“Not intentionally, sir,” admitted Helen.
“I never did see such an opinionated girl,” cried Mr. Starkweather, in sudden wrath.
“I’m sorry, sir, if I trouble you. If you don’t want me here——”
Now, her uncle had decided that it would not be safe to have the girl elsewhere in New York. At least, if she was under his roof, he could keep track of her activities. He began to be a little afraid of this very determined, unruffled young woman.
“She’s a little savage! No knowing what she might do, after all,” he thought.
Finally he said aloud: “Well, Helen, I will do what I can. I will communicate with Mr. Grimes and arrange for you to visit him—soon. I will tell you—ahem!—in the near future, all I can recollect of the affair. Will that satisfy you?”
“I will take it very kindly of you, Uncle,” said Helen non-committally.
“And when you are satisfied of the impossibility of your doing yourself, or your father’s name, any good in this direction, I shall expect you to close your visit in the East here and return to your friends in Montana.”
She nodded, looking at him with a strange expression on her shrewd face.
“You mean to help me as a sort of a bribe,” she observed, slowly. “To pay you I am to return home and never trouble you any more?”