"I have never learned."
"You miss a great deal," Wilford rejoined, appealing to Mark for a confirmation of his words.
But Mark did not heartily respond. He, too, had solicited Helen as a partner when the dancing first commenced, and her quiet refusal had disappointed him a little, for Mark was fond of dancing, and though as a general thing he disapproved of waltzes and polkas when he was the looker-on, he felt that there would be something vastly agreeable and exhilarating in clasping Helen in his arm and whirling her about the room just as Juno was being whirled by a young cadet, a friend of Lieutenant Bob's. But when he reflected that not his arm alone would encircle her waist, or his breath touch her snowy neck, he was glad she did not dance, and professing a weariness he did not feel, he declined to join the dancers on the floor, but kept with Helen, enjoying what she enjoyed, and putting her so perfectly at her ease that no one would ever have dreamed of the curdy cheeses she had made, or the pounds of butter she had churned. But Mark thought of it as he secretly admired the neck and arms seen once before on that memorable day when he assisted Helen in the labors of the dairy. If nothing else had done so, the lily in her hair would have brought that morning to his mind, and once as they walked up and down the hall he spoke of the ornament she had chosen, and how well it became her.
"Pond lilies are my pets," she said, "and I have kept one of those I gathered last fall when at Silverton. Do you remember them?" and his eyes rested upon Helen with a look that made her blush as she faintly answered "yes"; but she did not tell him of a little box at home, a box made of cones and acorns, and where was hidden a withered water lily, which she could not throw away, even after its beauty and fragrance had departed.
Had she told him this it might have put to flight the doubts troubling Mark so much, and making him wonder if Dr. Grant had really a claim upon the girl stealing his heart so fast.
"I mean to sound her," he thought, and as just then Lieutenant Bob passed by, making some jocose remark about his offending all the fair ones by the course he was taking, Mark said to Helen, who suggested returning to the parlor:
"As you like, though it cannot matter; a person known to be engaged is above Bob Reynolds' jokes."
Quick as thought the hot blood stained Helen's face and neck, for Mark had made a most egregious blunder, giving her only the impression that he was the engaged one referred to, not herself, and for a moment she forgot the gay scene around her in the sharpness of the pang with which she recognized all that Mark Ray was to her.
"It was kind in him to warn me. I wish it had been sooner," she thought, and then with a bitter feeling of shame she wondered how much he had guessed of her real feelings, and who the betrothed one was. "Not Juno Cameron," she hoped, as after a few moments Mrs. Cameron came up, and adroitly detaching Mark from her side, took his place while he sauntered to a group of ladies and was ere long dancing merrily with Juno, whose crimson robe once brushed against Helen's pink, and whose black eyes looked exultingly into Helen's face.
"They are a well-matched pair," Mrs. Cameron said, assuming a very confidential manner toward Helen, who assented to the remark, while the lady continued: "There is but one thing wrong about Mark Ray. He is a most unscrupulous flirt, pleased with every new face, and this of course annoys Juno."