“If you can’t help it, I suppose you must say it.  But I don’t know why I should stay and listen,” said Helena provokingly, making a movement as though to rise.  But he laid a hand on her dress: 

“No, no, Helena, don’t go—­look here—­do you ever happen to notice Buntingford—­when he’s sitting quiet—­and other people are talking round him?”

“Not particularly.”  The tone was cold, but she no longer threatened departure.

“Well, I just ask you—­some time—­to watch.  An old friend of his said to me the other day—­’I often feel that Buntingford is the saddest man I know.’”

“Why should he be?” asked Helena imperiously.

“I can’t tell you.  No one can.  It’s just what those people think who know him best.  Well, that’s one fact about him—­that his men friends feel they could no more torment a wounded soldier, than worry Buntingford—­if they could help it.  Then there are other facts that no one knows unless they’ve worked in Philip’s office, where all the men clerks and all the women typists just adore him!  I happen to know a good deal about it.  I could tell you things—­”

“For Heaven’s sake, don’t!” cried Helena impatiently.  “What does it matter?  He may be a saint—­with seven haloes—­for those that don’t cross him.  But I want my freedom!”—­a white foot beat the ground impatiently—­“and he stands in the way.”

“Freedom to compromise yourself with a scoundrel like Donald!  What can you know about such a man—­compared with what Philip knows?”

“That’s just it—­I want to know—­” said Helena in her most stubborn voice.  “This is a world, now, in which we’ve all got to know,—­both the bad and the good of it.  No more taking it on trust from other people!  Let us learn it for ourselves.”

“Helena!—­you’re quite mad!” said the young man, exasperated.

“Perhaps I am.  But it’s a madness you can’t cure.”  And springing to her feet, she sent a call across the lawn—­“Peter!” A slim boy who was walking beside the “babe” of seventeen, some distance away, turned sharply at the sound, and running across the grass pulled up in front of Helena.

“Well?—­here I am.”

“Shall we go and look at the lake?  You might pull me about a little.”

“Ripping!” said the youth joyously.  “Won’t you want a cloak?”

“No—­it’s so hot.  Shall we ask Miss Luton?”

Peter made a face.

“Why should we?”

Helena laughed, and they went off together in the direction of a strip of silver under distant trees on which the moon was shining.

French walked away towards the girlish figure now deserted.

Helena watched him out of the corner of her eyes, saw the girl’s eager greeting, and the disappearance of the two in the woody walk that bordered the lawn.  Then she noticed a man sitting by himself not far away, with a newspaper on his knee.

“Suppose we take Mr. Horne, Peter?”