Oates, that I was free till five. It’s my first afternoon off since I came.”

“That is not what I meant. Of course, I am not reproaching you for any breach of duty. But it is too late for you to be returning from a walk.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Warren. I did go farther than I intended. But it did not grow dark till the last mile.”

Miss Warren looked at Helen, who felt herself slipping away a thousand miles or so.

“A mile is a long way from home,” she said. “It is not wise to go far, even by daylight. Surely you get sufficient exercise working about the house?” Why don’t you go into the garden to get fresh air?”

“Oh, but Miss Warren,” protested. Helen, “that is not the same as a good stretching walk, is it?”

“I understand.” Miss Warren smiled faintly. “But I want you, in turn, to understand this. You are a young girl, and I am responsible for your safety.”

Even while the warning seemed grotesque on Miss Warren’s lips, Helen thrilled to the intangible hint of danger. It seemed to be everywhere—floating in the air—inside the house, as well as outside in the dark tree-dripping valley.

“Blanche.”

A deep bass voice-like that of a man, or an old woman—boomed faintly from the blue room. Instantly, the stately Miss Warren shrank, from a paralyzing personality, to a schoolgirl hurrying to obey the summons of her mistress.

“Yes, Mother,” she called. “I’m coming.”

She crossed the landing, in ungainly strides, and shut the door of the blue room behind her, to Helen’s disap pointment.

“I’m getting a strange contrast in my types,” she thought, as she slowly walked up the stairs, to the next landing. “Mrs. Newton is torrid, and Miss Warren frigid. Hot and cold water, by turns. I wonder what will happen in case of fusion?”

She liked to coin phrases, just as she enjoyed the reflection that she was brought into daily contact with two bachelors and a widower, thus reviving a lost art. Those derided Victorians, who looked upon every man, as a potential husband, certainly extracted every ounce of interest from a dull genus;

Yet, while she respected the Professor’s intellect, and genuinely looked forward to the visits of the young Welsh doctor, she resolved to go on buying Savings Certificates, for her old age. For she believed in God-but not in Jane Eyre.

She was on the point of entering her room, when she noticed that a light was shining through the glass transom of the bachelor’s room. It drew her, as a magnet, to his door.

“Are you inside, Mr. Rice?” she called.

“Come and see for yourself,” invited the pupil.

“I only wanted to know if the light was being wasted.”

“Well, it’s not. Come in.”,

Helen obeyed the invitation. She was used to two kinds of behavior from men; they either overlooked her altogether, or paid her stressed attentions, in private.

Of the alternatives, she preferred to be insulted; she could always give back as good as she got, while she was braced by any kind of personal experience.

She liked Stephen Rice, because he treated her exactly as he treated other girls-with a casual frankness. He was smoking, as he pitched clothing into an open suitcase, and he made no apology for his state of undress, as his underwear satisfied his own standard of decency. Although he did not appeal to Helen, who liked a man’s face to betray some trace. of intellect, or spirit; he was generally accepted as unusually handsome, on the evidence of heavy regular features, and thick waving hair, which grew rather too low on his brow.

“Like dogs?” he asked, shaking out a confusion of ties.

“Let me,” remarked Helen, taking them from him, with kind firmness. “Of course I like dogs. I’ve looked after them.”

“Then that’s a bad mark to you. I loathe women who boss dogs.