Aunt Julia, often irritating to Althea, was never more so than when, as now, she assumed that her verdicts and opinions were of importance to her niece. Althea shrank from open combat with anybody, yet she could, under cover of gentle candour, plant her shafts. She planted one now in answering: 'I don't think that you would, either of you, take to one another. Helen's flavour is rather recondite.' 'Recondite, my dear,' said Aunt Julia, who never pretended not to know when a shaft had been planted. 'I think, everyday _mere de famille_ as I am, that I am quite capable of appreciating the recondite. Miss Buchanan's appearance is striking, and she is an independent creature; but, essentially, she is the most commonplace type of English girl--well-bred, poor, idle, uneducated, and with no object in life except to amuse herself and find a husband with money. And under that air of sleepy indifference she has a very sharp eye to the main chance, you may take my word for it.' Althea was very angry, the more so for the distorted truth this judgment conveyed. 'I'm afraid I shouldn't take your word on any matter concerning my friend,' she returned; 'and I think, Aunt Julia, that you forget that it is my friend you are speaking of.' 'My dear, don't lose your temper. I only say it to put you on your guard. You are so given to idealisation, and you may find yourself disappointed if you trust to depths that are not there. As to friendship, don't forget that she is, as yet, the merest acquaintance.' 'One may feel nearer some people in a week than to others after years.' 'As to being near in a week--she doesn't feel near _you_; that is all I mean. Don't cast your pearls too lavishly.' Althea made no reply, but under her air of unruffled calm, Aunt Julia's shaft rankled. She found herself that afternoon, when she and Helen were alone at tea, sounding her, probing her, for reassuring symptoms of warmth or affection. 'I so hope that we may keep really in touch with one another,' she said. 'I couldn't bear not to keep in touch with you, Helen.' Helen looked at her with the look, vague, kind, and a little puzzled, that seemed to plant Aunt Julia's shaft anew. 'Keep in touch,' she repeated. 'Of course. You'll be coming to England some day, and then you'll be sure to look me up, won't you?' 'But, until I do come, we will write? You will write to me a great deal?' 'Oh, my dear, I do so hate writing. I never have anything to say in a letter. Let us exchange postcards, when our doings require it.' 'Postcards!' Althea could not repress a disconsolate note. 'How can I tell from postcards what you are thinking and feeling?' 'You may always take it for granted that I'm doing very little of either,' said Helen, smiling. Althea was silent for a moment, and then, with a distress apparent in voice and face, she said: 'I can't bear you to say that.'