Or else it was the pretty Miss Oliver who had him--half alarmed, half enchanted--in her toils, and Gerald couldn't imagine what she was going to do with him.

For such entanglements Helen's advice had always shown a way out, and for his uncertainties--though she never took the responsibility of actual guidance--her reflective questionings, her mere reflective silences, were illuminating.

They made clear for him, as for her, that recklessness could only be worth while if one were really--off one's own bat, as it were--'in love'; and that, this lacking, recklessness was folly sure to end in disaster.

'Wait, either until you care so much that you must, or else until you meet some one so nice, so rich, and so suitable that you may,' said Helen.

'If you are not careful you will find yourself married to some one who will bore you and quarrel with you on twopence a year.' 'You must be careful for me,' said Gerald.