Her blood boiled. How was she going to put up with this life? The irony of the whole position was insufferable. Geoffrey's ejaculation for instance when she had invited him to her sitting-room after breakfast that he might look for a book he had lent her—"My word, Helena, what a jolly place!—Why, this was the old school-room—I remember it perfectly—the piggiest, shabbiest old den. And Philip has had it all done up for you? Didn't know he had so much taste!" And then, Geoffrey's roguish look at her, expressing the "chaff" he restrained for fear of offending her. Lucy Friend, too, Captain Lodge, Peter—everybody—no one had any sympathy with her. And lastly, Donald himself—coward!—had refused to play up. Not that she cared one straw about him personally. She knew very well that he was a poor creature. It was the principle involved:—that a girl of nineteen is to be treated as a free and responsible being, and not as though she were still a child in the nursery. "Cousin Philip may have had the right to say he wouldn't have Jim Donald in his house, if he felt that way—but he had no right whatever to prevent my meeting him in town, if I chose to meet him—that's my affair!—that's the point! All these men here are in league. It's not Jim's character that's in question—I throw Jim's character to the wolves—it's the freedom of women!"
So the tumult in her surged to and fro, mingled all through with a certain unwilling preoccupation. That semi-circular bow-window on the south side of the house, which she commanded from her seat under the cedar, was one of the windows of the library. Hidden from her by the old bureau at which he was writing, sat Buntingford at work. She could see his feet under the bureau, and sometimes the top of his head. Oh, of course, he had a way with him—a certain magnetism—for the people who liked him, and whom he liked. Lady Maud, for instance—how well they had got on at breakfast? Naturally, she thought him adorable. And Lady Maud's girl. To see Buntingford showing her the butterfly collections in the library—devoting himself to her—and the little thing blushing and smiling—it was simply idyllic! And then to contrast the scene with that other scene, in the same room, the day before!
"Well, now, what am I going to do here—or in town?" she asked herself in exasperation. "If Cousin Philip and I liked each other it would be pleasant enough to ride together, to talk and read and argue—his brain's all right!—with Lucy Friend to fall back upon between whiles—for just these few weeks, at any rate, before we go to town—and with the week-ends to help one out. But if we are to be at daggers-drawn—he determined to boss me—and I equally determined not to be bossed—why, the thing will be intolerable! Hullo!—is that Cynthia Welwyn? She seems to be making for me."
It was Lady Cynthia, very fresh and brilliant in airy black and white, with a purple sunshade. She came straight over the grass to Helena's shady corner.
"You look so cool! May I share?"
Helena rather ungraciously pushed forward a chair as they shook hands.
"The rest of your party seem to be asleep," said Cynthia, glancing at various prostrate forms belonging to the male sex that were visible on a distant slope of the lawn. "But you've heard of the Dansworth disturbances?—and that everybody here may have to go?"
"Yes. It's probably exaggerated—isn't it?"
"I don't know. Everybody coming out of church was talking of it. There was bad rioting last night—and a factory burnt down. They say it's begun again. Buntingford will probably have to go. Where is he?"
Helena pointed to the library and to the feet under the bureau.