The Bacillus of Beauty Part 50

"Shall we go, Nelly?"

"If ye ain't reconciled to movin'--" Mr. Winship began.

But Helen answered neither of us. Her eyes were bent upon the floor, and a look, not now of resentment, but of--was it fear?--had slowly crept upon her face. Her hands were clenched.

Darmstetter! Instinct--or memory of my careless words spoken but a little earlier--told me the truth. The growing pallor of her cheek spoke her thought. How that tragedy haunts her! The face I looked upon was at the last almost ghastly.

"Nelly--" I said, very gently.

She looked around with the slow bewilderment that I once saw on the face of a sleep-walker. Her eyes saw through us, and past us, fixed upon some invisible horror. She was heedless of the familiar scene, the figures grouped about her. Then there came a sudden flush to her face, a quick recoil of terror; she shuddered as if waking from a nightmare.

"Why do we stay here?" she cried starting up with sudden, panic strength.

"Let's get out of this horrible place! Let's go! Oh, let's go! Let's go!"

And so it was, in sorrow and with dark forebodings, that we left the gay rooms where Helen had so pa.s.sionately enjoyed her little flight in the sunshine.

The drive through the streets was at first silent. Shutting her eyes, she leaned back in the carriage. Sometimes she shuddered convulsively.

"Where ye goin'?" Mr. Winship asked at last, peering out at the carriage window. Indeed the trip to Fourteenth Street seemed interminable to me, and I didn't wonder at his impatience.

The simple question broke down Helen's reserve.

"Anywhere!" she sobbed, breaking into violent, hysterical tears. "I didn't want to stay there! I didn't want the furniture! I didn't want it! I don't want money! Father, you needn't mortgage!"

"We'll talk 'bout that some other time," said Mr. Winship soothingly.

"Nevermind now, Sissy."

"Ye'll take good care of Helen 'Lizy?" he said to Cadge and Kitty when we had half carried her up the long flights of stairs to the studio. He seemed to take no notice of the strange furnishings of the loft, but his furrowed brow smoothed itself as he looked into the hospitable faces of the two girls.

"Ye'll take good care of her?" he repeated simply. "I'm afeard my daughter ain't very well."

"We will; we will!" they a.s.sured him eagerly; and indeed it seemed that Helen had found her needed rest, for she bade us good night almost cheerfully.

CHAPTER II.

CADGE'S a.s.sIGNMENT.

"You say Winship is around at your place?" asked Judge Baker Friday morning. I had before told him about the approaching marriage. "The dear old boy! I am very glad."

"He wants to talk with you about a mortgage," I said bluntly. "Can you dissuade him? I think the situation in its main features is no secret to you."

The Judge frowned in surprise. "You don't mean that she--"

"Of course Helen has refused her father's offer. We have so arranged everything that no help from him is needed, but he may be rather obstinate, for I'm afraid she wrote to him, suggesting--I mean, she now regrets it," I added.

"Ah, those regrets! Those regrets!" He sat silent for a moment, thinking deeply. "That phase of an otherwise rosy situation is unfortunate. I will do my best with Winship, and you must explain to me your proposed arrangements; for I claim an uncle's privilege to be of use to Nelly, and she, with perhaps natural reticence, has acquainted me only partially with her affairs. I rejoice to hear that she now wishes to spare her father, but--you will pardon me, Burke?--she was hasty; she was hasty. It is easier to set forces of love or hate moving than to check them in motion.

Sometimes I think, Burke, that people were in certain ways less reckless in the good old days when they had perpetually before their eyes the vision of a hair-trigger G.o.d, always c.o.c.ked and ready to shoot if they crossed the line of duty. But Nelly is coming bravely through a severe test of character. May I offer you both my heartiest--"

It was just at that happy moment that the office boy announced Mr. Winship to share the Judge's kind wishes; and by good luck in came also Mrs.

Baker, but a moment behind him.

"Why, Ezra!" she chirped in a flutter of amazed cordiality at sight of her husband's visitor. "You in New York? Why, for Nelly's wedding, of course!

John Burke, why've you kept us in the dark these months and months? I'm-- I'm really ashamed of you!"

Her plump gloved hands seized Mr. Winship's, while her small, swift, bird- like eyes looked reproach at me.

"Patience, Mrs. Baker; patience!" rejoined the Judge. "Is not an engaged man ent.i.tled to his secrets? Has it escaped your memory how, once upon a time, you and I--."

"There, now, Bake! Stop, can't you?" she interrupted with vehement good nature; and I ceased to intrude upon the three old friends.

That afternoon, when I sought Helen at the studio, I was more surprised than I should have been, and wonderfully relieved to discover the result of their conference.

Ignorant of any quarrel and overflowing with anxiety, Helen's father had unbosomed his anxieties about her health and accomplished what no diplomacy could have done. Mrs. Baker had flown with him to the studio, where, constrained by his presence, Helen had submitted to an incredible truce with her aunt.

"I told Tim'thy an' Frances we'd eat Sunday dinner with 'em," Mr. Winship told me; "an' they say you'n' Sis had ought to be married f'om their house. Good idee, seems to me, though Sis here don't take to it, somehow."

"Oh, I suppose I can endure Aunt Frank," said Helen, making savage dabs at Cadge's typewriter; "if you wish it--you and John."

She was making a great effort for her father's sake, and I could not exclaim against her chilly reception of the olive branch.

"It'll please Ma, w'en she comes to hear 'bout it; she thinks a sight of Frank Baker," urged Mr. Winship.

"'Fraid I'll have to tackle someb'dy else 'bout that money," he went on after a pause; "Tim'thy says he ain't got a cent loose, jest now. I did kind o' want to keep it quiet, keep it to the fambly like, but I can git it; I can git th' money; on'y it'll take time."

"Why, Father, I begged you not to try," said Helen impatiently. "I don't need money; ask John."

"W'at you've spent can't come on John," declared Mr. Winship; "I'll have to be inquirin' 'round. But I'm glad to see ye lookin' brighter'n you did yist'day, Sissy; Tim'thy's wife'll have an eye on ye. She's comin' here agin to-morrer, she says, to a weddin'. You didn't tell me 'bout any one gittin' married--not in sich a hurry, not to-morrer. W'ich gal is it?"

"Wouldn't think it was Cadge, would you?" laughed Kitty, staggering into the room under the weight of a big palm. "Next chum I have, it'll be in the contract that, in case of emergency, she helps run her own wedding.

'Course Helen's all right with me--or will be, once Caroline Bryant's disposed of."

In spite of the confusion of the wedding preparations, Helen did do credit to Kitty's nursing; and last evening, when there came the climax of all the bustle, she seemed stronger even than on Friday.

It was a night to remember!

The big Indians of the canva.s.ses peeped grimly from ambushes of flowers and tall ferns, as the studio door opened and Kitty came running to meet me, her cheeks flushed and her curls in a hurricane.

"'Most time for the minister," she cried breathlessly, "and not a sign of Cadge! Not a sign! And I want to tell you--Helen's sorry we invited the General, but she won't come, so that's no matter; but the Bakers--do they like him?"

"Like the minister?"

"Like Ned Hynes?" panted Kitty. "When we asked 'em yesterday, I forgot, but he'll be here. Pros. and he belong to a downtown club--'At the Sign of the Skull and Crossbones'--or something--"

"Well?"

"Oh, it's all right, but I thought I'd tell you. If only Cadge'd come!