Lady Cynthia, with a shrug, gave it up.
Mrs.Friend felt too strange to the whole situation to make any move.

She could only watch for the entry of the gentlemen.

Lord Buntingford, who came in last, evidently looked round for his ward.

But Helena had already flitted back to the rest of the company, and admirably set off by a deep red chair into which she had thrown herself, was soon flirting unashamedly with the two young men, with Mr.Parish and the Rector, taking them all on in turn, and suiting the bait to the fish with the instinctive art of her kind.

Lord Buntingford got not a word with her, and when the guests departed she had vanished upstairs before anyone knew that she had gone.
"Have a cigar in the garden, Vivian, before you turn in?
There is a moon, and it is warmer outside than in," said Lord Buntingford to his cousin, when they were left alone.
"By all means." So presently they found themselves pacing a flagged path outside a long conservatory which covered one side of the house.