"Oh, Auntie," cried Helen, with shy deprecation, "Mr. Farr will begin to think me that most tiresome of all things, a paragon of household virtue."
Farr made a gesture of dissent, and then as Clifford Archer presented himself, he turned and followed Helen with admiring eyes. Very fair and womanly she seemed to him, in her gown of pale lavender crepe, moving about among her guests, greeting one and all with gentle courtesy.
His gaze wandered on to where, in a further corner of the drawing-room, Nathalie was keeping up a merry chatter with Wendell Churchill. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked a very child to-night, in her white mulle gown, with a broad white sash around her waist, and one red rose in her brown hair. A spoiled child, too, she undeniably was; unused to restraint, somewhat willful and quick-tempered, but with a heart so true and generous that one could always trust this small maiden and know that the good would predominate.
Eleanor Hill, standing very erect, her slender figure clad in a severely simple gown of India silk, her hair brushed straight from her fair face, her blue eyes alight with intelligence, her sensitive mouth revealing every passing shade of feeling, held his attention for a moment, for there was something patrician in the girl's mien and bearing which greatly charmed him.
Involuntarily Farr smiled as he caught sight of Nan's jolly face beaming with an unending fund of good humor, and he was man enough of the world for one glance at dainty Mollie Andrews to suffice to tell him that she was an adept in the truly feminine art of dressing, for her white gown, covered with lace and embroidery, was made in a mysterious Parisian fashion, not easily imitated.
What an arrant little flirt was dark-eyed Emily Varian. The smile that Nan had evoked deepened as Farr noted the rapt expression on Dudley's face as he bent over her. Her yellow gown, while not as modish as Eleanor's and Mollie's, nor as artistic as the Lawrence girls', yet showed a fine sense of color, and lighted up her pretty, piquant face, which was surmounted by a smooth coil of hair the color of a raven's wing.
They were an unusually lovely group of girls, and, beyond this, unusually pure-hearted and intelligent. Farr appreciated this the more keenly, perhaps, in that he had seen much of the world in his thirty years of life. Sometimes the old ideals of his boyhood had suffered sadly; but his faith in the gentler sex was too deep-rooted to be easily dispelled, and now all that was noblest and most chivalrous in his nature was awakened by the atmosphere of honesty and sweetness surrounding him.
He was brought back to the starting-point of his observations by Helen's voice saying, apologetically:
"I am so sorry my sister is so late," and even as she spoke a little hand pushed the portières hastily aside, and Jean stood in the doorway.
She glanced impulsively across at Farr, and caught a wicked gleam from his eyes as he advanced to meet her.