Quiet as thought the blood stained Helen’s face and neck, for Mark had made a most egregious blunder giving her 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.
“They are a well-matched pair,” Mrs. Cameron said, assuming a very confidential manner towards 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.”
“Are they engaged?” came involuntarily from Helen’s lips, while Mrs. Cameron’s foot beat the carpet with a very becoming hesitancy, as she replied, “That was settled in our family a long time ago. Wilford and Mark have always been like brothers.”
Mrs. Cameron could not quite bring herself to a deliberate falsehood, which, if detected, would reflect upon her character as a lady, but she could mislead Helen, and she continued, “It is not like us to bruit our affairs abroad, and were my daughters ten times engaged the world would be none the wiser. I doubt if even Katy suspects what I have admitted; but knowing how fascinating Mark can be, and that just at present he seems to be pleased with you, I have acted as I should wish a friend to act toward my own child. I have warned you in time. Were it not that you are one of our family, I might not have interfered, and I trust you not to repeat even to Katy what I have said.”
Helen nodded assent, while in her heart was a wild tumult of feelings—flattered pride, disappointment, indignation, and mortification all struggling for the mastery—mortification to feel that she who had quietly ignored such a passion as love when connected with herself, had, nevertheless, been pleased with the attentions of one who was only amusing himself with her, as a child amuses itself with some new toy soon to be thrown aside—indignation at him for vexing Juno at her expense—disappointment that he should care for such as Juno, and flattered pride that Mrs. Cameron should include her in “our family.” Helen had as few weak points as most young ladies, but she was not free from them all, and the fact that Mrs. Cameron had taken her into a confidence which even Katy did not share, was soothing to her ruffled spirits, particularly as after that confidence, Mrs. Cameron was excessively gracious to her, introducing her to many whom she did not know before, and paying her numberless little attentions, which made Juno stare, while the clear-seeing Bell arched her eyebrows, and wondered for what Helen was to be made a cat’s paw by her clever mother. Whatever it was it did not appear, save as it showed itself in Helen’s slightly changed demeanor when Mark again sought her society, and tried to bring back to her face the look he had left there. But something had come between them, and the young man racked his brain to find the cause of this sudden indifference in one who had been pleased with him only a short half hour before.
“It’s that confounded waltzing which disgusted her,” he said, “and no wonder, for if ever a man looks like an idiot, it is when he is kicking up his heels to the sound of a fiddle, and whirling some woman whose skirts sweep everything within the circle of a rod, and whose face wears that die-away expression I have so often noticed. I’ve half a mind to swear I’ll never dance again.”
But Mark was too fond of dancing to quit it at once, and finding Helen still indifferent, he yielded to circumstances, and the last she saw of him, as at a comparative early hour she left the gay scene, he was dancing again with Juno. It was a heavy blow to Helen, for she had become greatly interested in Mark Ray, whose attentions had made her stay in New York so pleasant. But these were over now;—at least the excitement they brought was over, and Helen, as she sat in her dressing-room at home, and thought of the future as well as the past, felt stealing over her a sense of desolation and loneliness such as she had experienced but once before, and that on the night when leaning from her window at the farm-house where Mark Ray was stopping she had shuddered and shrank from living all her days among the rugged hills of Silverton. New York had opened an entirely new world to her, showing her much that was vain and frivolous, with much too that was desirable and good; and if there had crept into her heart the thought that a life with such people as Mrs. Banker and those who frequented her house would be preferable to a life in Silverton, where only Morris understood her, it was but the natural result of daily intercourse with one who had studied to please and interest as Mark Ray had done. But Helen had too much good sense and strength of will, long to indulge in what she would have called “love-sick regrets” in others, and she began to devise the best course for her to adopt hereafter, concluding finally to treat him much as she had done, lest he should suspect how deeply she had been wounded. Now that she knew of his engagement, it would be an easy matter so to demean herself as neither to annoy Juno nor vex him. Thoroughly now she understood why Juno Cameron had seemed to dislike her so much.
“It is natural,” she said, “and yet I honestly believe I like her better for knowing what I do. There must be some good beneath that proud exterior, or Mark would never seek her.”
Still, look at it from any point she chose, it seemed a strange, unsuitable match, and Helen’s heart ached sadly as she finally retired to rest, thinking what might have been had Juno Cameron found some other lover more like herself than Mark could ever be.