and then sat silent while guardian and ward plunged
into a war of chaff in which first the ward, but ultimately the guardian,
got the better. Lord Buntingford had more resource and could hold out
longer, so that at last Helena rose impatiently:

"I don't feel that I have been at all prettily welcomed--have I, Mrs.
Friend? Lord Buntingford never allows one a single good mark. He says I
have been idle all the winter since the Armistice. I haven't. I've worked
like a nigger!"

"How many dances a week, Helena?--and how many boys?" Helena first made a
face, and then laughed out.

"As many dances--of course--as one could stuff in--without taxis. I
could walk down most of the boys. But Hampstead, Chelsea, and Curzon
Street, all in one night, and only one bus between them--that did
sometimes do for me."

"When did you set up this craze?"

"Just about Christmas--I hadn't been to a dance for a year. I had been
slaving at canteen work all day"--she turned to Mrs. Friend--"and doing
chauffeur by night--you know--fetching wounded soldiers from railway
stations. And then somebody asked me to a dance, and I went. And next
morning I just made up my mind that everything else in the world was
rot, and I would go to a dance every night. So I chucked the canteen and
I chucked a good deal of the driving--except by day--and I just
dance--and dance!"

Suddenly she began to whistle a popular waltz--and the next minute the
two elder people found themselves watching open-mouthed the whirling
figure of Miss Helena Pitstone, as, singing to herself, and absorbed
apparently in some new and complicated steps, she danced down the whole
length of the drawing-room and back again. Then out of breath, with a
curtsey and a laugh, she laid a sudden hand on Mrs. Friend's arm.

"Will you come and talk to me--before dinner? I can't talk--before _him_.
Guardians are impossible people!" And with another mock curtsey to Lord
Buntingford, she hurried Mrs. Friend to the door, and then disappeared.

Her guardian, with a shrug of the shoulders, walked to his writing-table,
and wrote a hurried note.

"My dear Geoffrey--I will send to meet you at Dansworth to-morrow by the
train you name. Helena is here--very mad and very beautiful. I hope you
will stay over Sunday. Yours ever, Buntingford."

"He shall have his chance anyway," he thought, "with the others. A fair
field, and no pulling."

CHAPTER II

"There is only one bathroom in this house, and