Long and attentive study, for her own or her friends' benefit, had taught Lady Mildred to read very fluently the language of the eyes; the glance of the Expert withdrew their secret from Helen's, during those few seconds while she stood hesitating in the doorway; and a shy, conscious happiness glowing round her like a soft halo, made surmise certainty.
O laughter-loving daughter of Dioné! your divinity is trampled in the dust, and none worship now at the shrines of Aphrodité, Astarte, or Ashtaroth; but one feels tempted at times to turn Pagan again, were it only to believe in your presence and power. Other, and younger, and fairer faces have borne tokens of having met you in the wood, since your breath left a freshness and radiance on the swart features of the false sea-rover, that carried Dido's heart by storm.
Yes, Lady Mildred guessed the truth at once, and all her self control was needed to repress a sigh of vexation and impatience, which very nearly escaped her; it bore her through, though, triumphantly. Nothing could be more placable and propitious than her smile; nothing more playfully than her gesture, as she beckoned Helen to her side:—
"My darling! what has happened in your ride to agitate you so? I can see you are not much hurt. Come and make confession instantly."
This was apparently the young lady's intention, for she had evidently come straight to the boudoir after dismounting; she was still in her riding-dress, and had only taken off her Spanish hat. While her mother was speaking she came near with the swift, springy step which made her inimitable, and knelt down by the low couch, half-concealing her glowing face and sparkling eyes.
If there is any written manual adapted to such rifle-practice, (I mean where a young woman has to fire off at her parent a piece of intelligence particularly important or startling), I fancy, here, it would run thus—"At the word 'three,' sink down at once on the right knee, six inches to the right and twelve inches to the rear of the left heel, and square with the foot, which is to be under the body and upright"—the great difference being, that the fair recruit is "not to fix the eye steadfastly on an object in front."
So far, certainly, Helen acted up to the formula provided for her case; but she had not been much drilled, and was indeed singularly exempt from most of the little weaknesses, conventionalisms, and minauderies which are, justly or unjustly, attributed to modern damosels. Natures like hers affect, as a rule, no more diffidence than they feel, and are seldom unnecessarily demonstrative, however small and select their audience and however dramatic the piece they are playing. So, after a few minutes' silence, she looked up and said, quite quietly and simply—
"Mamma, Alan asked me this afternoon to marry him; and—I love him dearly."
The two voices were strangely alike in their accent and inflexions; but the girl's voice, even when, as now, somewhat tremulous and uncertain, was mellower in its rich cadences, fuller and rounder in its music.
Lady Mildred clasped her daughter's waist, and bent down to kiss her, repeatedly, with passionate tenderness. When the close embrace was ended, she lingered yet for a few seconds with her cheek pillowed on Helen's forehead; during those seconds her features were set, and her lips tense and rigid; that brief interval of self-indulgence lasted just so long as it would have taken her to utter the words—"It shall never be."