Part 18 (1/2)
”It's time!” said Henriette mercilessly; but her features had resumed their calm.
”I am going away, Henriette,” Helen went on, ”and if you will wait I'll find Cousin Phil and confess the trick that I played. That is what I should have done at once.”
”Suppose that I saved you the humiliation--and it must be humiliation even to such a practical joker as you,” Henriette replied, smiling now.
”Suppose that I let it stand that he has proposed to me and I have accepted?”
”Henriette!” Helen put accusation into the word.
”Well!”
”That will mean that you have agreed to be his wife--to go to America with him! Would you do that?”
”Perhaps he will come to Europe to live.”
”That was not his expectation.”
”So you have arranged the details for me, too?”
”No, I have told you all. What I mean is that he is not like the other men. He is down-right and not used to such affairs. I--I mean, his heartbreak might last.”
”By which you imply that I am a flirt. Is that it?”
”No, not that you mean to be. But one so charming as you and so used to attention finds it very easy to win men.”
”And”--Henriette smiling quite sweetly took an excruciatingly long time to say it--”you love him yourself. Is that it?”
Helen was silent, her eyes downcast, feeling all the blood in her body running to her face. To have the question put bluntly--this question which she had never put to herself!
”How you blus.h.!.+” Henriette remarked. ”Oh, I've watched you plotting!
I know!”
Helen looked up and her glance was so steady and prolonged that Henriette averted hers.
”No, I have not plotted. I plot for such a purpose! One does not know what is in one's heart and one does not say 'no' or 'yes' if it means lying. I am going away, so I'll leave it to you. He shall not know that it was not you.”
”On the contrary, on thinking it out I've concluded to win my own proposals--I think I'm capable of it,” she smiled charmingly, ”and not to work in pairs in affairs of this kind.”
”That is better,” Helen agreed. ”It's more straightforward for me.”
”And gives you a chance, too,” said Henriette benignly. ”As it's dark, perhaps he may take pity and elope with you to-night.”
”In that case,” Helen replied, with an effort at humour, ”we shall be breakfasting in Paris and not at Mervaux.”
As she held the door open before starting on her errand she hesitated, thinking that perhaps Henriette might ask forgiveness for the blow which still stung her cheek. But Henriette gave no sign for contrition and Helen made no further overture. St.u.r.dily as a grenadier she marched down the stairs and out into the grounds to have the agony of her confession to Philip Sanford over as speedily as possible. She was suffering horribly, but the spirit of a new freedom possessed her. She blessed that thousand francs and uttered a silent prayer for M.
Vailliant, out there in his place among the walls of men trying to stem the tide of invasion, in a way that would have made him feel that he had not been an art dealer in vain.
The Rubicon was crossed, and plain girls no less than Caesar feel relieved after a decision which makes the path to battle clear and chooses the enemy. The thousand francs would take her to America.
Perhaps if M. Vailliant had liked her charcoals well enough to exhibit them, some one in New York would take them up. If not, well, she had seen those enormous American papers with pages and pages of cartoons.