Again the personal note entered, but this time it did not make her pause.
“I? I should just think I had. And I love London in little raids like this, it is so full of charming things to do. But Martin,—it is good of you, Lord Yorkshire. And do be very good for him. Do use your influence with him. Do make him, at any rate, work hard to pass his examination at Cambridge first. It would make everything so much easier, so much happier.”
“For him?” he asked, with a marked intonation.
“Yes, and for all of us.”
He looked at her gravely.
“That sounds worth while,” he said.
He let that string vibrate, as it were, for a moment or two, and then passed on.
“But what becomes of the liberty of the individual which we talked of yesterday?” he said. “To influence anybody always seems to me a slight infringement of rights. One imposes one’s personality—such as it is—on another.”
“Ah, but in a good cause, to show him the stupidity of not passing examinations. Surely, that is a rule absolutely without exception, that it is always wise not to be stupid.”
He laughed. Helen, with her direct vivid personality, seemed to him unlike anybody else he had ever seen, with the exception, perhaps, of her twin. The extraordinary and rather rare charm also of perfect naturalness, not the assumption of it, was hers also.