a villain as he awkwardly advanced, with out-stretched hand, to Helen.

Helen put her lips together, kept her hands well out of view, and
offered him a bow that could only have been properly appreciated under a
microscope.

The episode was quite negative; but it amounted to a scene--a scene at
one of Mrs. Prockter's parties! A scene, moreover, that mystified
everybody; a scene that implied war and the wounded!

Some discreetly withdrew. Of these was Emanuel, who had the
sensitiveness of an artist.

Andrew Dean presently perceived, after standing for some seconds like an
imbecile stork on one leg, that the discretion of the others was worthy
to be imitated. At the door he met Lilian, and they disappeared together
arm in arm, as betrothed lovers should. Three people remained in that
quarter of the drawing-room--Helen, her uncle, and Sarah Swetnam.

"Why, Nell," said Sarah, aghast, "what's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Helen, calmly.

"But surely you shake hands with Andrew when you meet him, don't you?"

"That depends how I feel, my dear," said Helen.

"Then something _is_ the matter?"

"If you want to know," said Helen, with haughtiness, "in the hall, just
now--that is--I--I overheard Mr. Dean say something about Emanuel
Prockter's singing which I consider very improper."

"But we all----"

"I'm going out into the garden," said Helen.

"A pretty how-d'ye-do!" James muttered inaudibly to himself as he
meandered to and fro in the hall, observing the manners and customs of
Hillport society. Another couple were now occupying the privacy of the
seat at the end of the side-hall, and James noticed that the heads of
this couple had precisely the same relative positions as the heads of
the previous couple. "Bless us!" he murmured, apropos of the couple,
who, seeing in him a spy, rose and fled. Then he resumed his silent
soliloquy. "A pretty how-d'ye-do! The chit's as fixed on that there
Emanuel Prockter as ever a chit could be!" And yet James had caught the
winking with Jos Swetnam during the song! As an enigma, Helen grew
darker and darker to him. He was almost ready to forswear his former
belief, and to assert positively that Helen had no sense whatever.

Mrs. Prockter loomed up, disengaged. "Ah, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she said,
"everybody seems to be choosing the garden. Shall we go there? This
way."

She led him down the side-hall. "By the bye," she murmured, with a
smile, "I think our plan is succeeding."

An