the cage," said Helena stubbornly. "That is the way women
have always been taken in. Men fling them scraps to keep them quiet. But
as to the _real_ feast--liberty to discover the world for themselves,
make their own experiments--choose and test their own friends--no, thank
you! And what is life worth if it is only to be lived at somebody's
else's dictation?"

"But you have only been here twenty-four hours--not so much! And you
don't know Lord Buntingford's reasons--"

"Oh, yes, I do know!" said Helena, undisturbed--"more or less. I told you
last night. They don't matter to me. It's the principle involved that
matters. Am I free, or am I not free? Anyway, I've just sent that
telegram."

"To whom?" cried Mrs. Friend.

"To Lord Donald, of course, asking him to meet me at the Ritz next
Wednesday. If you will be so good"--the brown head made her a ceremonial
bow--"as to go up with me to town--we can go to my dressmaker's
together--I have got heaps to do there--then I can leave you somewhere
for lunch--and pick you up again afterwards!"

"Of course, Miss Pitstone--Helena!--I can't do anything of the sort,
unless your guardian agrees."

"Well, we shall see," said Helena coolly, jumping up. "I mean to tell him
after lunch. Don't please worry. And good-bye till lunch. This time I am
really going to look after my horse!"

A laugh, and a wave of the hand--she had disappeared. Mrs. Friend was
left to reflect on the New Woman. Was it in truth the war that had
produced her?--and if so, how and why? All that seemed probable was that
in two or three weeks' time, perhaps, she would be again appealing to the
same agency that had sent her to Beechmark. She believed she was entitled
to a month's notice.

Poor Lord Buntingford! Her sympathies were hotly on his side, so far as
she had any understanding of the situation into which she had been
plunged with so little warning. Yet when Helena was actually there at her
feet, she was hypnotized. The most inscrutable thing of all was, how she
could ever have supposed herself capable of undertaking such a charge!

The two ladies were already lunching when Lord Buntingford appeared,
bringing with him another neighbouring squire, come to consult him on
certain local affairs. Sir Henry Bostock, one of those solid, grey-haired
pillars of Church and State in which rural England abounds, was first
dazzled by Miss Pitstone's beauty, and then clearly scandalized by some
of her conversation, and