The Tracy diamonds

by Mary Jane Holmes

Helen also had her dreams or schemes, which she communicated to Alice, whom she asked into her room before going to bed.

“It is quick to make up my mind when I have only known them a day,” she said, “but it seems to me I have known them years, so much happened in that absurd drive with those wretched bloods, as Mr. Taylor calls them. I am perfectly fascinated with Apollo, notwithstanding the terrible thing he told us. I was so sorry for him I could have cried. Mrs. Taylor told me some of the story after supper when you were on the piazza. It is very interesting, but too long to repeat to-night. It was a case of a woman loving some man better than her husband and getting that man to kill him. It often happens, you know. The great-grandfather was a Dalton,—a splendid family. Mamma has heard of them. There’s a governor and a judge and a good many more things somewhere, but they have always ignored Apollo’s branch because of that woman, ’Tina somebody. She was from a good family, too,—but if a woman does not love her husband and does love some one else, what would you have?”

“Not murder, certainly,” Alice said, vehemently, and Helen replied, “Of course not. How you startled me, and how funny you look, as if I were defending ’Tina. I am not. I am defending Mr. Hilton, and shall treat him just the same as if his grandmother hadn’t killed somebody. If he were only the Sphinx and the Sphinx were Apollo, I should be so glad. There is more warmth, more magnetism about him, but it is not to be thought of. Helen Tracy and a hotel clerk! That would be funny. He must have sense enough to know it, so there will be no harm in enjoying myself with him, and being in earnest with the other one, of whom I really think I can learn to be fond. It came to me when I was sitting on the wall with his arm around me, and you all thinking I was faint.”

“And weren’t you?” Alice asked, in a voice which made Helen look at her quickly, as she answered, “Not a bit. I was tired walking up that horrid hill in boots a size too small and which hurt me every step I took, but I wasn’t faint. I was making believe.”

“Why?” Alice asked, sternly, and Helen replied, “Don’t be so cross. I always tell you everything, you know, and it was really nothing more than lots of girls do. I was tired and could have screamed with the pain in my feet, and then they seemed so concerned I thought I’d put on a little just to see what they would do. I hope I posed gracefully. My heart did beat faster than usual with the climb, so it wasn’t much of a fib, but I wasn’t going to have my dress and veil and gloves spoiled with that water which, I dare say, he would have dashed all over me if I hadn’t recovered in time to prevent it. It was a jolly lark and pretty good for the first day in Ridgefield.”

Alice did not answer. The soul of truthfulness herself, she could scarcely imagine her cousin guilty of so contemptible a ruse for the sake of attention and admiration. She knew she was a flirt, but not of this sort, and her good night was rather constrained and cold when she at last said it and went to her room.

CHAPTER XVII.
PROGRESS.

Three weeks had passed of glorious summer weather, which the guests at the Prospect House had enjoyed to the full. There had been sails on the river, walks under the Liberty elms, and drives among the hills and through the woods, off into the lanes where solitary farmhouses stood, and where the inmates looked curiously at the stylish turnout and high buggy with its red wheels, and at the young people whom they designated the “swells from town.” Paul and Virginia were no longer called into service, but in the pasture north of the hotel fed and drank at their leisure from the running brook and the fresh green grass, and when the sun was hottest stood under the shade of a huge butternut tree, their heads together, but held down as if they knew they had been set aside by a city rival and were rather sorry for it. In the only box stall the hotel boasted Dido, when not on duty, munched her hay and oats, slept on her bed of clean straw and whinnied a welcome whenever her master appeared, although his appearance was the herald of a long and fatiguing drive. She had been sent at once in response to Craig’s postal, and the young man had harnessed and driven her with a great deal of pride up the hill and through the village to the door of the hotel, where the entire house had come out to welcome her.

Helen, who had a suspicion that she had been sent for on her account, was very effusive, calling the horse a darling and winding her arms around its neck, when assured there was no danger. Dido liked to be petted, and she had it in full measure, from Helen to Uncle Zach, who, while praising Dido, insisted that if “Virginny had the same trainin’ and the same care she’d of been about as good.” Naturally Mrs. Mason was the first whom Craig took to drive, then Mrs. Tracy,—and then Mrs. Taylor, who, Uncle Zach said, looked with her two hundred pounds “as if she was squashing Craig to death on that narrer seat.” She never went but once; neither did Mrs. Tracy, and the drives were mostly given up to Helen and Alice. Craig had intended to take one as often as the other, but it so happened that Alice went occasionally, and Helen very often. She needed the exercise, her mother said, and was apt to have a headache when she missed it, and she looked so beautiful and happy when she came down the walk to the buggy that Craig always felt glad it was Helen instead of Alice, and always wondered when he returned why he was more tired than when he had driven with Alice. Helen fatigued and intoxicated him, she was so full of spirits and extravagant exclamations of delight and small talk, to which he could not respond, although he tried to do so, and felt that she was laughing at him for his awkwardness. And still he was very happy and proud to have her with him, and, like the foolish fly, was drawn closer and closer into her net.

With Alice it was different. She was never gushing, nor effusive. She never laughed up into his face, nor took off her gloves because her hands were warm and asked him to button them for her when she put them on, as Helen did. She was quiet and enjoyed everything in a quiet way and talked of what interested him most,—books, and art, and his college life. With the one girl he was himself and in his right mind, with the other he was giddy and dazed; bewitched, his mother thought, as she watched the progress of affairs, but wisely kept silent, knowing that interference on her part would be of no avail.