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Such a day, at any rate to Blanche Farrow, was the day which saw the first disruption of Lionel Varick's Christmas house party. Though Mr. Tapster was the only guest actually to leave Wyndfell Hall, all the arrangements concerning the departures of the morrow had to be made. Miss Burnaby, Helen Brabazon, and Sir Lyon Dilsford were to travel together. Dr.
She treated him with a courtesy which, if elaborate, was also distant. It was odd to think that Miss Farrow was the unconventional, friendly Bubbles Dunster's aunt. Sir Lyon Dilsford, on the other hand, he liked very much. He smiled a queer little smile as he thought of this new acquaintance. He had looked up in the middle of dinner, and caught a rather curious look on Sir Lyon's face.
There was a hope, however, that he might be able to come after Christmas. Dr. Panton was also associated with the late Mrs. Varick. He had attended her during the last long weeks of her life. Blanche Farrow's face unconsciously brightened as she remembered Sir Lyon Dilsford. He was an intelligent, impecunious, pleasant kind of man, still, like his host, on the sunny side of forty.
And then, before Sir Lyon had perchance made up his mind what to answer exactly, Varick's voice broke in: "Yes," he observed, smiling a little grimly, "that's the logical conclusion of your view, Dilsford. You can't get out of it! If a human being really possesses such dangerous powers, the sooner that human being is put out of the way the better." "No, no! I don't agree!"
As for Sir Lyon Dilsford, he was amused and touched to discover that, as is so often the case with a young and generous-hearted human being, Helen Brabazon had a sincere, if somewhat vague, desire to use her money for the good of humanity. He was also touched and amused to find how ignorant she was of life, and how really child-like, under her staid and sensible appearance.
Of the five people to whom she told the untrue tale so quickly and so cleverly imagined by their host, only one suspected that she was not telling the truth. That one oddly enough was Sir Lyon Dilsford. He guessed that something was wrong, and in one sense he got near to the truth but it was such a very small bit of the truth!
"I think I've nearly persuaded Miss Burnaby to let her do so. Do say a word to her, Blanche?" "I will, if you like. But in that case, hadn't we better ask Sir Lyon to stay on, too?" "Dilsford!" he exclaimed. "Why on earth should we think of doing that?" Blanche smiled. "Where are your eyes?" she asked.
Tapster had gone they all breathed the more freely. Yet Blanche somehow did not feel comfortable. What was wrong, for instance, with Lionel Varick? He looked ill at ease, as well as ill physically. Something seemed also to be weighing on Dr. Panton's mind. Even Sir Lyon Dilsford was unlike his pleasant easy self. But Blanche thought she knew what ailed him.
But even while Varick and Blanche Farrow were arranging together that this disturbing and mysterious occurrence should remain secret, Helen Brabazon was actually engaged in telling one who was still a stranger to her the story of her amazing experience. Perhaps this was owing to the fact that the door of the hall had scarcely shut behind her when she met Sir Lyon Dilsford face to face.
There was no one in the world who had first loved and then hated her, or who could hate her. She cast her mind back to some of her schoolfellows; but no, as far as she knew they were all still alive, and there was not one of them to whom these exaggerated terms of love and hatred could be applied. Bubbles dragged her chair on till she was just opposite Sir Lyon Dilsford.
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