for dinner or the play. Miss Bleecker's dinner list in Paris was larger
than in New York, where Sally Bleecker was beginning to be _vieux jeu_.
Abroad, she was welcomed by the translated Americans living in various
capitals, who were sure of hearing from her the few things about the
private lives of their friends at home that had not got into their
newspapers. Lastly, but decidedly not least, she had had the wisdom to
perfect herself in bridge, which Helen detested, in common with all
games of cards. Whenever Miss Carstairs elected to go off with friends
of her own to dine and pass the evening, and her young lady put on a tea
gown and ordered a plate of soup and a wing of chicken in their own
salon, the chaperon was in glory. In a black net dress, largely
bespangled, with a dog-collar of excellently imitated pearls around the
doubtful portion of her throat beneath the chin, with her hair admirably
groomed and her nails perfectly manicured, wearing her best evening
manner and longest gloves, old Sally would run down stairs nimbly to the
fiacre that was to take her to her earthly Paradise of bridge! Or else
in company with a playmate of seventy-two, who smoked cigarettes
eternally, wore low scarlet gowns and rarely dined at home, she would go
on from place to place, exhilarated beyond fatigue, whispering inwardly
to herself there was nothing like this at her home across the sea.
Helen would have been wofully tired of this life had she not possessed
the resources of a rational cultivated woman, and the ability to extract
the real kernel of Parisian life, in addition to the acquaintance of a
few clever people with whom she could fraternize in her own way. After
all, as well Paris as elsewhere for the living down of a great clutching
emotion such as her brief passion for John Glynn! She had been spared
hearing Posey Winstanley talk about him as her possession, since the
Winstanleys had quitted Paris early in December, just before their own
arrival there. She had heard in various ways how old Herbert had taken
her advice literally, and enrolled himself among the money spenders of
their liberal nation. With astonishing rapidity, the fame of the
stunning young Southern beauty had been bruited abroad. It was related
that a semi-royal personage who had seen her going up the staircase of
her hotel had addressed to her father a proposal for her hand, which had
been refused by the wise old gentleman without conveying the fact to his
daughter. It was known that she had been "taken up" by the best people
in Cannes. A little breeze of laudation concerning her was forever
blowing where gossips congregate in _le monde ou l'on s'amuse_. In two
expressive words, Miss Winstanley "had arrived!"
Helen used to wonder most how this reacted upon John Glynn. She
pictured his amazement at finding the Cinderella he had wooed had turned
into a Princess in Glass Slippers. But as that is the sort of a shock to
which most sensible men become easily habituated, she felt that he had,
by now, probably ceased to wonder at his good luck. If he thought at
all of Helen, it would be with gratitude for having set him free for
this.
She was not so certain that Posey had reached the same stage of
satisfaction with existing bonds. Helen was too clever at reading
character not to have seen more than Posey meant to admit about her
feeling for Clandonald. She saw also that Clandonald was immensely
taken by the girl, and believed that if Glynn were not in existence the
Englishman would some day return to the charge. But she knew nothing of
the anonymous letters, and their vile attacks upon Posey, which, long
after silence had set in in the direction of the enemy, continued to
burn and sting in their object's clean, sensitive soul. Since she had
told Clandonald, Posey had spoken of this insult to no one. It made her
feel, however, that she could never be quite the same again.
Helen had exchanged a letter or two with her, but the acquaintance had
seemed to drift. It was Miss Carstairs' feeling that until Posey and Mr.
Glynn were safely married, it would be more honorable of her to keep out
of sight altogether; which goes to show that deep down in the bottom of
her heart Miss Carstairs was not altogether certain she had lost all
hold upon her former lover's sensibilities.
One of the strangest experiences ever coming to Helen befell her at this
time. It was nothing less than a declaration of his love in a letter,
_en route_, from M. de Mariol. He had written to her intermittently
since their parting in London charming airy missives in his best vein,
his critics would have said; letters of rambling travel, of European
politics, of observation; graceful, incisive, glowing with color,
sparkling with happy phrases; the letters of a poet, a cultured eclectic
of the twentieth century to his inspiration. But she had not imagined
until she finished reading the last of the series it could come to his
doing her the honor of asking her to be his wife. She was profoundly
moved, more even than flattered. She had loved Glynn because he was
young, handsome, unjaded, therefore broader than most of the men
surrounded by whom she had grown up; because it had made her smile to be
near him, and the touch of his stalwart hand had thrilled her with a
thrill that sometimes came back now. Mariol, appealing to her
intellectual side, to her sense of high companionship, repelled her as a
lover, and what he asked her to do seemed, on the face of it, grotesque.
