concerts--the opera--that kind of thing. I dare say it will go all
right!" But the tone was one of resignation, rather than certainty.

"I'll do my best--" began Mrs. Friend.

"I'm sure you will. But--well, we'd better be frank with each other.
Helena's very handsome--very self-willed--and a good bit of an heiress.
The difficulty will be--quite candidly--_lovers_!"

They both laughed. Lord Buntingford took out his cigarette case.

"You don't mind if I smoke?"

"Not at all."

"Won't you have one yourself?" He held out the case. Mrs. Friend did not
smoke. But she inwardly compared the gesture and the man with the
forbidding figure of the old woman in Lancaster Gate with whom she had
just completed two years of solitary imprisonment, and some much-baffled
vitality in her began to revive.

Lord Buntingford threw himself back in his arm-chair, and watched the
curls of smoke for a short space--apparently in meditation.

"Of course it's no good trying the old kind of thing--strict chaperonage
and that sort of business," he said at last. "The modern girl won't
stand it."

"No, indeed she won't!" said Mrs. Friend fervently. "I should like to
tell you--I've just come from ----" She named a university. "I went to