perhaps--or so Mrs. Friend imagined--by the
rather astonishing "make-up" which disfigured lips and cheeks Nature had
already done her best with.

He departed immediately after lunch. Lord Buntingford accompanied him to
the front door, saw him mount his horse, and was returning to the
library, when a white figure crossed his path.

"Cousin Philip, I want to speak to you."

He looked up at once.

"All right, Helena. Will you come into the library?"

He ushered her in, shut the door behind her, and pushed forward an
arm-chair.

"You'll find that comfortable, I think?"

"Thank you, I'd rather stand. Cousin Philip, did you send that telegram
this morning?"

"Certainly. I told you I should."

"Then you won't be surprised that I too sent mine."

"I don't understand what you mean?"

"When this morning you said there would be seven for dinner to-night, I
of course realized that you meant to stick to what you had said about
Lord Donald yesterday; and as I particularly want to see Lord Donald, I
sent the new groom to the village this morning with a wire to him to say
that I should be glad if he would arrange to give me luncheon at the Ritz
next Wednesday. I have to go up to try a dress on."

Lord Buntingford paused a moment, looking apparently at the cigarette
with which his fingers were playing.

"You proposed, I imagine, that Mrs. Friend should go with you?"

"Oh, yes, to my dressmaker's. Then I would arrange for her to go
somewhere to lunch--Debenham's, perhaps."

"And it was your idea then to go alone--to meet Lord Donald?" He
looked up.

"He would wait for me in the lounge at the Ritz. It's quite simple!"

Philip Buntingford laughed--good-humouredly.

"Well, it is very kind of you to have told me so frankly, Helena--because
now I shall prevent it. It is the last thing in the world that your
mother would have wished, that you should be seen at the Ritz alone with
Lord Donald. I therefore have her authority with me in asking you either
to write or telegraph to him again to-night, giving up the plan. Better
still if you would depute me to do it. It is really a very foolish
plan--if I may say so."

"Why?"

"Because--well, there are certain things a girl of nineteen can't do
without spoiling her chances in life--and one of them is to be seen about
alone with a man like Lord Donald."

"And again I ask--why?"

"I really can't discuss his misdoings with you, Helena. Won't you trust
me in the matter? I th