laughed again, but without a touch of mockery.

"One has to be taught--coached--regularly coached. Julian coached me."

"What is meant by Colour?" asked Mrs. Friend faintly.

"Colour is Passion, Beauty, Freedom!" said Helena, her cheek glowing. "It
is just the opposite of dulness--and routine--and make-believe. It's what
makes life worth while. And it is the young who feel it--the young who
hear it calling--the young who obey it! And then when they are old, they
have it to remember. Now, do you understand?"

Lucy Friend did not answer. But involuntarily, two shining tears stood in
her eyes. There was something extraordinarily moving in the girl's
ardour. She could hardly bear it. There came back to her momentary
visions from her own quiet past--a country lane at evening where a man
had put his arm round her and kissed her--her wedding-evening by the sea,
when the sun went down, and all the ways were darkened, and the stars
came out--and that telegram which put an end to everything, which she had
scarcely had time to feel, because her mother was so ill, and wanted her
every moment. Had she--even she--in her poor, drab, little life--had her
moments of living Poetry, of transforming Colour, like others--without
knowing it?

Helena watched her, as though in a quick, unspoken sympathy, her own
storm of feeling subsiding.

"Do you know, Lucy, you look very nice indeed in that little black
dress!" she said, in her soft, low voice, like the voice of an
incantation, that she had used the night before. "You are the neatest,