for you to say something nice!"

For his vigorous strokes were bringing them rapidly to the bank.

"Oh, what's the good of talking!" said the boy impatiently. "I shall be
friends, of course--take what you fling me. I can't do anything else."

Helena blew him a kiss, to which he made no response.

"All right!--I'll bring you in!" said Lord Buntingford from the shore.

He dragged the boat up on the sandy edge, and offered a hand to Helena.
She stumbled out, and would have fallen into the shallow water but for
his sudden grip upon her.

"That was stupid of me!" she said, vexed with herself.

He made no reply. It was left to Mrs. Friend to express a hope that she
had not sprained her foot.

"Oh, dear no," said Helena. "But I'm cold. Peter, will you race me to the
house? Give me a fair start!"

Peter eagerly placed her, and then--a maiden flying and a young god
pursuing--they had soon drawn the eyes and laughter of all the other
guests, who cheered as the panting Helena, winner by a foot, dashed
through the drawing-room window into the house.

Helena and Mrs. Friend had been discussing the evening,--Helena on the
floor, in a white dressing-gown, with her hair down her back. She had
amused herself with a very shrewd analysis--not too favourable--of
Geoffrey French's character and prospects, and had rushed through an
eloquent account of Peter's performances in the war; she had mocked at
Lady Maud's conventionalities, and mimicked the "babe's" simpering manner
with young men; she had enquired pityingly how Mrs. Friend had got on
with the old Canon who had taken her in to dinner, and had launched into
rather caustic and, to Mrs. Friend's ear, astonishing criticisms of
"Cousin Philip's wine"--which Mrs. Friend had never even dreamt of
tasting. But of Cousin Philip himself there was not a word. Mrs. Friend
knew there had been an interview between them; but she dared not ask
questions. How to steer her way in the moral hurricane she foresaw, was
what preoccupied her; so as both to do her duty to Lord B. and yet keep a
hold on this strange being in whose good graces she still found
herself--much to her astonishment.

Then with midnight Helena departed. But long after she was herself in
bed, Mrs. Friend heard movements in the adjoining room, and was aware of
a scent of tobacco stealing in through her own open window.

Helena, indeed, when she found herself alone was, for a time, too excited
to sleep, and cigarettes were