She stopped mischievously, her head on one side.

“Sorry!—­but it slipped out.  Lucy—­good-night.”

Mrs. Friend hurriedly caught hold of her.

“And you won’t do anything hasty—­about Lord Donald?”

“Oh, I can’t promise anything.  One must stand by one’s friends.  One simply must.  But I’ll take care Cousin Philip doesn’t blame you.”

“If I’m no use, you know—­I can’t stay.”

“No use to Cousin Philip, you mean, in policing me?” said Helena, with a good-humoured laugh.  “Well, we’ll talk about it again to-morrow.  Good-night—­Lucy!”

The sly gaiety of the voice was most disarming.

“Good-night, Miss Pitstone.”

“No, that won’t do.  It’s absurd!  I never ask people to call me Helena, unless I like them.  I certainly never expected—­there, I’ll be frank!—­that I should want to ask you—­the very first night too.  But I do want you to.  Please, Lucy, call me Helena. Please!”

Mrs. Friend did as she was told.

“Sleep well,” said Helena from the door.  “I hope the housemaid’s put enough on your bed, and given you a hot water-bottle?  If anything scares you in the night, wake me—­that is, if you can!” She disappeared.

Outside Mrs. Friend’s door the old house was in darkness, save for a single light in the hall, which burnt all night.  The hall was the feature of the house.  A gallery ran round it supported by columns from below, and spaced by answering columns which carried the roof.  The bedrooms ran round the hall, and opened into the gallery.  The columns were of yellow marble brought from Italy, and faded blue curtains hung between them.  Helena went cautiously to the balustrade, drew one of the blue curtains round her, and looked down into the hall.  Was everybody gone to bed?  No.  There were movements in a distant room.  Somebody coughed, and seemed to be walking about.  But she couldn’t hear any talking.  If Cousin Philip were still up, he was alone.

Her anger came back upon her, and then curiosity.  What was he thinking about, as he paced his room like a caged squirrel?  About the trouble she was likely to give him—­and what a fool he had been to take the job?  She would like to go and reason with him.  The excess of vitality that was in her, sighing for fresh worlds to conquer, urged her to vehement and self-confident action,—­action for its own sake, for the mere joy of the heat and movement that go with it.  Part of the impulse depended on the new light in which the gentleman walking about downstairs had begun to appear to her.  She had known him hitherto as “Mummy’s friend,” always to be counted upon when any practical difficulty arose, and ready on occasion to put in a sharp word in defence of an invalid’s peace, when a girl’s unruliness threatened it.  Remembering one or two such collisions, Helena felt her cheeks burn, as she hung over the hall, in the darkness.  But those had been such passing matters.