“Yes; but you can’t have them to give to some girl who would only go to show herself, or to some boy whose thimbleful of gray matter would be addled before the lecture was half over. I am going to hear that lecture myself.”
“How perfectly enchanting! That is what I wished, yet dared not hope for. And you are not only going yourself, but you are going to take Hermia Suydam with you.”
“Oh!” Mr. Simms raised his eyebrows. “I am? Very well. I am sure I have no objection. Miss Suydam is the finest girl in New York.”
“Of course she is, and she will make a sensation at the club; you will be the envied of all men. And there is one thing else you are to do. As soon as the exercises are over I want you to present Ogden Cryder to her. I have particular reasons for wishing them to meet.”
“What are the reasons?”
“Never mind. You do as you are told, and ask no questions”—this in a tone which extracted the sting, and was supplemented by a light kiss on Mr. Simms’ smooth forehead.
“Very well, very well,” said her father, obediently, “she shall meet him; remind me of it just before I leave. And now I must run. I have a case in court at ten o’clock.”
He stood up and gave one of his handsome, iron-gray side-whiskers an absent caress. He was not a particularly good-looking man, but he had a keen, dark eye, and a square, heavy jaw, in both of which features lay the secret of his great success in his profession. He was devoted to Helen, and had allowed her, with only an occasional protest, to bring him up. He could be brusque and severe in court, but in Helen’s hands he was a wax ball into which she delighted to poke her dainty fingers.
Helen wrote a note to Hermia, and he took it with him to send by an unwinged Mercury.
On Friday morning Helen went over to Second Avenue to make sure that her friend had not changed her mind. She found Hermia in her boudoir, with one of Cryder’s books in her hand and another on a table beside her.