Square. He sent some one down, and they were all finished before you came down. Perhaps you won't like the arrangement?

Well, it will amuse you to undo it!"

If there was the slightest touch of sarcasm in the eyes that travelled from her to the books, Helena took it meekly. She went to the bookshelves. Poets, novelists, plays, philosophers, economists, some French and Italian books, they were all in their proper places. The books were partly her own, partly her mother's. Helena eyed them thoughtfully.

"You must have taken a lot of trouble."

"Not at all. The man took all the trouble. There wasn't much."

As he spoke, her eye caught a piano standing between the windows.

"Mummy's piano! Why, I thought we agreed it should be stored?"

"It seemed to me you might as well have it down here. We can easily hire one for London."

"Awfully nice of you," murmured Helena. She opened it and stood with her hand on the keys, looking out into the park, as though she pursued some thought or memory of her own. It was a brilliant May morning, and the windows were open. Helena's slim figure in a white dress, the reddish touch in her brown hair, the lovely rounding of her cheek and neck, were thrown sharply against a background of new leaf made by a giant beech tree just outside. Mrs. Friend looked at Lord Buntingford. The thought leaped into her mind--"How can he help making love to her himself?"--only to be immediately chidden. Buntingford was not looking at Helena but at his watch.

"Well, I must go and do some drivelling work before lunch. I have given Mrs. Friend _carte blanche_, Helena. Order what you like, and if Mrs.

Mawson bothers you, send her to me. Geoffrey comes to-night, and we shall be seven to-morrow."

He made for the door. Helena had turned suddenly at his last words, eye and cheek kindling.

"Hm--" she said, under her breath--"So he has sent the telegram."

She left the window, and began to walk restlessly about the room, looking now at the books, now at the piano. Her face hardened, and she paid no attention to Mrs. Friend's little comments of pleasure on the room and its contents. Presently indeed she cut brusquely across.

"I am just going down to the stables to see whether my horse has arrived.

A friend of mine bought her for me in town--and she was to be here early this morning. I want, too, to see where they're going to put her."

"Mayn't I come too?" said Mrs. Friend, puzzled by the sudden clouding of the girl's beautiful looks.

"Oh, no--please don't. You've got to see the housekeeper! I'll get my hat and run down. I found out last night where the stables are. I shan't be more than ten minutes or so."

She hurried away, leaving Mrs. Friend once more a prey to anxieties. She recalled the threat of the night before. But no, _impossible_! After all the kindness and the forethought! She dismissed it from her mind.

The interview with the housekeeper was an ordeal to the gentle inexperienced woman. But her entire lack of any sort of pretension was in itself ingratiating; and her manner had the timid charm of her character.

Mrs. Mawson, who might have bristled or sulked in stronger hands, in order to mark her distaste for the advent of a mistress in the house she had been long accustomed to rule, was soon melted by the docility of the little lady, and graciously consented to see her own plans approved _en bloc_, by one so frankly ignorant of how a country house party should be conducted. Then it was the turn of old Fenn; a more difficult matter, since he did genuinely want instructions, and Mrs. Friend had none to give him. But kind looks, and sympathetic murmurs, mingled with honest delight in the show of azaleas in the conservatory carried her through.

Old Fenn too, instead of resenting her, adopted her. She went back to the house flushed with a little modest triumph.

Housewifely instincts revived in her. Her hands wanted to be doing. She had ventured to ask Fenn for some flowers, and would dare to arrange them herself if Mrs. Mawson would let her.

Then, as she re-entered the house, she came back at a bound to reality.

"If I can't keep Miss Pitstone out of mischief, I shan't be here a month!" she thought pitifully; and how was it to be done?

She found Helena sitting demurely in the sitting-room, pretending to read a magazine, but really, or so it seemed to Mrs. Friend, keeping both eyes and ears open for events.

"I'm trying to get ready for Julian--" she said impatiently, throwing away her book. "He sent me his article in the _Market Place_, but it's so stiff that I can't make head or tail of it. I like to hear him talk--but he doesn't write English."

Mrs. Friend took up the magazine, and perceived a marked item in the table of contents--"A New Theory of Value."

"What does it mean?" she asked.

"Oh, I wish I knew!" said Helena, with a little yawn. "And then he changes so. Last year he made me read Meredith--the novels, I mean. _One of Our Conquerors_, he vowed, was the finest thing ever written. He scoffed at me for liking _Diana_ and _Richard Feverel_ better, because they were easier. And _now_, nothing's bad enough for Meredith's 'stilted nonsense'--'characters without a spark of life in them'--'horrible mannerisms'--you should hear him. Except the poems--ah, except the poems!

He daren't touch them. I say--do you know the 'Hymn to Colour'?" The girl's eager eyes questioned her companion. Her face in a moment was all softness and passion.

Mrs. Friend shook her head. The nature and deficiencies of her own education were becoming terribly plain to her with every hour in Helena's company.

Helena sprang up, fetched the book, put Mrs. Friend forcibly into an arm-chair, and read aloud. Mrs. Friend listened with all her ears, and was at the end, like Faust, no wiser than before. What did it all mean?

She groped, dazzled, among the Meredithian mists and splendours. But Helena read with a growing excitement, as though the flashing mysterious verse were part of her very being. When the last stanza was done, she flung herself fiercely down on a stool at Mrs. Friend's feet, breathing fast:

"Glorious!--oh, glorious!--

"Look now where Colour, the soul's bridegroom, makes The House of Heaven splendid for the Bride."

She turned to look up at the little figure in the chair, half laughing, half passionate: "You do understand, don't you?" Mrs. Friend again shook her head despairingly.

"It sounds wonderful--but I haven't a notion what it means!" Helena laughed again, but without a touch of mockery.

"One has to be taught--coached--regularly coached. Julian coached me."

"What is meant by Colour?" asked Mrs. Friend faintly.

"Colour is Passion, Beauty, Freedom!" said Helena, her cheek glowing. "It is just the opposite of dulness--and routine--and make-believe. It's what makes life worth while. And it is the young who feel it--the young who hear it calling--the young who obey it! And then when they are old, they have it to remember. Now, do you understand?"

Lucy Friend did not answer. But involuntarily, two shining tears stood in her eyes. There was something extraordinarily moving in the girl's ardour. She could hardly bear it. There came back to her momentary visions from her own quiet past--a country lane at evening where a man had put his arm round her and kissed her--her wedding-evening by the sea, when the sun went down, and all the ways were darkened, and the stars came out--and that telegram which put an end to everything, which she had scarcely had time to feel, because her mother was so ill, and wanted her every moment. Had she--even she--in her poor, drab, little life--had her moments of living Poetry, of transforming Colour, like others--without knowing it?

Helena watched her, as though in a quick, unspoken sympathy, her own storm of feeling subsiding.

"Do you know, Lucy, you look very nice indeed in that little black dress!" she said, in her soft, low voice, like the voice of an incantation, that she had used the night before. "You are the neatest, daintiest person!--not prim--but you make everything you wear refined.