“Oh, dear me, yes,” said Helen, promptly. “I more than suspect him, but he doesn’t suspect himself. He is attracted by the girl; he likes her, is ready to range himself on her side if any one doesn’t unreservedly admire her, but the feeling has not taken on alarming proportions. I’m sure he has no notion that he’ll fall in love with her if he isn’t careful, that the ‛goblins will git him if he don’t watch out!’ He doesn’t think she’s a goblin, and he isn’t clever enough to watch out. Please don’t mind me, because you know what I think of Kit! She’s a pretty little thing enough, but not more than pretty. And she has a gentle, amiable way with her, unsophisticated and all that. One of those good girls! Men are drawn by sweetness and goodness at first, and then, when they have to live with it, they are sure to be drawn by the other thing! Beauty unadorned, beauty of character, is pretty deadly daily diet, Aunt Anne-elect!”
Miss Carrington laughed. “These are not original remarks, Helen, though they may be the result of your original research,” she said. “The point is not how wise you are, nor how accurate a prophet, but what Kit thinks of her.”
“Oh, well, do you suppose Kit thinks of her?” Helen asked, lightly. “It strikes me that it is only that she is here, and nobody else is, most of the time. There must be lots of pretty girls in a place this size, but this little brown thing is new. I suppose she must have brains, for Richard Latham finds her the greatest help; he spoke of her as marvellously perceptive, says her criticisms are a great help to him. But Kit has been drawn to her simply because—he is! That’s the only reason it ever happens, of course! And I don’t imagine he has thought about her; not actual, appraising thoughts. She is essentially feminine. I am dead sure he is attracted to her, but I’m also sure he isn’t analyzing himself, nor her, and it ought to be possible to divert his attention. Have a chocolate?” Helen extended her box.
Miss Carrington accepted a chocolate with a twinkle in her eye and a laugh that was not wholly flattering to her guest.
Helen’s embroidered robe had fallen to the floor on each side of her; her white skin gleamed above and through the thin crêpe and lace of her underclothing; her white, lace-trimmed skirt was drawn tight above her knees as she sat back in the chair; her thin, lustrous silk stocking outlined the beautiful curve of her leg.
“If Kit could see you now he might be diverted,” said Miss Carrington.
In her youth, with girls of her own age, she had never been so unreserved.
“Call him in,” suggested Helen. “I’ll tell you in confidence, Miss Carrington, that I never found a trusting youth hard to divert, if I went about it.”
“What did Thackeray say? That any woman could marry any man if she had sufficient opportunity and had not a positive hump? Something like that in Vanity Fair.”
“Anticipating G.B.S.? I remember Shaw better than Thackeray. I read Vanity Fair when I was about fourteen. Of course everyone admits that the woman chooses, but how about two women choosing the same man, each with the ‛sufficient opportunity?’ Then it does seem as though the man cast the deciding vote, though that would be only another way of saying that one woman had the stronger attraction. I never heard that threshed out. It’s interesting, opens out vistas. The only thing I’ve heard that might bear on it is that once seven women laid hold of one man. I don’t know what came of that. I haven’t read the Book that’s in much, not even at fourteen!” Helen laughed, throwing herself back and crossing her ankle on her knee as if she had been a man.