Nor could he have bestowed upon her any amount of admiration or affection which would not have been richly deserved, for Helen Griswold was a woman among a thousand. Rather under than over the ordinary height of women, with a figure which, though light and lithe, was rounded and shapely, with perfect little hands and feet, and with a gliding walk, such as is rarely seen save among Spanish women, for one of whom she might have passed. Her eyes were large, soft, and dark, her complexion creamy, her hair the very darkest shade of brown, shot here and there with a tinge of deep dull red. Add to this a small straight nose and a rather large fresh mouth, and you have Helen Griswold's portrait complete.
By this time the two club men were abreast of their host and hostess, to whom Vanderlip presented his friend as just returned after a long absence in Europe. Helen merely bowed and smiled, but her husband shook hands with Dillon, and laughingly congratulated him on safely accomplishing a voyage which he himself was about to undertake.
'What did he mean by that?' asked Dillon of his friend when they had passed through the crowd and were standing in the further room, where dancing was going on. 'You don't mean to say he is going to Europe?'
'I imagine so by what he said; indeed, I recollect now hearing at the club he sails in the Calabria to-morrow, and that this is a kind of farewell-fête.'
'Of course he takes his wife with him?'
'I think not. She would give the world to go, but is encumbered by the ties of maternity. Her little baby is delicate, and the mother could neither take her nor go away from her.'
'Isn't Griswold fond of his wife?' asked Dillon, looking through the arched opening between the rooms at the host and hostess, who, having finished their reception, were now approaching the dancers.
'Fond of her! He worships the ground she treads; you have only to look at them to tell that.'
'What makes him leave her, then?'
'Business, my dear fellow, to which, as you appear to have forgotten, all the men in New York are slaves. Griswold is deeply interested, amongst other matters, in the establishment of some new telegraphic line which is to compete with the Western Union, and rumour reports that his present mission is in search of English capitalists and English engineers to aid him.'