Helen was a comfort as the time went from May into late June. She never made demands upon him, never bothered him, but she was always ready for whatever was his mood, and he gratefully admitted that she was an all-round pal when she put her mind to it. And Helen kept in abeyance all her attraction except that clever mind. Kit had shrunk from her former emphasis of her physical charm, but mentally she was all that he could ask; he let her make him cheerful, tide him over a hard place. He rarely saw Anne Dallas. Miss Carrington had given a dinner for her and Richard Latham which was a Cleavedge event, and a hard one for Kit to bear his part in. The dinner acted upon him as a tonic, as his aunt had foreseen that it would. The coffee that evening had much the same effect upon Kit’s grief that the final sods of a grave have on another kind of sorrow. He had buried Anne and must turn with his best ability to living. Occasionally Helen revealed another side to Kit, a side that stirred him, dazzled him, yet repelled him. But this happened rarely, only at intervals; as if to remind him that having a pal was all very well, as far as it went, but that in the case of a beautiful girl it went but a short distance. Helen did not purpose to let him settle down to incompleteness, but for his completion she bided her time. When the time came she intended to sway him to her will. With consummate skill she played her part. She was determined to win; she herself was surprised to see how desperately intent she was upon winning. “Christopher Carrington,” she told herself, “is just an everyday boy,” yet she knew that this was not true. Kit’s qualities, his simple, genuine personality, were uncommon. He was handsome, and Helen knew that his vigorous beauty was the main factor in his charm for her, yet, she told herself, there were many young men handsomer than he. As to that, as Helen knew well, there was no reasoning; Kit attracted her; it was Kit, Kit and not another, whom she wanted to marry. It took all of her prudence, her self-control, not to defeat her own ends by forcing them too soon. She was not accustomed to dally on her road to getting whatever she wanted. She began to find her impatience mastering her, to try to set the stage for the part that she meant to play. She had no doubt whatever that she would succeed. Kit could not be blind; she had never found her beauty ineffective. He was one of those queer people who have to be aroused from slumber, but Helen believed that, once awakened, she would find Kit wide awake. “What about walking, Nell?” Kit asked one afternoon when July was ten days old. “It’s too hot to walk, but it’s also too hot not to! It makes me worse to sit around and think how uncomfortable I am! I wondered if it might not be bearable down by the river; I know a fine spot there, near where I fished out little Anne that day.” Helen outwardly hesitated; her mind instantly leaped to the suggestion.