“And now you want advice?” she said at last, checking her mirth.  “I’m awfully sorry for you, Philip.  What about the little chaperon?”

“As nice a woman as ever was—­but I don’t see her preventing Helena from doing anything she wants to do.  Helena will jolly well take care of that.  Besides she is too new to the job.”

“She may get on better with Helena, perhaps, than a stronger woman,” mused Cynthia.  “But I am afraid you have got your work cut out.  Wasn’t it very rash of you?”

“I couldn’t help it,” he repeated briefly.  “And I must just do my best.  But I’d be awfully grateful if you’d take a hand, Cynthia.  Won’t you come up and really make friends with her?  She might take things from you that she wouldn’t from me.”

Cynthia looked extremely doubtful.

“I am sure last night she detested me.”

“How could you tell?  And why should she?”

“I’m twenty years older.  That’s quite enough.”

“You scarcely look a day older, Cynthia.”

She sighed, and lightly touched his hand, with a caressing gesture he remembered of old.

“Very nice of you to say it—­but of course it isn’t true.  Well, Philip, I’ll do what I can.  I’ll wander up some time—­on Sunday perhaps.  With your coaching, I could at least give her a biography of Jim Donald.  One needn’t be afraid of shocking her?”

His eyebrows lifted.

“Who’s shocked at anything nowadays?  Look at the things girls read and discuss!  I’m old-fashioned, I suppose.  But I really couldn’t talk about Donald to her this morning.  The fellow is such a worm!  It would come better from you.”

“Tell me a few more facts, then, about him, than I know at present.”

He gave her rapidly a sketch of the life and antecedents of Lord Donald of Dunoon—­gambler, wastrel, divorce, et cetera, speaking quite frankly, almost as he would have spoken to a man.  For there was nothing at all distasteful to him in Cynthia’s knowledge of life.  In a woman of forty it was natural and even attractive.  The notion of a discussion of Donald’s love-affairs with Helena had revolted him.  It was on the contrary something of a relief—­especially with a practical object in view—­to discuss them with Cynthia.

They sat chatting till the shadows lengthened, then wandered into the garden, still talking.  Lady Georgina, watching from her window upstairs, had to admit that Buntingford seemed to like her sister’s society.  But if she had been within earshot at the last five minutes of their conversation, she would perhaps have seen no reason, finally, to change her opinion.  Very agreeable that discursive talk had been to both participants.  Buntingford had talked with great frankness of his own plans.  In three months or so, his Admiralty work would be over.  He thought very likely that the Government would then give him a modest place in the Administration.  He might begin by representing the Admiralty in the