"Poor little Princess!" said Kitty, who hardly comes to Helen's shoulder. Then we all laughed.
Kitty stayed at the Nicaragua that night, and when I came Thursday afternoon she stopped me outside the door, to say:—
"I wouldn't let Helen talk too much; she's nervous."
"Can you tell me what is the matter with her?" I asked. "I don't think she's well."
"Oh, nothing. You know—she's been worrying." Then loyal Kitty spoke purposely of commonplaces. "General must have danced her off her feet. Darmstetter's death upset her terribly, too. She never will speak of it. But she'll be as right as right with me. Bring her 'round as soon as the man comes for the trunks. You've only to head up a barrel of dishes, quick, 'fore Clesta gets in any fine work smashing 'em."
As I passed through the hall, littered with trunks and packing cases, to the dismantled parlour, Helen looked up from a mass of old letters and dance cards.
"I'm sorting my—souvenirs," she said.
The face she lifted was white, only the lips richly red, with a shade of fatigue under the haunting eyes. The graceful figure in its close-fitting dress looked a trifle less round than it had done earlier in the winter, and one fair arm, as it escaped from its flowing sleeve, was almost thin.
"Dear," I said wistfully, for something in her drooping attitude smote me to remorse and inspired me with tenderness; "will you really trust your life to me?"
She leaned towards me, and beauty breathed about her as a spell. I bent till my lips caressed her perfumed hair; and then—I saw among the rubbish on her desk something that made me interrupt the words we might have spoken.