At this point his mother joined him and was presented to Alice. Mrs. Mason was a woman with some strong opinions, one of which was that no coquette could be a well principled girl. Helen Tracy was a noted coquette, consequently she was not well principled and might lead Craig into all manner of wrong doing. He was not very susceptible, it was true, and for that reason there was more to fear, for if he were once interested he would be in deadly earnest, and she was thinking of proposing that they leave Ridgefield for some other place. Her first thought when she saw Alice talking so familiarly with her son was, “She has lost no time.”
Craig’s introduction to Miss Alice Tracy disarmed her at once. She had seen a great deal of the world and could judge one’s character pretty correctly by the face. What she saw in Alice was a frank, open countenance, with eyes which met hers steadily, and a voice so pleasant and winsome that she was drawn to her immediately, and as they talked together her admiration increased. Alice was so artless and frank and so inexpressibly glad to be enjoying herself, with no dread of the dingy school house among the hills, with its closeness and smell of tin pails, and children not always the cleanest.
“Only think,” she said, “of two whole months of freedom and how much can be crowded into them. You don’t know what this vacation is to me.”
She was not in the least affected, and as she talked there came a faint flush to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled with excitement.
“She is very pretty and very sweet and very real,” Mrs. Mason was thinking, when Celine appeared, and told Alice that Mademoiselle Heléne wanted to see her.
With a bow and smile for Mrs. Mason and Craig, Alice said good morning and hurried away.
CHAPTER XII.
A COQUETTE.
Alice found Helen in her room, seated before a mirror and waiting for Celine to arrange her hair. On the dressing table were combs and brushes and cut glass bottles and all the paraphernalia of a lady’s toilet, golden stoppered and silver mounted, showing a luxurious taste and utter disregard of expenditure. She had read Tennyson’s May Queen in bed and two or three shorter poems, and had committed a stanza or two here and there in order to seem posted, if Craig proved to be an admirer of Tennyson. If he were not and she found herself in deep waters she trusted to her tact and Alice’s help to extricate herself some way. Getting tired of Tennyson and the bed she arose at last and in her dressing gown dawdled about the room, beginning to feel bored and wondering why Alice did not come. She had heard from her mother that Craig was stopping in the hotel, and Celine had told her of being introduced to him by a funny old gentleman as Miss Mooseer, and Helen had laughed till she cried. Celine had also told her that Alice was talking with him on the north piazza.
“Pumping him,” she said to herself. “I hope it won’t take her long. I am so impatient to hear the result and know if he is worth the trouble.”
Sitting down by the window in a chair she began to think of the past and the white faces and sad eyes which had looked at her during the seven years since her first offer when she was only fifteen. Behind these were other faces, some of boys, some of men, whom she had played with and flattered and then thrown aside without regret.