"I don't know. My information is--that the mothers are stiffening."

A laughing face looked up at her from the grass.

"Stiffening!" The tone was contemptuous. "Well, that may be so--for babes
of seventeen--like that one--" her gesture indicated a slight figure in
white at the edge of the lawn--"who have never been out of the
school-room--but--"

"You think nineteen makes all the difference? I doubt," said Geoffrey
French coolly, as he sat up tailor-fashion, and surveyed her. "Well, my
view is that for the babes, as you call them, chaperonage is certainly
reviving. I have just been sitting next Lady Maud, this babe's mother,
and she told me an invitation came for the babe from some great house
last week, addressed to 'Miss Luton and partner'--whereon Lady Maud wrote
back--'My daughter has no partner and I shall be very happy to bring
her.' Rather a poke in the eye! Then there are the women of five or six
and twenty who have been through the war, and are not likely to give up
the freedom of it--ever again. That's all right. They'll take their own
risks. Many of them will prefer not to live at home again. They'll live
with a friend--and visit their people perhaps every day! But, then
there's _you_, Helena--the betwixt and between!--"

"Well--what about me?"

"You're neither a babe--nor a veteran."

"I'm nineteen and a half--and I've done a year and a half of war work--"