“My daughter,” said M. de Bergerac; “my daughter Helen--Mr. Thorburn.” Whereupon this enchanting creature greeted the stranger with a bright smile and some indistinct murmur of welcome. They seated themselves at the little supper-table presently, and this divine Helen looked on admiringly while her father carved a fore-quarter of lamb. It was a long time since Eustace had taken a hasty snack of luncheon with his uncle, before starting for Windsor, yet he had little appetite for that innocent Berkshire lamb. His gaze wandered from the contents of his plate to Helen de Bergerac’s fair young face; and if he had been sharing the Barmecide’s shadowy feast, he could scarcely have been more unconscious of the flavour of the viands or the aroma of the wines. “Help yourself to some of that Medoc, Mr. Thorburn,” said his host; “and be sure you do justice to my daughter’s salad. Helen is a salad-maker whom Brillat Savarin might have approved. The salad is the _chef-d’œuvre_ of amateur art. No hired cook ever yet excelled in the composition of a salad. The task is too delicate for a hand that has been soiled by wages.” Eustace blushed. Three-and-twenty is so painfully sensitive. Was he not going to take wages in that house? He stole a look at his host’s daughter, and wondered whether she felt a patrician contempt for her father’s secretary. She had the blood of Spanish grandees in her veins, despite her English beauty. Heaven knows what haughty hidalgo might have infused his pride into those azure veins. “She is aptly named,” thought the young man; “Helen, the destroyer of ships and of men. Helen, the daughter of Jupiter and Nemesis--for I will never believe that poor Leda was any more than the nurse of that fatal creature. Helen, the daughter of Nemesis--let me remember her parentage, and beware of her.” He discovered one fact in relation to Mademoiselle de Bergerac before the evening was over, though he could only watch her furtively now and then while her father was talking. He discovered that the damsel’s heart was already engaged, and that he who came to lay siege to it would have need of patience and constancy. She was in love with her father. She watched him with tender, reverential eyes, and listened to him as to the voice of an oracle. Once, when his hand lay on the arm of his chair, she lifted it gently to her lips. And in all this there was no taint of affectation. No dryad of those Berkshire woods could have been more innocently natural than this descendant of Spanish hidalgos. No consciousness of her loveliness and fascination disturbed her sweet serenity as she talked to her father’s secretary. She talked to him of pastoral pleasures and pursuits, and he divined from her talk that her country life was very dear to her. Her father went to London very often, she told Eustace in the course of the evening, to buy books; and sometimes, but very rarely, took her with him.