His suggestion that if she could be brought to look upon him favorably,
he would return immediately to Paris, filled her with panic. Her letter
sent in return was purposely gentle and simple and apparently unstudied,
although nothing had ever cost her such epistolary birth-pangs.
M. de Mariol did not return to Paris, and in the course of some days
Miss Bleecker also received an important letter, although not of a
matrimonial cast. It was from Mrs. Carstairs, in New York, proposing an
interposition of diplomacy between her stepdaughter and herself. Mrs.
Carstairs, self-confessed a suffering angel who had borne in silence
Helen's malignant opposition to her, was about to come abroad to spend
the spring in yachting with her husband in the Mediterranean, and would
be glad to have Miss Bleecker and Helen join them anywhere that was
convenient. If Mr. Carstairs himself did not write to repeat this
invitation, Helen would know it was because the poor dear was overworked
and brain-weary. For that reason, if for none other, Helen should put
aside her unjust, and injurious, and missish fancies, and become one of
their family circle in the eyes of all the world.
("Naturally," said the astute chaperon to herself, "there is one of two
reasons for this urgency to have Helen with them. Either some man she
is flirting with is to make one of the party, or somebody has refused to
receive Mrs. Carstairs until her step-daughter has done so first.")
If Helen would prove herself the devoted daughter she had always boasted
of being, and subscribe to her father's wishes, Mrs. Carstairs was
empowered by him to say that he would give her at once the fortune,
independently of himself, that he had previously withheld.
(Incidentally, she named a sum of which the magnitude made Miss
Bleecker's frog-like eyes distend and her dull heart beat excitedly.)
Helen would be free to come, to go, to marry as she pleased.
("And she'd be certain to do it, right away," interpolated the reader,
"so I don't see where I come in at all.")
Helen would in fact be one of the most enviable young women in America.
In conclusion, while urging upon Miss Bleecker the necessity of prompt
and vigorous action in this delicate matter, Mrs. Carstairs made an
offer to her own account. To the chaperon, if successful in effecting
the reconciliation, she would give, unknown to any one, a check for so
many dollars, that, again, the frog-eyes opened widely, and Miss
Bleecker slapped the letter upon her knee.
"The woman mayn't be well born, and she certainly deserves all Helen's
done to her; but she's got brains, and I think she'll get there," said
Miss Bleecker, in conclusion.
The beginning of February saw Miss Carstairs, her companion and the
admirable Eulalie--who, of course, started the journey with a headache
in order to justify her claim to be a first-class ladies' maid--leaving
Paris in the Cote d'Azur Rapide, their destination the Riviera. So
great was the exodus for that coveted spot that not only had the
travellers been unable to secure for themselves places in the melancholy
resort of a _dames seules_ carriage, but the compartment in which they
found cards bearing their names over the end seats was ominously
placarded in all the other divisions. In vain Miss Bleecker fumed and
fussed and put on her best grand duchess manner; in vain Mlle. Eulalie
looked like an early Christian martyr; the guard could give them no
promise of better things.
After adjusting her many belongings in the racks and settling down with
a look of grim resolution to bear all for Helen's sake, it occurred to
Miss Bleecker to get up again and read the names of their yet absent
fellow-passengers. Two of them were foreign, undistinguished,
presenting nothing to her imagination, and as their owners took
possession at the moment, the lady sat down in some confusion at being
detected in her access of curiosity.
"If the other man comes, we'll be knee-to-knee all day, and there won't
be breathing space," she whispered across to Helen, next whom, in the
middle seat, the fair Eulalie was installed, leaving one place vacant
near the door upon the corridor.
"If it's a man, so much the better," whispered Helen back. "Imagine
another headache, beside Eulalie's."
"Oh! but I saw the name. English or American, 'Mr. John Glynn,'"
returned the unknowing chaperon, who having cast her bombshell, opened a
Paris _New York Herald_ and began to read the column of social movements
in America.
