"Helen! Do come back for a minute." But Helen was half way up the stairs.

He heard her laugh as she reached the landing.
"I am hungry, dear," she called over the banisters, "and so are you, only you don't know it! Crawl out of your long grass, and make yourself presentable before the gong sounds; or I shall send bananas for one, to your study!" "All right!" he shouted; gave Helen's message to the butler; then went through the billiard-room, whistling gaily.
"Why, she is as keen as I am," he said to himself, as he turned on the hot and cold water taps.

"And she is perfectly right about not coming with me.

Of course it's jolly hard to leave her; but I believe I shall do better work alone." His mind went back to Helen's bright face in the doorway.

He realised her mastery, for his sake, of her own dread of the parting.
"What a brick she is!" he said.