The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

Helen knew perfectly well which was which without an introduction, but Uncle Zach’s mistake put them at their ease at once. Helen was always at her ease, and seemed so unconscious of herself and so natural that Craig’s prejudice began to give way under the charm of her voice and the glance of her beautiful eyes. They were so bright and searching that he winced every time she looked at him, while Mark grew hot and cold with a feeling he could not understand. He saw his rose among the ribbons and wondered if she would keep it there if she knew where it came from, or that he had picked it for her. She was a little reserved toward him at first, for the bartender was in the ascendant, but at last she divided her smiles and blandishments pretty evenly between him and Craig, asking questions in the most naive way concerning the town and the people. Uncle Zach answered most of these, and while she managed to bow assent in the right place and pretended to give him her undivided attention she was mentally sizing up Craig and Mark and weighing them by her standard. She had dropped the name of Hercules for Mark and substituted Apollo, which suited him better. He was the finest looking man she had ever met, she thought, and with the speech and manners of a gentleman. There was nothing about him but the fit of his clothes to indicate that he was not up to date. He might be a hotel clerk, and as such lower in the social scale than Craig Mason, but he was very fascinating, and would do to flirt with if she failed with the Sphinx, as she still designated Craig. That the latter was a gentleman in every respect she decided at once. He was rather too dignified and reserved and was evidently ignorant of small talk as she understood it. But she was sure she could make him unbend; he was unbending under the artillery of her eyes, which never did better execution than they did now, while her rippling laugh at some things Uncle Zach was saying kept pace with them. He was certainly up to date in everything, and she noticed each item of his dress and saw his immaculate shirt front and collar and cuffs which Jeff had said were clean every day.

“I believe he is just as clean in his character as in his linen,” she thought, and a most unbounded respect for him and desire to stand well in his opinion began to take possession of her.

Meantime the young men were summing her up and arriving at nearly the same conclusion. She might be a coquette, but she gave no sign of it, and was the loveliest piece of womanhood they had ever seen. She was charming; she was everything that was feminine and sweet. This was their verdict as they watched her, now leaning back in her chair in a languid kind of way like a child that is tired, now managing to show her white arms under the wide sleeves of her dress, and all the while keeping up a flow of talk as if she had known them always. She had a faculty of making every man in her presence appear at his best, and also of making him conscious if anything were wrong with him, and she exerted that power over Uncle Zach. His shirt sleeves had surprised her, reminding her of the farm hands at Rocky Point and she did not think it quite respectful to herself that he should continue to sit thus after she joined him. He, however, was oblivious to anything out of the way in his toilet until her eyes had travelled over him several times with questioning glances. Then suddenly, as if her thought had communicated itself to him, he started up, exclaiming, “I’ll be dumbed if I ain’t here in my shirt sleeves, with a lady, too, Mark. Why didn’t you tell me, and what would Dot say. Let me get my coat.”

He seemed so genuinely distressed that Helen’s feelings changed at once. He had recognized the respect due to her and she was satisfied.

“My dear good man,” she said. “Sit still and don’t mind me. I know you are more comfortable as you are.”

“Thank you,” Uncle Zach said, resuming his seat. “I had a notion that you thought I or’to put on my coat, and it’s so much cooler without it. Dot wouldn’t like it though. She tries to keep me a gentleman, but land o’ Goshen, what can you do with a tarvern keeper? I slipped it off because she’s gone over the river a huntin’ aigs. It’s time she was back, if she didn’t have to go clear to the town farm,—a long ride this hot mornin’.”

“Are there many pleasant drives in Ridgefield?” Helen asked, and Uncle Zach replied, “Hundreds of ’em,—round the ponds and over the hills and through stretches of woods half a mile long with saxifax and shoe-makes and blackb’ry bushes growin’ by the road.”

Helen shivered mentally and smelled the saxifax, which she detested, and felt the scratch of the brier bushes which grew by the roadside in the long stretches of wood. But she made no sign, and when Craig said to her, “Are you fond of driving in the country?” she unhesitatingly answered, “Oh, very.”

“Then, I tell you what,” Uncle Zach began. “You shall have piles of ’em and cost you nothin’. There’s the open carryall, and there’s the bloods, Paul and Virginny, doin’ nothin’. Splendid critters, too. Have run on the race track, and beat. Mr. Mason, you haven’t been there; on the course, I mean. Suppose you and Mark and the girls take a ride this afternoon, when it gits cool. What do you say?”

He looked at Helen, who answered that it would be delightful if Alice would go and the gentlemen were agreeable.