n the stern. The vision passed in a flash; and Horne turned a
pair of eyes alive with satirical meaning on his companion.

"Well!" said Peter, troubled, he scarcely knew why--"what do you mean?"

Horne seemed to hesitate. His loose-limbed ease of bearing in his shabby
clothes, his rugged head, and pile of reddish hair, above a thinker's
brow, made him an impressive figure in the half light--gave him a kind of
seer's significance.

"Isn't it one of the stock situations?" he said at last--"this
situation of guardian and ward?--romantic situations, I mean? Of course
the note of romance must be applicable. But it certainly is applicable,
in this case."

Peter stared. Julian Horne caught the change in the boy's delicate face
and repented him--too late.

"What rubbish you talk, Julian! In the first place it would be
dishonourable!"

"Why?"

"It would, I tell you,--damned dishonourable! And in the next, why, a few
weeks ago--Helena hated him!"

"Yes--she began with 'a little aversion'! One of the stock openings,"
laughed Horne.

"Well, ta-ta. I'm not going to stay to listen to you talking bosh any
more," said Peter roughly. "There's the next dance beginning."

He flung away. Horne resumed his pacing. He was very sorry for Peter,
whose plight was plain to all the world. But it was better he should be
warned. As for himself, he too had been under the spell. But he had soon
emerged. A philosopher and economist, holding on to Helena's skirts in
her rush through the world, would cut too sorry a figure. Besides, could
she ever have married him--which was of course impossible, in spite of
the courses in Meredith and Modern Literature through which he had taken
her--she would have tired of him in a year, by which time both their
fortunes would have been spent. For he knew himself to be a spendthrift
on a small income, and suspected a similar propensity in Helena, on the
grand scale. He returned, therefore, more or less contentedly, to his
musings upon an article he was to contribute to _The Market Place_, on
"The Influence of Temperament in Economics." The sounds of dance music in
the distance made an agreeable accompaniment.

Meanwhile a scene--indisputably sentimental--was passing on the lake.
Helena and Geoffrey French going down to the water's edge to find a boat,
had met halfway with Cynthia Welwyn, in some distress. She had just heard
that Lady Georgina had been taken suddenly ill, and must go home. She
understood