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 her only resource. She was conscious of an
exaltation of will, a passionate self-assertion, beating through all her
veins, which made sleep impossible. Cousin Philip had scarcely addressed
a word to her during the evening, and had bade her a chilly good-night.
Of course, if that was to be his attitude it was impossible she could go
on living under his roof. Her mother could not for a moment have expected
her to keep her word, under such conditions ... And yet--why retreat? Why
not fight it out, temperately, but resolutely? "I lost my temper again
like an idiot, this morning--I mustn't--mustn't--lose it. He had jolly
well the best of it."

"Self-determination"--that was what she was bent on. If it was good for
nations, it was good also for individuals. Liberty to make one's own
mistakes, to face one's own risks--that was the minimum. And for one
adult human being to accept the dictation of another human being was the
only sin worth talking about. The test might come on some trivial thing,
like this matter of Lord Donald. Well,--she must be content to "find
quarrel in a straw, where honour is at stake." Yet, of course, her
guardian was bound to resist. The fight between her will and his was
natural and necessary. It was the clash of two generations, two views of
life. She was not merely the wilful and insubordinate girl she would
have been before the war; she saw herself, at any rate, as something
much more interesting. All over the world there was the same breaking of
bonds; and the same instinct towards _violence_. "The violent taketh by
force." Was it the instinct that war leaves, and must leave, behind
it--its most sinister, or its most pregnant, legacy? She was
passionately conscious of it, and of a strange thirst to carry it into