For a long time I said nothing in his presence, except in answer to some direction.  
There seemed no need to talk.
 
Enough for me to see him come striding across the links; to watch him walk into my mother's room; to see a certain look come into his eyes. It came so seldom that sometimes I told myself I must have dreamed it.
 
Then it would come again.
 
He made my mother almost well. But when he went back to London he left a great misery¹ behind him.
 
No one knew, and I hoped that in time I should get over it. At least I pretended that was what I hoped. I would rather have had that pain of longing² than all the pleasure any other soul could give.
 
The following year my mother was wonderfully well, and so cheerful I hadn't the heart to worry her with questions.[Pg 60]
 
We saw more of the Helmstones than ever before. My mother even went to them once or twice. A few days before that first visit of Eric Annan's had ended, Lady Helmstone and the two unmarried daughters came home from touring round the world in their cousin's yacht. Lady Barbara was the plain daughter. She was twenty-two and wrote poetry, we heard. But we thought the youngest of the family much the cleverest. Hermione was striking to look at, and the fact that she laughed at Barbara, and at pretty well everyone else, made her seem very superior. Also, she had an air.
 
She made a deep impression on Bettina. I, too, found her wonderful. But my mother said she was crude. We thought that was only because, in spite of "being who she was," Hermione Helmstone put pink stuff on her lips and darkened the under lid of her green eyes. Just a little, you understand. Enough to give her a look of extraordinary brilliancy. She took a great fancy to Bettina. In spite of Bettina's being so young Hermione used to tell her about her love affairs.
 
There seemed to be a great many. But one was serious. She was as good as engaged, she[Pg 61] said, to Guy Whitby-Dawson. He was in the Guards.
 
We were all agog³. When was she going to be married?
 
She didn't know. It was dreadfully expensive being in the Guards.
 
Being a peer seemed to be very expensive, too. Hermione's father had so many places to keep up, and so many daughters, he couldn't afford to give Hermione more than "the merest pittance⁵." When we heard what it was, we thought it very grand to call such a provision a mere⁴ pittance.
 
I wished we three had a pittance.
 
For those two to try to live on it would be madness, Hermione said. So she and Guy would have to wait. Perhaps some of Guy's relations would die. Then he would have plenty.
 
Meanwhile, in spite of being as good as engaged, Hermione flirted⁶ a good deal with her cousin, Eddie Monmouth, and with the various other young men who came to the week-end parties and for the hunting. Bettina and I were often rather sorry for Guy, until the day when Hermione brought over some of his photographs[Pg 62] for us to look at. We did not admire him at all.
 
But we never told Hermione.
 
As for me, though I tried to take an interest, I was never really thinking about any of the things that were going on about me. And I was always thinking of the same thing. Day and night, the same thing.
 
If my mother sent me into the garden to see whether the autumn crocuses were up—all I could see was his face. It came up everywhere I looked. I grew impatient of the companionship I had most loved. I was thankful when Hermione had carried off my sister for the afternoon. I felt Lord Helmstone had done me a personal kindness when he dropped in, on the way to or from the golf links, to talk to my mother. I would slip away just for ten minutes to think about "him" in peace. When I went in I would find I had been gone for hours.
 
The old laws of Time and Space seemed all at sixes and sevens. The old devotions paled.
 
Mercifully, nobody knew.
 
I looked for him all the next spring. In the[Pg 63] summer I said to myself, I shall never see him again.
 
Then a day in September when he came. Came not only to Big Klaus's and the Links. He came to Duncombe the very first evening, to ask about my mother.
 
I heard his voice at the door. It seemed to come up from the roots of the world to knock against my heart. I stood by the banisters out of sight and listened, while I held the banisters hard.
 
No, he wouldn't come in now. He would come to-morrow.
 
I flew to the window in the morning-room, and looked out.
 
I had not dreamed him. He was true.
 
The next day brought him.
 
I had all those hours to get myself in hand. I was quite quiet. The others seemed gladder to see him than I.
 
He was pleased at finding my mother so well. The crowning proof of her being stronger was her doing a quite unprecedented⁷ thing. She invited Mr. Annan to come and have tea at Duncombe,[Pg 64] instead of tramping all that distance back to the Farm. Big Klaus's tea she was sure was worse even than the Club House brew⁸.
 
The result was that he fell into the habit of playing another round after tea, which my mother said was good for him. She agreed with Lord Helmstone that Mr. Annan should not work when he had come away for a holiday. The Helmstones were for ever asking him to lunch and dine. But............