“Poor things!” said Otto, softly.
“What nonsense!” exclaimed Helena. “I think it’s great fun; and for the girls, too. I should like to try the plan. Some day we must do it, Georgette. It’s a capital way of getting a husband. What freedom it leaves in the choice!”
“Surely you are not restricted, Freule,” said Willie. “You have but to fling your handkerchief wheresoever you will.”
“Oh, but I am restricted,” she replied; “for instance, I could never marry you.”
“Alas, I am sure of it,” he answered; “but why not?”
“Imagine what a combination! Helen of Troy![F] Who could live up to such an appellation?”
“You could,” he replied, fatuously. But she was not listening to him; she was looking across the table at Otto. “What a reputation!” she said. “Who could live up to it? But why was she called Hélène de Trois? There was Menelaus”—she counted on her fingers—“and Paris. But I forget who the third lover was.”
That evening Otto appeared again in the drawing-room at the Manor-house. His mother gave a cry of surprise. For a moment her heart stood still.
“I don’t care for Helena Trossart,” said Otto. “Her conversation is a perpetual dance on the tight-rope of propriety.”