with a curious sense of the significance of the moment. Then she rose, for Mrs. Flushing had seen Hewet too, and was demanding information about rivers and boats which showed that the whole conversation would now come over again.
Rachel followed her, and they walked in silence down the avenue. In spite of what Helen had seen and understood, the feeling that was uppermost in her mind was now curiously perverse; if she went on this expedition, she would not be able to have a bath; the effort appeared to her to be great and disagreeable.
"It's so unpleasant, being cooped up with people one hardly knows," she remarked. "People who mind being seen naked."
"You don't mean to go?" Rachel asked.
The intensity with which this was spoken irritated Mrs. Ambrose.
"I don't mean to go, and I don't mean not to go," she replied. She became more and more casual and indifferent.
"After all, I daresay we've seen all there is to be seen; and there's the bother of getting there, and whatever they may say it's bound to be vilely uncomfortable."
For some time Rachel made no reply; but every sentence Helen spoke increased her bitterness. At last she broke out—
"Thank God, Helen, I'm not like you! I sometimes think you don't think or feel or care or do anything but exist! You're like Mr. Hirst. You see that things are bad, and you pride yourself on saying so. It's what you call being honest; as a matter of fact it's being lazy, being dull, being nothing. You don't help; you put an end to things."
Helen smiled as if she rather enjoyed the attack.
"Well?" she enquired.
"It seems to me bad—that's all," Rachel replied.
"Quite likely," said Helen.
At any other time Rachel would probably have been silenced by her Aunt's candour; but this afternoon she was not in the mood to be silenced by any one. A quarrel would be welcome.
"You're only half alive," she continued.
"Is that because I didn't accept Mr. Flushing's invitation?" Helen asked, "or do you always think that?"
At the moment it appeared to Rachel that she had always
