While the subject died quietly between us I enjoyed myself surveying her. The cumbersome folds of her matronly stole only emphasized the warm curves they were meant to disguise, and which I had found myself possessing so unexpectedly two weeks before. Her presence tonight had enveloped me with the familiar sense that we both knew each other better than we would ever know anyone else (and yet neither of us had discovered the half of it…) 'This is how I like you,' I teased. 'All big brown eyes and blazing indignation!'
'Spare me the disreputable dialogue! I imagined,' her ladyship informed me in a taut voice, 'I might have seen you before this.'
She had on her sweet look of wariness in public places, which always made me step closer protectively. With one finger I stroked very gently from the soft hollow of her temple to the fine contour of her jaw. She allowed it with a stubbornness that implied complete indifference, but her cheek whitened beneath my touch. 'I was thinking of you, Helena.'
'Thinking of dropping me?' It had taken me ten days to make up my mind not to see her again-and ten seconds to decide not to leave. 'Oh I know!' she continued angrily. 'This is May. That was April. I was the girl in last month's adventure! All you wanted-'
'You know damn well what I wanted!' I cut in. 'It's another thing I am not supposed to tell you,' I said more quietly. 'But believe me, lady, I thought the world of you.'
'And now you've forgotten,' Helena argued bitterly. 'Or at least, you want me to forget-'
Just as I was about to demonstrate how much I remembered and how little I intended either of us to forget, the brisk figure of her illustrious father hove into view again.
'I'll come and see you,' I promised Helena in an undertone. 'There are things I need to talk about-'
'Oh there are some things you can say to us?' She deliberately let her father overhear. Camillus must have seen we were quarrelling, a fact he treated with a nervous diffidence which belied his true character. When occasion demanded he was forceful enough.
Before Helena could forestall me I told him, 'Your brother's soul was taken care of with the necessary reverence. If the underworld really exists, he is lounging on the grass in Hades, throwing sticks for Cerberus. Don't ask how I know.'
He accepted it more readily than Helena did. I parted from them tersely, making it plain I had to work.