I waited three hours. They forgot I was there.
Eventually, the door opened.
'Falco!' Helena's mother surveyed me, startled at my sticking power. 'Somebody should have seen to you-'
'Nothing I wanted, thanks.'
'Helena is still asleep.'
'I can wait.'
At my grim tone, Julia Justa came further into the room. I answered her curious gaze with a hard, bitter stare of my own.
'Madam, was today's event an accident of nature, or did your doctor give your daughter something to help things along?'
The lady considered me with Helena's own angrily perturbed dark eyes. 'If you know my daughter, you know the answer to that!'
'I do know your daughter; she is extremely sensible. I also know Helena Justina would not be the first unmarried mother who had a solution to her predicament wished on her!'
'Insulting her family will not help you to find out!'
'Excuse me. I've spent a long time thinking. Always a bad idea.'
Julia Justa let slip a slight sigh of impatience. 'Falco, this is achieving nothing; why are you still here?'
'I have to see Helena.'
'I must tell you, Falco-she never asked for you!'
'Did she ask for anyone else?'
'No.'
'Then no one else will be offended if I wait.'
Then Helena's mother said that if I felt so strongly I had better see Helena now, so that for everybody's sake I could go home.