It was something new in her mother's voice which sent her across the room to put her arm around her mother's neck and press her own cheek against hers. Helen had been hungry for affection all her life, plain girls being quite human and wanting what they do not receive. In answer she had a pressure of her hand which was real, and she kissed her mother again and again on the cheek. Perhaps her mother had always loved her, but had not shown it. Madame Ribot felt the tight grip of her daughter's hand with a sense of reassurance. There was something strong about Helen. She would be dependable in a crisis. "If we stay here together and don't trouble the war, probably the war will not trouble us," Madame Ribot continued. It was the maxim expressive of her temperament. "Oh! I hadn't thought of it in that way!" Helen gasped. "Besides, if you went to Paris and got into trouble I should have to come up and get you out." She was weary of having her daughter's arm around her neck and feeling that strange resentment against the world which she always suffered after looking long at Helen's features. Helen drew away, her peculiar sensitiveness conscious of the old barrier. Life for the next few days continued much as usual at the chateau, so far as Madame Ribot and Henriette were concerned. Henriette went on painting. But Helen could not draw. She wandered over the fields, her mind ever on the war. She was with the Belgians at Liége; with the French in Alsace. All three wondered, as the time approached, if the seventeenth cousin would come to Mervaux. "Hardly," said Henriette. "But I think he will," said Helen. "Why should he? It's war time." "Yes, why?" repeated Helen, with a searching look at Henriette, who lowered her eyes in a way that her sister well understood. Many young men had come to Mervaux for the same reason. Many had gone away trying to conceal their dejection. Henriette had enjoyed the visits, but not more than Madame Ribot who, looking on, lived over her own successes. "Henriette does not know yet what it means to fall in love," thought her mother. "I hope that she will not for a few years more. A woman may do that only once. And Helen had not fallen in love, either. Poor Helen!" At intervals she could be sorry for herself by being sorry for Helen. It was no surprise to her that the war did not keep the seventeenth cousin away from Mervaux or that his note was addressed to Henriette. As the mails were now so irregular, he wrote, he would not wait for a reply, but would arrive on the morning of the day set, and should he find that the war interfered with their arrangements he could return to Paris in the afternoon. Helen rather waited to hear that he had included his regards to her, but Henriette made no mention of it.