Helena

ea was coming in. It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast than the two sisters presented. They were the daughters of a peer belonging to what a well-known freque

an Indian Presidency, who had earned his final step in the peerage by the skilful management of a little war, and had then incontinently died, leaving his family his reputat

in winter, flowers and vegetables in summer-which were of importance to their small income. Cynthia Welwyn, however, could never have passed as anybody's dependent. She thanked her cousin occasionally for the kindnesses of which his head gardener and his game-keeper knew much more than he did; and when h

ighbour, Sir Richard Watson, had proposed to her twice,-on the last occasion some two years before the war. She had not been able to make up her mind to accept him, because on the whole she was more in love with her cousin, Philip Buntingford, and still hoped that his ol

eemed to tell her that those times were done; that she was four years older; that she had lost the first brilliance of her looks; and that he himself had grown out of her ken. Helena's young unfriendly eyes had read her rightly. She did wish fervently to recapture Philip Buntingford; and saw no means of doing so. Meanwhile Sir Richard, now demobilized, had come back f

tling to the newcomer. But she used it very little. Cynthia's friends, were used to see her sitting absolutely silent behind the tea-urn at breakfast or tea, filling the cups while Cynthia handed them and Cynthia talked; and they had learned that it was no use at all to show compassion and try to bring her into the conversation. A quiet r

ly, and Lady Georgina found a good deal more tongue

ng at Beechmark, and the behaviour of Helena Pitstone, Lady Georgin

ade the man

d in the world, and when she asked him just the week before she died, how could he s

d. Why, Philip's only forty-four now. A nice age for a guar

eron. Besides nobody min

erge some five springs old, could not deny the delicate beauty of her sister's still fresh complexion and pale gold hair, nor the effectiveness of the blue dress in combination with them. She did not really want Cynthia to look older, nor to see her ill-dressed; but all the same there were many days when Cynthia's mature perfections roused a secret irritation in her sister-a kind of secret tr

draped one of the French windows of the low room, she perceived the tall figure and scarcely perceptible limp of Lord Buntingford. Cynthia too saw him, and ceased to lounge. She quietly re-lit the tea-kettle, and took a roll of knitting from a table

walk, and carrying a bunch of blue-bel

whole wood is a sea of blue. You and

ness, was secretly wondering what he had come about. For although he was enjoying a well-earned leave, the first for two years, and had every right to idle, the ordinary afternoon call

ame under the silver kettle. Would she go, or would she not go? Cynthia dropped some stitches in the tension of the moment. Then Buntingf

ible. But he could reckon Cynthia's age to a day; for they had known each other very well as children, and he had often given her a birthday present, till the moment when, in her third season, Cynthia had peremptorily put an end to the custom. Then he had gone abroad, and there had been a wide gap of years when they had never seen each other at all. And now, it was true, she did often bore him, intellectually.

haven't we, Cynthia?" he said, smil

ed up, shaking her hair from her white brow and temples

aid-"it doesn't

elp me in something, Cynthia. You remember how you h

had been unusually-remarkably susceptible. Cynthia remembered him as always in or out of a love-affair, while she to whom he never made love was alternately champion and mentor. In those days, he had no expectation of the estates or the title. He was plain Philip Bliss, with an artistic and literary turn, great personal charm, and a temperament that invited catastrophes. That was before he went to Paris and Rome for serious work at painting. Seven years he had been away from England, and she had never seen him. He had announced his marriage to her in a short note containing hardly any particulars-except that his wife was a student like himself, and that he intended to live

have been one of the most invited men in London had he wished to be; while Cynthia could remember at least three women, all desirable, who would have liked to marry him. The war had swept him more decidedly than ever out of the ordinary current of society. He had made it both an excuse and

in-much more like the old Philip than he had been for years-looking at her with those enchanting blue eyes of his, and asking her to do something for him. No wonder Cynthia's pulses were stirred. The night b

t to be too forthcoming-that she would be delig

myself guardian to an extremely headstrong young woman,

repared to give him all her mind. Bu

why you un

ouldn't help it. We won

of-was the modern gir

d her-in one day?" He laugh

diate problem is that Helena bombed me last night by the unexpected announcement that she ha

slig

w his re

ber a good deal a

use, and she sprang the announcement on me, on Thursday, the invitation b

How did sh

have broken faith, and this morning she told me she had arranged to go up and lunch with Donald at the Ritz next week-alone

s all happened in the first t

my advice on any such questions-that she prefers her liberty to her reputation-and 'wants to u

nued to laugh unrestrai

checking her mirth. "I'm awfully sorry for

Helena from doing anything she wants to do. Helena will joll

tronger woman," mused Cynthia. "But I am afraid you h

be awfully grateful if you'd take a hand, Cynthia. Won't you come up and really

ked extreme

st night she

u tell? And w

rs older. That'

look a day o

ed his hand, with a caressing

t I can. I'll wander up some time-on Sunday perhaps. With your coaching, I could a

ebrows

ss! I'm old-fashioned, I suppose. But I really couldn't talk about Donald to

cts, then, about him,

n to a man. For there was nothing at all distasteful to him in Cynthia's knowledge of life. In a woman of forty it was natural and even attractive. The notion of a discussio

alked with great frankness of his own plans. In three months or so, his Admiralty work would be over. He thought very likely that the Government would then give him a modest place in the Administration. He might begin by representing the Admiralty in the Lords, and as soon as he got a foot on the political ladder prospects would open. On the whole, he thought, politics would be his line. He had no personal axes to grind; was afraid of nothing;

owing a summer shade about her, showed herself, as they strolled backwards and forwards over the shady lawn

cted by her? She racked her brains afterwards to think what it could have been; but in vain. All she knew was that the man beside her had suddenly stif

id Cynthia. She smiled, but her fac

ed at h

an hour ago. You'll be up some time p

. I'll do

he had done to offend him; and a certain dreariness crept into the evening light. She was not the least in love with P

nymphs' dancing. From the west a level sun struck through the trees, breaking through storm-clouds which had been rapidly filling the horizon, and kindling the tall trees, with their ribbed grey bark, till they shone for a brief moment like the polished pillars in the house of Odysseus. Then a nightingale sang. Nightingales were rare at Beechmark; and Buntingford would normally

law do nothing? Enquiry-violent action of some sort-rebellion against the conditions which had grown so rigi

rred in him the depths of old pain. But he was not really in love with Cynthia. During the war, amid the absorption of his work, and the fierce pressure of the national need, he had been quite content to forget her. His work-and England's strait-had filled his mind and his time. Except for certain dull resentment

is work still went on; but it was no longer absorbing; it no longer mattered enough

ly relegated already by that unmanageable child to the ranks of the middle-aged. He had read her

rs he had spoken freely, who knew him through and through-Helena Pitstone's mother-had taken for granted, in her quiet ascetic way, that he had indeed had his chance, and must accept for good and all what had come of it. It was because she thought of him as set apart, as debarred by what had happened to

, even at Rachel, his dear dead friend, who had been so full of pity for him, and for whom h

him, which he simply refused to accept as just or final. If Rachel had only lived a little longer he

s better so. Not that-if circumstances had been other than they were--he would have been the least inclined to make love to

n all the huge insoluble questions she seemed to be determined to raise, was of all things in the wo

uous dripping of the cherry-blossoms, the scent of the blue-bells,-there was in them a certain shelter and healin

e was Geoffrey, walking up and down with Helena. Suppose that really came o