Helen sat bolt upright, the blood tingling in her veins. Before she
could recover from the first stupor of astonishment, the train was in
motion, and, simultaneously, the guard hurried into his place the one
person in the world whom Miss Carstairs had least dreamed of seeing.
She had shaken hands with him, and named him to Miss Bleecker, who
wondered where Helen had picked up this surprisingly good-to-look-upon
young man, before her heart ceased its wild palpitation, and she could
fairly control her voice. He was direct from Cherbourg, it appeared,
had crossed Paris in a slow fiacre, barely catching the Cote d'Azur, in
which his place had been retained by wire, and was on his way to the
Riviera in answer to a summons concerning important business for a
friend resident there for the winter.
"I fancy I know your friend," said Helen, determined to let no grass
grow under her feet. "I crossed with good old Mr. Winstanley in
October, and he told me of your engagement to his daughter."
"Yes, that has been for some time announced," answered Glynn, the color
deepening in his clear brown skin, while Helen remained quite pale.
"You have heard also, perhaps, of Mr. Winstanley's bad break in health?
Although better, he is not yet able to do business for himself, and a
question came up in connection with the mines, in which it was necessary
to have his verbal instructions; hence, my run over. Rather a jolly
change for me from my office work. Since October, I have had my own
place, you know, representing Mr. Winstanley's interests, with
headquarters in New York."
"I congratulate you doubly, then," said Helen. "How very strange that
you should have come into this carriage of all others. And how nice for
you, getting out of the blizzards and the high-piled, dirty snow of New
York streets in February, to have a glimpse of obstinately azure skies
and acres of rose and jasmine!"
Although they were running smoothly, conversation across Mlle. Eulalie's
large hands, in slightly soiled white kid gloves clasped over Helen's
jewel case, did not progress in comfort. Miss Bleecker, who always
wanted to be entertained, imperiously signed to the maid to change
places with Mr. Glynn, which was done, bringing him close to the ladies
for a long day's run.
In New York, Miss Bleecker might not have looked twice at a man not in
Mr. Charley Brownlow's set, and unknown at any of the clubs of which she
considered membership to be the hall-mark of gentility. But those
things settle down amazingly abroad, and she now saw Glynn with
unclouded eyes. While Helen was wondering how Posey Winstanley could
ever have turned aside to fancy Lord Clandonald, when she was free to
marry this far handsomer, more imposing, young American, Miss Bleecker
was subjecting Glynn to a rapid fire of questions about home matters,
from the new Subway to the wrangles in City politics.
It was noticeable that when the chaperon now touched upon the subject of
the Winstanley family, she did so in a key greatly altered from her
former contemptuous one. A man who had risen in a night from commonplace
obscurity to his present wealth and growing importance was a type of her
country she could not conscientiously overlook. She recalled to Mr.
Glynn that she had thought his future father-in-law "so quaint yet
forceful." She was not as enthusiastic over Mr. Glynn's fiancee, but
there are limits to what we must expect of women.
Still, her active mind was even then springing ahead of the present. If
she succeeded, as now seemed probable, in bringing about the
reconciliation between Helen and her father's wife, and Helen consented
to return to them for the present, obviously Miss Bleecker, although
with a warm nest-egg in her pocket, would be, vulgarly speaking, out of
a job. What better than to annex herself to the Winstanleys, to have the
credit of forming a young creature who was destined to conspicuous place
before the world and even, perhaps----?
Miss Bleecker, at this juncture, cast a furtive glance at her reflection
in the little slip of mirror over Helen's head. It was not exactly
favorable, since she had risen before the world was aired, her
complexion looked yellow where it ought to be red, and certain fatal
lines around nose and mouth, elusive in the evening, stood out,
abnormally plain! Miss Bleecker looked away. By and by, hope springing
eternal, whispered to her that what a rich old man wants in a wife is
not youth and beauty, provoking the eternal triangle of the modern
situation, but agreeability, tact, a knowledge of how to make the wheels
go round. She rallied, smiled at Mr. Glynn in the manner of a sweet
old-time friend and counsellor, then taking out a French novel and a
pearl-handled paper-cutter, subsided into apparent literature and actual
plan-making.
