ns--it _was_ preaching."

"Great Scott!--wasn't it more polite to give one's reasons?"

"Perhaps. But one shouldn't _burst_ with them. One should be sorry to
disagree."

"Hm. Well--now kindly lay down for me, how I am to disagree with you
about Philip. For I do disagree with you, profoundly."

"There it is. Profoundly--that shows how you enjoy disagreeing. Why can't
you put yourself at my point of view?"

"Well, I'll try. But at least--explain it to me."

Helena threw herself into a garden chair, under a wild cherry which rose
a pyramid of silver against an orange sky. Other figures were scattered
about the lawns, three or four young men, and three or four girls in
light dresses. The air seemed to be full of laughter and young voices.
Only Mrs. Friend sat shyly by herself just within the drawing-room
window, a book on her knee. A lamp behind her brought out the lines of
her bent head and slight figure.

"I wonder if I like you well enough," said Helena coolly, biting at a
stalk of grass--"well enough, I mean, to explain things. I haven't made
you my father confessor yet, Geoffrey."

"Suppose you begin--and see how it answers," said French lazily, rolling
over on the grass in front of her, his chin in his hands.

"Well, I don't mind--for fun. Only if you preach I shall stop. But, first
of all, let's get some common ground. You admit, I suppose, that the war
has changed the whole position of women?"

"Yes--with reservations."

"Don't state them!" said Helena hastily. "That would be preaching.
Yes, or No?"

"Yes, then,--you tyrant!"

"And that means--doesn't it--at the very least--that girls of my own age
have done with all the old stupid chaperonage business--at least nearly
all--that we are to choose our own friends, and make our own
arrangements?--doesn't it?" she repeated peremptorily.

"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'