Even as she spoke there flashed across her mind a memory of her husband’s words: “Not Gerard. Never Gerard. If ever you want a counsellor, turn to Theodore Helmont.”
Hardly knowing what she did—certainly not knowing why she did it—she sat down and wrote a telegram, then and there, to this cousin she barely knew.
“Can you come here for two days? I greatly desire it.”
As soon as the boy had ridden away she wished she had worded her message quite differently. An hour later she wished she had not sent it at all.
“Mamma,” she said at luncheon, speaking very loudly and distinctly, as people had to do nowadays with the old lady, “I have asked Theodore van Helmont to come and stay here for a day or two.”
“Whom?” asked the Baroness.
“Theodore van Helmont.”
“The house is yours, Ursula, now, to do what you like with, but”—the Dowager began to cry—“you might have asked somebody with another name.”
“It is on business,” replied Ursula, curtly.
“Business again,” said the old lady, in an aggrieved tone; “since my poor Theodore died one would think we kept a shop. Oh, ask him, by all means. He is the plebeian young man. I have nothing to say. It is the invasion of the—the—what, Louisa?”