For a moment Helen stood transfixed. Never in all her life had her father spoken to her so before. Every vestige of colour left her face; her white lips just moved, but no words came. Then she turned round and walked quietly out of the room, forgetting even to slam the door behind her.
"I suppose that we have to thank you for being spared a scene, Mary," said Mrs. Desmond as she sank into her chair with a deep sigh.
"I'm afraid that Helen is too much for Margaret," observed the colonel, addressing his visitor, but looking anxiously at his wife.
"Why don't you send her to a good school then?" asked the former briskly. "It's a lonely life for her here, poor child!"
"Because, Mary," interposed Mrs. Desmond, "I do not approve of a school training for girls; and I shall never shirk a duty that I have undertaken for my dear husband's sake, however painful and wearing it may be."
The colonel pressed his wife's hand, while Miss Macleod went on:
"And yet in this case a school training might be the best. Probably the child is too much alone and needs young society."
"Nonsense, Mary! Was not I brought up alone in this very house? Helen has many more indulgences than I ever had, and yet I was always happy and contented."
"But I should say, Margaret, that your disposition and Helen's are totally different. I can remember you a prim little girl sitting up in your high chair working your sampler or repeating Watt's hymns. And do you recollect your horror when I once went out of doors while I was putting on my gloves and afterwards proposed to race round the square? Ladies never did such things, you said. Now I have a suspicion that Helen might be very easily induced to race anybody along Regent Street."
The colonel smiled. There was a time when he used to boast of his little girl's high spirits and untamed ways.