Conversation very soon languished.  An instinctive antagonism that neither could have explained intelligibly would have been evident to any shrewd listener.  Helena was not long in suspecting that Lady Cynthia was in some way Buntingford’s envoy, and had been sent to make friends, with an ulterior object; while Cynthia was repelled by the girl’s ungracious manner, and by the gulf which it implied between the outlook of forty, and that of nineteen.  “She means to make me feel that I might have been her mother—­and that we have nothing in common!”

The result was that Cynthia was driven into an intimate and possessive tone with regard to Buntingford, which was more than the facts warranted, and soon reduced Helena to monosyllables, and a sarcastic lip.

“You can’t think,” said Cynthia effusively—­“how good he is to us two.  It is so like him.  He never forgets us.  But indeed he never forgets anybody.”

Helena raised her eyebrows, as though the news astonished her, but she was too polite to contradict.

“He sends you flowers, doesn’t he?” she said carelessly.

“He sends us all kinds of things.  But that’s not what makes him so charming.  He’s always so considerate for everybody!  The day you were coming, for instance, he thought of nothing but how to get your room finished and your books in order.  I hope you liked it?”

“Very much.”  The tone was noncommittal.

“I don’t suppose he told you how he worked,” said Cynthia, smiling.  “Oh, he’s a great dear, Philip!  Only he takes a good deal of knowing.”

“Did you ever see his wife?” said Helena abruptly.

Cynthia’s movement showed her unpleasantly startled.  She looked instinctively towards the library window, where Buntingford was now standing with his back to them.  No, he couldn’t have heard.

“No, never,” she said hurriedly, in a low voice.  “Nobody ever speaks to him about her.  She was of course not his equal socially.”

“Is that the reason why nobody speaks of her?”

Cynthia flushed indignantly.

“Not that I know of.  Why do you ask?”

“I thought you put the two things together,” said Helena in her most detached tone.  “And she was an artist?”

“A very good one, I believe.  A man who had seen her in Paris before her marriage told me long ago—­oh, years ago—­that she was extraordinarily clever, and very ambitious.”

“And beautiful?” said Helena eagerly.

“I don’t know.  I never saw a picture of her.”

“I’ll bet anything she was beautiful!”

“Most likely.  Philip’s very fastidious.”

Helena meditated.

“I wonder if she had a good time?” she said at last.

“If she didn’t, it couldn’t have been Philip’s fault!” said Cynthia, with some vigour.

“No, really?”

The girl’s note of interrogation was curiously provoking, and Cynthia could have shaken her.