Helen wondered if ever girl in her position were more curiously hounded
by odd circumstance. She saw that Glynn, like herself, was profoundly
moved by their rencontre. And what wonder, since when they had last met
she had sobbed her farewell upon his breast, his arms had tightly closed
around her, and he had declared that he could not, would not give her
up!
He had been forced to give her up, however, and gradually to acquiesce
in the common sense of her decision. The offer of himself to Miss
Winstanley, made without knowledge of Posey's altered circumstances, had
been joyously approved in a letter posted at Liverpool by Mr.
Winstanley, who had bidden John remember that he was now his son, and,
as such, entitled to a full share of the good luck that he proceeded to
unfold. When Glynn had assumed charge of Mr. Winstanley's interests and
business, he had for the first time learned the full meaning and extent
of that good luck! Mr. Winstanley also told him that under the
circumstances of Posey's call to a much higher position in life and
society than had even been expected, he desired her to spend some time
longer in pursuance of education and wider experience before returning
home to be married.
A little dazed by the turn of events, Glynn had acquiesced in this
latter decree, almost too easily, he feared. He told himself that he
needed time to adjust his ideas to the prospect of riches. As a matter
of fact, he was relieved not to become Posey's husband until he knew her
better. The pretty, half-baked, freakish creature, who offended his
sense of conventionality, who dealt with him so unemotionally, seemed
about as practical a bride as Undine must have been to her
long-suffering knight! Between Posey's image and himself, that of
high-bred Helen Carstairs, stepping down from her proud pedestal to give
him the first passion of her woman's love, had, in the beginning,
perpetually come. Latterly, this had been wearing off, and stern habit
had asserted itself, as it fortunately does.
Posey's letters, surely the strangest ever penned by a betrothed maiden
to her lover, came to Glynn regularly. She had told him, with appalling
frankness, that after engaging herself to him (by telephone!) she had
suffered many pangs of fear that the whole thing was a mistake; also,
she must confess, she had met another man with whom, had there been no
obstructions in the way, she might have been happier. During her
father's illness, seeing the enormous stress he laid upon her promise to
marry John, she had come to see things more clearly, had recognized in
herself a vain, silly child, and was now resolved to devote her whole
future life to being more worthy of her good fortune as Glynn's wife.
To read these artless effusions had been like looking into a crystal
globe. Whatever came, Glynn could not complain that she had deceived
him. During his benefactor's dangerous illness, when it was essential
for Glynn to remain where he was, and he could only cable his anxiety
and sympathy, his heart had become more awakened to Posey's claim upon
him, and he had felt for her loyal tenderness. When the summons from
Mr. Winstanley arrived that was to bring him once more in actual touch
with her, he had set out to obey it, believing that he was at last
effectually cured of old weakness, and panoplied to begin the new life.
And he had hardly set foot in France before he found himself seated side
by side with Helen Carstairs in a railway train, flying southward, with
nothing to disturb their intercourse during a long day and evening, and
actually bound for the same goal!
Simultaneously, Glynn and Helen rose to the occasion, put behind them
the temptation to revert to the fond chapter lived in their young lives,
and took up again the sort of intercourse that had so pleased and
refreshed her at the beginning of their acquaintance. It was like one of
their old talks at the house of Helen's friend who had introduced them
to each other, and fostered their intimacy; a woman who had the
cleverness to find interesting people in the whirlpool of business and
pleasure and money-spending that calls itself New York society, and the
courage to draw them out of it to herself.
Glynn felt that he would long have cause to remember that February day.
The new fast train justified all that had been claimed for it in speed
and comfort. It tore down the Rhone valley as the mistral tears, it
left behind Avignon, city of Popes, and other spots of classic interest,
as if it had been a "Flyer" between Chicago and New York. The light
carriages rocked and swayed, stones from the road-bed rose up like a
fusillade of small-arms, striking the bottom of the train; one dared not
leave one's seat for the dining-car for fear of falling; people who had
not exchanged a word previously began, by common consent, to talk all
together, and all their talk was of the speed of trains they had known
and heard about. Miss Bleecker went yellow in her nervous anxiety,
declaring she had no use for a train in which one could not brew a cup
of tea for fear of setting things on fire. Mlle. Eulalie wept under her
veil, and accepted brandy offered her from Miss Bleecker's flask. The
two solemn travellers who filled the other seats, and now joined in
general animated talk, turned out to be one a French railway engineer,
to whose utterances all listened humbly, the other an Italian musical
genius, _en route_ for Monte Carlo. In the confusion of tongues and
exclamations, the little string of toy carriages bounced and flew
onward, until suddenly the air brakes were put on, and with a long
protracted jolting, they came to a full stop!
