"What does all that matter?" she said slowly--"when one has instincts--and intuitions. No!--don't let's talk any more about Lady Cynthia. But--there's something--please, Cousin Philip--I want to say--I may as well say it now." He looked at her rather astonished, and, dimly as he saw her in the shadow they had just entered, it seemed to him that her aspect had changed. "What is it? I hope nothing serious." "Yes--it is serious, to me. I hate apologizing!--I always have." "My dear Helena!--why should you apologize? For goodness' sake, don't! Think better of it." "I've got to do it," she said firmly, "Cousin Philip, you were quite right about that man, Jim Donald, and I was quite wrong. He's a beast, and I loathe the thought of having danced with him--there!--I'm sorry!" She held out her hand. Buntingford was supremely touched, and could not for the moment find a jest wherewith to disguise it. "Thank you!" he said quietly, at last. "Thank you, Helena. That was very nice of you." And with a sudden movement he stooped and kissed the wet and rather quivering hand he held. At the same moment, the searchlight which had been travelling about the pond, lighting up one boat after another to the amusement of the persons in them, and of those watching from the shore, again caught the boat in which sat Buntingford and Helena. Both figures stood sharply out. Then the light had travelled on, and Helena had hastily withdrawn her hand. She fell back on the cushions of the stern seat, vexed with her own agitation. She had described herself truly. She was proud, and it was hard for her to "climb down." But there was much else in the mixed feeling that possessed her. There seemed, for one thing, to be a curious happiness in it; combined also with a renewed jealousy for an independence she might have seemed to be giving away. She wanted to say--"Don't misunderstand me!--I'm not really giving up anything vital--I mean all the same to manage my life in my own way." But it was difficult to say it in the face of the coatless man opposite, of whose house she had become practically mistress, and who had changed all his personal modes of life to suit hers. Her eyes wandered to the gay scene of the house and its gardens, with its Watteau-ish groups of young men and maidens, under the night sky, its light and music. All that had been done, to give her pleasure, by a man who had for years conspicuously shunned society, and whose life in the old country house, before her advent, had been, as she had come to know, of the quietest. She bent forward again, impulsively: "Cousin Philip!--I'm enjoying this party enormously--it's awfully, awfully good of you--but I don't want you to do it any more--" "Do what, Helena?" "Please, I can get along without any more week-ends, or parties. You--you spoil me!"