"Well!" ejaculated her companion. "In Heaven's name, what has he been doing?"
Helena shrugged her shoulders. She was striding beside him like a young Artemis—in white, with a silver star in her hair, and her short skirts beaten back from her slender legs and feet by the evening wind. Geoffrey French, who had had a classical education, almost looked for the quiver and the bow. He was dazzled at once, and provoked. A magnificent creature, certainly—"very mad and very handsome!"—he recalled Buntingford's letter.
"Do tell me, Helena!" he urged.
"What's the good? You'll only side with him—and preach. You've done that several times already."
The young man frowned a little.
"I don't preach!" he said shortly. "I say what I think—when you ask me. Twice, if I remember right, you told me of some proceeding of yours, and asked me for my opinion. Well, I gave it, and it didn't happen to be yours. But that isn't preaching."
"You gave so many reasons—it was preaching."
"Great Scott!—wasn't it more polite to give one's reasons?"
"Perhaps. But one shouldn't burst with them. One should be sorry to disagree."
"Hm. Well—now kindly lay down for me, how I am to disagree with you about Philip. For I do disagree with you, profoundly."