"Prig!" said Helena, pelting him with a spray of wild cherry, which he caught and put in his button-hole. "If that isn't preaching, I should like to know what is!"
"Not at all. Unbiased opinion—civilly expressed. If you really were an emancipated young woman, Helena, you'd take it so! But now—" his tone changed—"let's come to business. What have you and Philip been quarrelling about?"
Helena straightened her shoulders, as though to meet certain disapproval.
"Because—I asked Lord Donald to spend the week-end here—"
"You didn't!"
"I did; and Cousin Philip wired to him and forbade him the house. Offence No. 1. Then as I intended all the same to see Jim, I told him I would go up and lunch with him at the Ritz. Cousin Philip vows I shan't, and he seems to have some underhand means of stopping it—I—I don't know what—"
"Underhand! Philip! I say, Helena, I wonder whether you have any idea how people who really know him think about Buntingford!"
"Oh, of course men back up men!"
"Stuff! It's really silly—abominable too—the way you talk of him—I can't help saying it."
And this time it was Geoffrey's turn to look indignant. His long face with its deeply set grey eyes, a rather large nose, and a fine brow under curly hair, had flushed suddenly.