"I beg your pardon," said Dexter, his former manner returning. "I forgot for the moment that no one is in earnest at Caryl's."
"By-the-way, how did you ever get in here?" said Miss Vanhorn, with frank impertinence.
"I came because I like to see all sides of society," he replied, smiling down upon her with amused eyes.
"Give me your arm. You amount to something," said the old woman, rising. "We will walk up and down for a few moments; and, Anne, you can come too."
"I am almost sure that he is Helen's Knight-errant," thought Anne. "And I like him very much."
A niece of Miss Vanhorn's could not of course be slighted. The next day Isabel Varce came up and talked a while; later, Mrs. Bannert and the others followed. Gregory Dexter was with aunt and niece frequently; and Miss Vanhorn was pleased to be very gracious. She talked to him herself most of the time, while Anne watched the current of the new life round her. Other men had been presented to her; and among them she thought she recognized the Chanting Tenor and the Poet of Helen's narratives. She could not write to Helen; the eccentric grandfather objected to letters. "Fools and women clog the mails," was one of his favorite assertions. But although Anne could not write, Helen could smuggle letters occasionally into the outgoing mail-bags, and when she learned that Anne was at Caryl's, she wrote immediately. "Have you seen Isabel Varce yet?" ran the letter. "And Rachel Bannert? The former is my dearest rival, the latter my deadliest friend. Use your eyes, I beg. What amusement I shall have hearing your descriptions when I come! For of course you will make the blindest mistakes. However, a blind man has been known to see sometimes what other people have never discovered. How is the Grand Llama? I conquered her at last, as I told you I should. With a high pressure of magnanimity. But it was all for my own sake; and now, behold, I am here! But you can study the Bishop, the Poet, the Tenor, and the Knight-errant in the flesh; how do you like the Knight?"
"This place is a prison," wrote Helen, again; "and I am in the mean time consumed with curiosity to know what is going on at Caryl's. Please answer my letters, and put the answers away until I come; it is the only method I can think of by which I can get the aroma of each day. Or, rather, not the aroma, but the facts; you do not know much of aromas. If facts were 'a divine thing' to Frederick the Great (Mr. Dexter told me that, of course), they are certainly extremely solemn to you. Tell me, then, what everybody is doing. And particularly the Bishop and the Knight-errant."
And Anne answered the letters faithfully, telling everything she noticed, especially as to Dexter. Who the Bishop was she had not been able to decide.
In addition to the others, Ward Heathcote had now arrived at Caryl's, also Mr. Blum.
In the mean time Miss Vanhorn had tested without delay her niece's new knowledge of botany. Her face was flushed and her hand fairly trembled with eagerness as she gave Anne her first wild flower, and ordered her to analyze it. Would she blunder, or show herself dull and incompetent? One thing was certain: no pretended zeal could deceive old Katharine—she knew the reality too well.