“But that is all I can do for you, Helen,” said he. “Nobody can really help you except yourself; we can only alleviate things a bit. You have made your choice, absolutely, I gather?” “Am I being a selfish, egotistic little brute, Uncle Rupert?” she asked. “Not according to my view, which is that when a thing concerns you so intimately and vitally as this it is nobody else’s business. Not even your father’s,” he added. A good deal of persuasion, as Lord Flintshire found, was needed. At first his brother would not hear of Helen’s going, for he said that her departure was shirking the situation. What made him yield was the suggestion that the situation, if not shirked, might make her really ill. And a hurried interchange of telegrams led to her arrival at Cambridge the next evening. * * * * * The expedition to-day had started rather silently, and Martin decided that, as Helen did not at present want to talk about her affairs, the best thing to do was to be completely futile, foolish, and garrulous. For years he and Helen had adopted this method of treating each other’s depression, and it was sufficient for one to say “Hump. Play the fool,” for the other to understand that until further notice he had to talk rot. This was a device, by the way, which neither had ever employed when Mr. Challoner was in a similar mood. He would probably not have understood it. Martin stood up in the boat, which had stuck, and peered into the water. “The great thing,” he remarked, “as the White Knight said, is to guide against the bites of sharks. He had steel anklets. Ow! why do they take the sharpest stones in the world and place them where I want to step. I’m bleeding like a pig.” He stood precariously on the other foot and examined the injury. “A pig,” he remarked, fatuously, “that has not yet had its throat cut. Helen, how fat you must be getting. You weigh tons. We’ll have to throw the lunch overboard. Or perhaps it would be simpler if you stepped ashore for a moment. You can easily step on to the bank from there.” He pulled the canoe over the shoal and took it where she could get in again. She laid her hand on his shoulder as she stepped in. “You darling,” she said. “You can stop now. I’m better.” “That’s good work,” said Martin. “Because, really I was beginning to run rather dry. You mightn’t have thought it.” “I didn’t. I had no idea of it. I thought there was any amount more.” “I can manage ten minutes more, if you like,” said Martin. “No; I’m going to talk now. Martin, if you look suddenly grave like that I shall begin to laugh.”