Then there were a few minutes before dinner, and she ran along the passage to Mrs. Friend's room.
"May I come in? Oh, let me tie that for you?" And before Mrs. Friend could interpose, the girl's nimble fingers had tied the narrow velvet carrying a round locket which was her chaperon's only ornament. Drawing back a little, she looked critically at the general effect. Mrs. Friend flushed, and presently started in alarm, when Helena took up the comb lying on the dressing-table.
"What are you going to do?"
"Only just to alter your hair a little. Do you mind? Do let me. You look so nice in black. But your hair is too tight."
Mrs. Friend stood paralysed, while with a few soft touches Helena applied the comb.
"Now, isn't that nice! I declare it's charming! Now look at yourself. Why should you make yourself look dowdy? It's all very well—but you can't be much older than I am!"
And dancing round her victim, Helena effected first one slight improvement and then another in Mrs. Friend's toilette, till the little woman, standing in uneasy astonishment before the glass to which Helena had dragged her, plucked up courage at last to put an end to the proceedings.
"No, please don't!" she said, with decision, warding off the girl's meddling hand, and putting back some of the quiet bands of hair. "You mustn't make me look so unlike myself. And besides—I couldn't live up to it!" Her shy smile broke out.
"Oh, yes, you could. You're quite nice-looking. I wonder if you'd mind telling me how old you are? And must I always call you 'Mrs. Friend'? It is so odd—when everybody calls each other by their Christian names."
"I don't mind—I don't mind at all. But don't you think—for both our sakes—you'd better leave me all the dignity you can?" Laughter was playing round the speaker's small pale lips, and Helena answered it with interest.
"Does that mean that you'll have to manage me? Did Cousin Philip tell you you must? But that—I may as well tell you at once—is a vain delusion. Nobody ever managed me! Oh, yes, my superior officer in the Women's Corps—she was master. But that was because I chose to make her so. Now I'm on my own—and all I can offer—I'm afraid!—is an alliance—offensive and defensive."
Mrs. Friend looked at the radiant vision opposite to her with its hands on its sides, and slowly shook her head.
"Offensive—against whom?"
"Cousin Philip—if necessary."
Mrs. Friend again shook her head.
"Oh, you're in his pocket already!" cried Helena with a grimace. "But never mind. I'm sure I shall like you. You'll come over to my side soon."
"Why should I take any side?" asked Mrs. Friend, drawing on a pair of black gloves.
"Well, because"—said Helena slowly—"Cousin Philip doesn't like some of my pals—some of the men, I mean—I go about with—and we may quarrel about it. The question is which of them I'm going to marry—if I marry any of them. And some of them are married. Don't look shocked! Oh, heavens, there's the gong! But we'll sit up to-night, if you're not sleepy, and I'll give you a complete catalogue of some of their qualifications—physical, intellectual, financial. Then you'll have the carte du pays. Two of them are coming to-morrow for the Sunday. There's nobody coming to-night of the least interest. Cynthia Welwyn, Captain Vivian Lodge, Buntingford's cousin—rather a prig—but good-looking. A girl or two, no doubt—probably the parson—probably the agent. Now you know. Shall we go down?"
* * * * *
The library was already full when the two ladies entered. Mrs. Friend was aware of a tall fair woman, beautifully dressed in black, standing by Lord Buntingford; of an officer in uniform, resplendent in red tabs and decorations, talking to a spare grey-haired man, who might be supposed to be the agent; of a man in a round collar and clerical coat, standing awkward and silent by the tall lady in black; and of various other girls and young men.
All eyes were turned to Helena as she entered, and she was soon surrounded, while Lord Buntingford took special care of Helena's companion. Mrs. Friend found herself introduced to Lady Cynthia Welwyn, the tall lady in black; to Mr. Parish, the grey-haired man, and to the clergyman. Lady Cynthia bestowed on her a glance from a pair of prominent eyes, and a few civil remarks, Mr. Parish made her an old-fashioned bow, and hoped she had not found the journey too dusty, while the clergyman, whose name she caught as Mr. Alcott, showed a sudden animation as they shook hands, and had soon put her at her ease by a manner in which she at once divined a special sympathy for the stranger within the gates.
"You have just come, I gather?"
"I only arrived this afternoon."
"And you are to look after Miss Helena?" he smiled.
Mrs. Friend smiled too.
"I hope so. If she will let me!"
"She is a radiant creature!" And for a moment he stood watching the girl, as she stood, goddess-like, amid her group of admirers. His eyes were deep-set and tired; his scanty grizzled hair fell untidily over a furrowed brow; and his clothes were neither fresh nor well-brushed. But there was something about him which attracted the lonely; and Mrs. Friend was glad when she found herself assigned to him.
But though her neighbour was not difficult to talk to, her surroundings were so absorbing to her that she talked very little at dinner. It was enough to listen and look—at Lady Cynthia on Lord Buntingford's right hand, and Helena Pitstone on his left; or at the handsome officer with whom Helena seemed to be happily flirting through a great part of dinner. Lady Cynthia was extremely good-looking, and evidently agreeable, though it seemed to Mrs. Friend that Lord Buntingford only gave her divided attention. Meanwhile it was very evident that he himself was the centre of his own table, the person of whom everyone at it was fundamentally aware, however apparently busy with other people. She herself observed him much more closely than before, the mingling in his face of a kind of concealed impatience, an eagerness held in chains and expressed by his slight perpetual frown, with a courtesy and urbanity generally gay or bantering, but at times, and by flashes—or so it seemed to her—dipped in a sudden, profound melancholy, like a quenched light. He held himself sharply erect, and in his plain naval uniform, with the three Commander's stripes on the sleeve, made, in her eyes, an even more distinguished figure than the gallant and decorated hero on his left, with whom Helena seemed to be so particularly engaged, "prig" though she had dubbed him.
As to Lady Cynthia's effect upon her host, Mrs. Friend could not make up her mind. He seemed attentive or amused while she chatted to him; but towards the end their conversation languished a good deal, and Lady Cynthia must needs fall back on the stubby-haired boy to her right, who was learning agency business with Mr. Parish. She smiled at him also, for it was her business, Mrs. Friend thought, to smile at everybody, but it was an absent-minded smile.
"You don't know Lord Buntingford?" said Mr. Alcott's rather muffled voice beside her.
Mrs. Friend turned hastily.
"No—I never saw him till this afternoon."
"He isn't easy to know. I know him very little, though he gave me this living, and I have business with him, of course, occasionally. But this I do know, the world is uncommonly full of people—don't you find it so?—who say 'I go, Sir'—and don't go. Well, if Lord Buntingford says 'I go, Sir'—he does go!"
"Does he often say it?" asked Mrs. Friend. And the man beside her noticed the sudden gleam in her quiet little face, that rare or evanescent sprite of laughter or satire that even the dwellers in Lancaster Gate had occasionally noticed.
Mr. Alcott considered.
"Well,