Helen Simms was a young woman who had cantered gracefully under the flick of society’s whip since the night of her début. Occasionally she broke into a trot, and anon into a run. The speedier locomotion took place on unworn by-paths; when on the broad highway she was a most sedate representative of her riding-school. At times she had been known—to a select few—to kick; and the kick had invariably occurred at the crossing of the highway and the by-path, and just before she had made up her mind to forsake the road for the hedges.
She had all the virtues of her kind. On Sunday mornings she attended St. Thomas’s, and after service was over walked home with her favorite youth, whom she patronizingly spoke of as her “infant.” In the afternoon she entertained another “infant” or read a French novel. Nor was her life entirely given over to frivolity. She belonged to the sewing-class of her church, and like its other members fulfilled her mission as a quotable example, if she pricked her fingers seldom; and once a week she attended a Shakespeare “propounding.” She took a great deal of exercise, skimmed through all the light literature of the day, including the magazines, and even knew a little science, just enough to make the occasional clever man she met think her a prodigy as she smiled up into his face and murmured something about “the great body of force” or a late experiment in telepathy.
She had a bright way of saying nothing, a cool, shrewd head, and an endless stock of small-talk. Both sexes approved of her as a clever, charming, well-regulated young woman—all of which she indisputably was.
Enthusiasm had long since been drilled out of her, but she had for Hermia an attachment very sincere as far as it went—it may be added that, if there had been more of Miss Simms, there would have been more attachment. It is possible that Hermia, without her brilliant position, would not have attracted the attention of Miss Simms, but it is only just to Helen to say that the conditions affected her not a whit; she was quite free from snobbery.
She liked Hermia because she could not understand her—much as she was influenced by the sea in a storm, or by mountains with lightning darting about their crests. Whenever she entered Hermia’s presence she always felt as if the air had become suddenly fresher; and she liked new sensations. She did not in the least resent the fact that she could not understand Hermia, that her chosen friend was intellectually a hemisphere beyond her, and in character infinitely more complex. She was pleased at her own good taste, and quite generous enough to admire where she could not emulate.
She was constantly amused at Hermia’s abiding and aggressive desire to fall in love, but she was by no means unsympathetic. She would have regarded an emotional tumult in her own being as a bore, but for Hermia she thought it quite the most appropriate and advisable thing. Once in a while, in a half-blind way, she came into momentary contact with the supreme loneliness and craving of Hermia’s nature, and she invariably responded with a sympathetic throb and a wish that the coming man would not tarry so long.
She was so glad she had thought of Cryder. She honestly believed him to be the one man of all men who could make the happiness of her friend; and she entered the ranks of the Fates with the pleasurable suspicion that she was the author of Hermia’s infinite good.
She surprised her father, the morning after her last interview with Hermia, by coming down to breakfast. She was careful to let him finish his roll to the last crumb and to read his paper to the acrid end. Then she went over and put her finger-tips under his chin.
He glanced up with a groan. “What do you want now?” he demanded, looking at her over his eye-glasses. His periodical pettings had made him cynical.
“Nothing—for myself. Did you not say that some one had sent you tickets for the next meeting of the Free Discussion?”