Helen's countenance was shadowed. She spoke no more for several minutes.

When two days had passed, March again came riding up to the Castle, and
lunched with the ladies. Irene was secretly vexed. At breakfast she had
suggested a whole day's excursion, which her friend persuaded her to
postpone; the reason must have been Helen's private knowledge that Mr.
March was coming. In consequence, the lunch fell short of perfect
cheerfulness. For reasons of her own, Irene was just a little formal in
her behaviour to the guest; she did not talk so well as usual, and bore
herself as a girl must who wishes, without unpleasantness, to check a
man's significant approaches.

In the hot afternoon, chairs were taken out into the shadow of the
Castle walls, and there the three sat conversing. Someone drew near, a
man, whom the careless glance of Helen's cousin took for a casual
tourist about to view the ruins. Helen herself, and in the same moment,
Irene, recognised Piers Otway. It seemed as though Mrs. Borisoff would
not rise to welcome him; her smile was dubious, half surprised. She
cast a glance at Irene, whose face was set in the austerest
self-control, and thereupon not only stood up, but stepped forward with
cordial greeting.

"So you have really come! Delighted to see you! Are you walking--as you
said?"

"Too hot!" Piers replied, with a laugh. "I spent yesterday at York, and
came on in a cowardly way by train."

He was shaking hands with Irene, who dropped a word or two of mere
courtesy. In introducing him to March, Mrs. Borisoff said, "An old
friend of ours," which caused her stalwart cousin to survey the dark,
slimly-built man very attentively.

"We'll get you a chair, Mr. Otway----"

"No, no! Let me sit or lie here on the grass. It's all I feel fit for
after the climb."

He threw himself down, nearer to Helen than to her friend, and the talk
became livelier than before his arrival. Irene emerged from the
taciturnity into which she had more and more withdrawn, and March, not
an unobservant man, evidently noted this, and reflected upon it. He had
at first regarded the new-comer with a civil aloofness, as one not of
his world; presently, he seemed to ask himself to what world the
singular being might belong--a man who knew how to behave himself, and
whose talk implied more than common _savoir-vivre_, yet who differed in
such noticeable points from an Englishman of the leisured class.

Helen was in a mischievous mood.