"And leave you?"
At the indignant expression on her brother's face, Edith Thayer laughed merrily.
"But, my dear Frank, I thought you were just threatening to get Helen to leave me!" she challenged.
"So I was," retorted the doctor, nothing daunted. "But it was to get her to go home, where she belonged; not on any wild-goose chase like this abroad business. What does she want?—to be presented at court? Maybe she thinks that's going to do the job!"
"Oh, come, come, Frank, now you're sarcastic!" Mrs. Thayer's voice was earnest, though her eyes were twinkling. "It isn't a wild-goose chase a bit. It's a very sensible plan. In the first place, it takes Helen out of the country—which is wise, if she's still going to try to keep her whereabouts a secret from Burke; for eventually some one, somewhere, would see her—some one who knew her face. She can't always live so secluded a life as she has these past three years, of course,—we have spent the greater share of that time at the beach here, coming early and staying late.
"But that isn't all. Angie has taken a great fancy to both Helen and Dorothy Elizabeth, and she likes to have Gladys with them. The children are the same age—about five, you know—and great cronies. Angie is taking Helen as a sort of companion-governess. Her duties will be light and congenial. Both the children will be in her charge, and their treatment and advantages will be identical. There will be a nursery governess under her, and she herself will be much with Angie, which will be invaluable to her, in many ways. And, by the way, Frank, the fact that a woman like Angie Reynolds is taking her for a traveling companion shows, more conclusively than anything else could, how greatly improved Helen is—what a really charming woman she has come to be. But it is a splendid chance for her, certainly, and especially for Betty—her whole life centers now in Betty—and I urged her taking it. At first she demurred, on account of leaving me; but I succeeded in convincing her that it was altogether too good an opportunity to lose."
"Opportunity, indeed! When does she go?"
"The last of next month."
"Oh, that's all right, then. I shall see Burke long before that." The doctor settled back in his chair with a relieved sigh.
His sister eyed him with a disturbed frown.