Something had happened, but what? Glynn and the engineer, going outside
to investigate matters, in the falling dusk, returned to report that
their carriage was to go no farther, and its passengers were to be
transferred to the one ahead.
"As well as I can make out, it is the complaint not unknown to our
railways of a 'hot box,'" said Glynn. "The bother is, that you ladies
must take what seats you can get till our journey's end."
Officials, coming to hurry them, showed but scant sympathy with Miss
Bleecker's indignant protests, with Eulalie's fresh burst of tears.
Helen, following her chaperon quietly, had an odd sensation that nothing
mattered much so long as Glynn was at her elbow speaking cheery, merry
words!
They threaded their way into the carriage ahead, to be received with
what enthusiasm by the tired, nervous, over-strained passengers already
filling its full space, may be imagined. Miss Bleecker was accommodated
with the odd seat of a compartment reserved by a French couple of her
acquaintance, who, feeling rather bored by so much of each other's
society, made a virtue of necessity in welcoming the stranded American
lady. Eulalie was tucked somewhere happily out of sight. For Helen and
Glynn there remained but two camp-stools, produced by a guard, and
placed in the corridor at the rear!
"I have heard of blessings in disguise," he said significantly, when
they were speeding forward again toward Marseilles.
"This is really better than that stuffy place we had," she answered,
made happy, despite herself, by the meaning in his tones.
"If any one had told me that I should be to-day sitting beside you,
rushing through the darkness headlong to the unknown, I would have
counted it a fable."
"You are not rushing to the unknown. I cannot think of any one whose
life and work are more clearly cut out for him or more sure of a happy
ending."
"I--I suppose so," he said, with a sigh.
"You know it, Mr. Glynn."
"Has it come to Mr. Glynn?"
"Don't make things worse for me than they are," she exclaimed
confusedly. She felt frightened that one moment of isolation with him
had brought back into his voice the lover's cadence, after their months
of blank separation, and their day just passed in renunciation and good
behavior. The admission in her speech, the forlorn droop of her mouth,
were too much for his strained resolution.
"Tell me one thing only, Helen--as if we two were standing on the verge
of everlasting parting--have you cared?"
"When have I not cared?" she said impetuously.
"_Had_ it to be?"
"I thought so, then. I haven't always thought so since. Latterly----"
"Go on. Latterly--?" he said, in a dreary tone.
"I have made a compromise with my father about something in dispute
between us. He has made me more than independent of him. Isn't it
always so in life, that relief comes too late?"
"What did that ever matter, anyway? Wasn't I ready, willing, eager, mad,
to take you as you were? Would it have been the first time an American
man married an American woman without a penny between them, except what
he could earn? The trouble was that you couldn't trust me."
"That I couldn't trust myself," she said bitterly. "I knew my world
better than you did, John."
"But you say you haven't always thought the same since," he exclaimed,
searching her eyes with a desperately anxious gaze.
"It is not fair to wring from me such admissions. It isn't like you to
persist in talk like this. After all, you were the first to console
yourself."
His face fell into gloom. He drew away from her and, for a while, sat
in silence. Helen turned to look out of the window to hide her gathering
tears.
It was a miserable time for both, yet neither would have yielded up an
inch of it in exchange for any imaginable pleasure. Helen was thinking,
"Oh, that the train would only go on forever, and let me sit by him on
this horrid little stool without a back!" and Glynn would have fought
any guard or conductor who came to offer them the usual seats among
other people. They said very little, but felt the more. At Marseilles,
where they went outside for a whiff of soft, delicious air, fancying
they smelt orange blossoms, and saw stars looking into the sea, and
during the rest of the zigzag run along the lovely coast to Cannes, each
knew that the other was dreading the finale of their strange experience.