repartee with the distinguished soldier beside her, in which her
sharpened tones and quick breathing suggested the swell after a storm.

Mrs. Friend too had noticed. She had been struck with the sudden
tightening of the guardian's lip, the sudden stiffening of his hand lying
on the table. She wondered anxiously what was the matter.

In the library afterwards, Lady Cynthia, Mrs. Friend, and the two
girls--his daughter and his guest--who had come with Mr. Parish, settled
into a little circle near the wood-fire which the chilliness of the May
evening made pleasant.

Helena Pitstone meanwhile walked away by herself to a distant part of the
room and turned over photographs, with what seemed to Mrs. Friend a
stormy hand. And as she did so, everyone in the room was aware of her, of
the brilliance and power of the girl's beauty, and of the energy that
like an aura seemed to envelop her personality. Lady Cynthia made several
attempts to capture her, but in vain. Helena would only answer in
monosyllables, and if approached, retreated further into the dim room,
ostensibly in search of a book on a distant shelf, really in flight. Lady
Cynthia, with a shrug, gave it up.

Mrs. Friend felt too strange to the whole situation to make any move. She
could only watch for the entry of the gentlemen. Lord Buntingford, who
came in last, evidently looked round for his ward. But Helena had already
flitted back to the rest of the company, and admirably set off by a deep
red chair into which she had thrown herself, was soon flirting
unashamedly with the two young men, with Mr. Parish and the Rector,
taking them all on in turn, and suiting the bait to the fish with the
instinctive art of her kind. Lord Buntingford got not a word with her,