In the hot afternoon, chairs were taken out into the shadow of the Castle walls, and there the three sat conversing.  Someone drew near, a man, whom the careless glance of Helen’s cousin took for a casual tourist about to view the ruins.  Helen herself, and in the same moment, Irene, recognised Piers Otway.  It seemed as though Mrs. Borisoff would not rise to welcome him; her smile was dubious, half surprised.  She cast a glance at Irene, whose face was set in the austerest self-control, and thereupon not only stood up, but stepped forward with cordial greeting.

“So you have really come!  Delighted to see you!  Are you walking—­ as you said?”

“Too hot!” Piers replied, with a laugh.  “I spent yesterday at York, and came on in a cowardly way by train.”

He was shaking hands with Irene, who dropped a word or two of mere courtesy.  In introducing him to March, Mrs. Borisoff said, “An old friend of ours,” which caused her stalwart cousin to survey the dark, slimly-built man very attentively.

“We’ll get you a chair, Mr. Otway——­”

“No, no!  Let me sit or lie here on the grass.  It’s all I feel fit for after the climb.”

He threw himself down, nearer to Helen than to her friend, and the talk became livelier than before his arrival.  Irene emerged from the taciturnity into which she had more and more withdrawn, and March, not an unobservant man, evidently noted this, and reflected upon it.  He had at first regarded the new-comer with a civil aloofness, as one not of his world; presently, he seemed to ask himself to what world the singular being might belong—­a man who knew how to behave himself, and whose talk implied more than common savoir-vivre, yet who differed in such noticeable points from an Englishman of the leisured class.

Helen was in a mischievous mood.  She broached the subject of grouse, addressing to Otway an ambiguous remark which led March to ask, with veiled surprise, whether he was a sportsman.

“Mr. Otway’s taste is for bigger game,” she exclaimed. before Piers could reply.  “He lives in hope of potting Russians on the Indian frontier.”

“Well, I can sympathise with him in that,” said the large-limbed man, puzzled but smiling.  “He’ll probably have a chance before very long.”

No sooner had he spoken that a scarlet confusion glowed upon his face.  In speculating about Otway, he had for the moment forgotten his cousin’s name.

“I beg your pardon, Helen!—­What an idiot I am Of course you were joking, and I——­”

“Don’t, don’t, don’t apologise, Edward!  Tell truth and shame—­your Russian relatives!  I like you all the better for it.”

“Thank you,” he answered.  “And after all, there’s no harm in a little fighting.  It’s better to fight and have done with it than keeping on plotting between compliments.  Nations arc just like schoolboys, you know; there has to be a round now and then; it settles things, and is good for the blood.”