“So much the better. Don’t dare, and pay me.”
“Willie, I believe you would sell your soul for money,” she cried.
He laughed.
“No, no, not his soul,” she said to herself, half aloud, as she climbed the great stone steps. “Only his body—only all he’s got to sell!”
The Dowager came forward to meet her niece, who had always been a favorite with the old lady, and the only possible successor she could consider with equanimity. “My dear, I am so glad you are come,” she said, with a return of her vanished sprightliness. “Your visits are like those of the angels. And the house is so dull. Though certainly, at this moment, we have a guest.”
“A guest?”
“Oh, he is Ursula’s guest. One of the—the other Helmonts, that nobody ever used to see. But these are the days of the bend sinister. We have fallen on evil times.”
Helena stood taking off her wraps, the little old lady helping her. “My dear,” began the latter, somewhat tremulously, “I wish you would do me a kindness. I want you to come and stay with us for a few days, and I will read you what I have written about the good old past. I read it to Ursula, but she does not know what it is all about. She is not one of us; it will interest you. There is a great deal in it about your mother.”
“Yes?” said Helena. “Is it ready, aunt?”