Helen tapped at the bedroom door, left Mrs. Prockter to enter, and descended the stairs again.

“Is her up there with him?” James asked, in a whisper.

Helen nodded.

“Ye’d better ask her stop and have something to eat wi’ us,” said James.

Helen had to reconcile James Ollerenshaw to the new scale of existence at Wilbraham Hall.  She had to make him swallow the butler, and the page, and the other servants, and the grand piano—­in themselves a heavy repast—­without counting the evening dinner.  Up to the present he had said nothing, because there had been no fair opportunity to say anything.  But he might start at any moment.  And Helen had no reason to believe that he had even begun the process of swallowing.  She argued, with a sure feminine instinct and a large experience of mankind, that if he could only be dodged into tacitly accepting the new scale for even a single meal, her task would be very much simplified.  And what an ally Mrs. Prockter would be!

“Tell cook there will be three to dinner,” she said to the page, who fled gleefully.

After a protracted interval Mrs. Prockter reappeared.

She began by sighing.  “The foolish boy is seriously damaged,” said she.

“Not hurt?” Helen asked.

“Yes.  But only in his dignity.  He pretends it’s his throat, but it isn’t.  It’s only his dignity.  I suppose all singers are children, like that.  I’m really ashamed to have to ask you to let him lie there a little, dear Miss Rathbone; but he is positively sure that he can’t get up.  I’ve been through these crises with him before, but never one quite so bad.”

She laughed.  They all laughed.

“I’ll let him lie there on one condition,” Helen sweetly replied.  “And that is that you stay to dinner.  I am relying on you.  And I won’t take a refusal.”

Mrs. Prockter looked sharply at James, and James blushed.

“James,” she exclaimed, “you’ve told her.  And you promised you wouldn’t till to-morrow.”

“Nay!” said James.  “I’ve said nowt!  It’s you as has let it out, now, missis!”

“Told me what, Mrs. Prockter?” Helen asked, utterly unexpectant of the answer she was to get.

“My dear girl,” said the elder dame, “do not call me Mrs. Prockter.  I am Mrs. Ollerenshaw.  I am the property that your uncle has been buying at Derby.  And he is my sick relative at Nottingham.  We preferred to do it like that.  We could not have survived engagements and felicitations.”

“Oh, you wicked sinners!  You—­you terrible darlings!” Helen burst out as soon as she could control her voice.

Mrs. Ollerenshaw wept discreetly.

“Bless us!  Bless us!” murmured James, not to beseech a benediction, but simply to give the impression (quite false) that, in his opinion, much fuss was being made about nothing.

The new scale of existence was definitely accepted.  And in private Mrs. Ollerenshaw entirely agreed with Helen as to the merits of the butler.