om. "Not that I believe what people say against
her--although she hints, of course--" Upon which Mrs. Flushing cried out
with delight:

"She's my first cousin! Go on--go on!"

When Mrs. Flushing rose to go she was obviously delighted with her new
acquaintances. She made three or four different plans for meeting or
going on an expedition, or showing Helen the things they had bought,
on her way to the carriage. She included them all in a vague but
magnificent invitation.

As Helen returned to the garden again, Ridley's words of warning came
into her head, and she hesitated a moment and looked at Rachel sitting
between Hirst and Hewet. But she could draw no conclusions, for Hewet
was still reading Gibbon aloud, and Rachel, for all the expression she
had, might have been a shell, and his words water rubbing against her
ears, as water rubs a shell on the edge of a rock.

Hewet's voice was very pleasant. When he reached the end of the period
Hewet stopped, and no one volunteered any criticism.

"I do adore the aristocracy!" Hirst exclaimed after a moment's pause.
"They're so amazingly unscrupulous. None of us would dare to behave as
that woman behaves."

"What I like about them," said Helen as she sat down, "is that they're
so well put together. Naked, Mrs. Flushing would be superb. Dressed as
she dresses, it's absurd, of course."

"Yes," said Hirst. A shade of depression crossed his face. "I've never
weighed more than ten stone in my life," he said, "which is ridiculous,
considering my height, and I've actually gone down in weight since we
came here. I daresay that accounts for the rheumatism." Again he jerked
his wrist back sharply, so that Helen might hear the grinding of the
chalk stones. She could not help smiling.

"It's no laughing matter for me, I assure you," he protested. "My
mother's a chronic invalid, and I'm always expecting to be told that
I've got heart disease myself. Rheumatism always goes to the heart in
the end."

"For goodness' sake, Hirst," Hewet protested; "one might think you were
an old cripple of eighty. If it comes to that, I had an aunt who died of
cancer myself, but I put a bold face on it--" He rose and began tilting
his chair backwards and forwards on its hind legs. "Is any one here
inclined for a walk?" he said. "There's a magnificent walk, up behind
the house. You come out on to a cliff and look right down into the sea.
The rocks are all red; you can see them through the water. The o