“Glorious!—­oh, glorious!—­

“Look now where Colour, the soul’s bridegroom, makes
The House of Heaven splendid for the Bride.”

She turned to look up at the little figure in the chair, half laughing, half passionate:  “You do understand, don’t you?” Mrs. Friend again shook her head despairingly.

“It sounds wonderful—­but I haven’t a notion what it means!” Helena laughed again, but without a touch of mockery.

“One has to be taught—­coached—­regularly coached.  Julian coached me.”

“What is meant by Colour?” asked Mrs. Friend faintly.

“Colour is Passion, Beauty, Freedom!” said Helena, her cheek glowing.  “It is just the opposite of dulness—­and routine—­and make-believe.  It’s what makes life worth while.  And it is the young who feel it—­the young who hear it calling—­the young who obey it!  And then when they are old, they have it to remember.  Now, do you understand?”

Lucy Friend did not answer.  But involuntarily, two shining tears stood in her eyes.  There was something extraordinarily moving in the girl’s ardour.  She could hardly bear it.  There came back to her momentary visions from her own quiet past—­a country lane at evening where a man had put his arm round her and kissed her—­her wedding-evening by the sea, when the sun went down, and all the ways were darkened, and the stars came out—­and that telegram which put an end to everything, which she had scarcely had time to feel, because her mother was so ill, and wanted her every moment.  Had she—­even she—­in her poor, drab, little life—­had her moments of living Poetry, of transforming Colour, like others—­without knowing it?

Helena watched her, as though in a quick, unspoken sympathy, her own storm of feeling subsiding.

“Do you know, Lucy, you look very nice indeed in that little black dress!” she said, in her soft, low voice, like the voice of an incantation, that she had used the night before.  “You are the neatest, daintiest person!—­not prim—­but you make everything you wear refined.  When I compare you with Cynthia Welwyn!”

She raised her shoulders scornfully.  Lucy Friend, aghast at the outrageousness of the comparison, tried to silence her—­but quite in vain.  Helena ran on.

“Did you watch Cynthia last night?  She was playing for Cousin Philip with all her might.  Why doesn’t he marry her?  She would suit his autocratic ideas very well.  He is forty-four.  She must be thirty-eight if she is a day.  They have both got money—­which Cynthia can’t do without, for she is horribly extravagant.  But I wouldn’t give much for her chances.  Cousin Philip is a tough proposition, as the American says.  There is no getting at his real mind.  All one knows is that it is a tyrannical mind!”

All softness had died from the girl’s face and sparkling eyes.  She sat on the floor, her hands round her knees, defiance in every tense feature.  Mrs. Friend was conscious of renewed alarm and astonishment, and at last found the nerve to express them.