acquainted with each other since Helena left the nursery. But there was
nearly twenty years between them, and a critical spirit on both sides.

Conversation very soon languished. An instinctive antagonism that neither
could have explained intelligibly would have been evident to any shrewd
listener. Helena was not long in suspecting that Lady Cynthia was in some
way Buntingford's envoy, and had been sent to make friends, with an
ulterior object; while Cynthia was repelled by the girl's ungracious
manner, and by the gulf which it implied between the outlook of forty,
and that of nineteen. "She means to make me feel that I might have been
her mother--and that we have nothing in common!"

The result was that Cynthia was driven into an intimate and possessive
tone with regard to Buntingford, which was more than the facts warranted,
and soon reduced Helena to monosyllables, and a sarcastic lip.

"You can't think," said Cynthia effusively--"how good he is to us
two. It is so like him. He never forgets us. But indeed he never
forgets anybody."

Helena raised her eyebrows, as though the news astonished her, but she
was too polite to contradict.

"He sends you flowers, doesn't he?" she said carelessly.

"He sends us all kinds of things. But that's not what makes him so
charming. He's always so considerate for everybody! The day you were
coming, for instance, he thought of nothing but how to get your room
finished and your books in order. I hope you liked it?"