The richly-appointed, quiet mansion that she entered was a change, indeed, from the meager little house, sickness-crowded, where she had been watching for two days and nights, or from the homely room she had just left in the nurse’s cottage. The velvet-shod silence seemed almost an alien thing. Not in years had she felt so alive, so warm at the heart with other people’s loves and sorrows brought close to it. Habit should not chill her yet into the indifferent self-centered woman whose cold manner and shy distrust of herself kept her solitary.
She was glad when her maid asked her timidly some question about little Silvy, and answered with a cordiality that surprised herself, although she was always kind, taking note of a cold the girl had, and giving her some simple remedy for it. “What is it, Margaret?” she asked, seeing that the girl lingered as if she wished to speak.
Margaret hesitated. “Mrs. Armstrong, we do all be feelin’ so bad for the sweet child that’s gone. May the saints comfort his mother! And I was thinking, ma’am, to-morrow is my day out, and if it’s not making too bold I could take my clean cap and apron with me and stay at the house to open the door for the people that’ll be troopin’ there—if you think I might, maybe. I know she’s a lady born, and ’twould be no more than she was used, to have things dacent.”
“You are a good girl, Margaret,” said Helen, more moved than she cared to show. “Yes, indeed, you shall go.”
Kathleen came in later. Her cheeks were scarlet from the cold wind, her dark hair was tangled and blown, there was a rushing vigor in her movements as of exuberant young health and bounding impulse. She kissed her quiet sister-in-law impetuously and threw her cap and furs from her before she seated herself by the blazing wood fire. Helen looked at her from a new standpoint—she was trying to fancy that glowing, tumultuous young beauty by the side of James Sandersfield’s rugged strength, trying to fancy his steady eyes gazing into those flashing ones. The feeling of repugnance might be lessened, but it was still there! Why, Kathleen had patrician written in every line of her face, in every curve of her body, in her least gesture.
“I’ve just come from the Country Club,” said the girl, shielding her face with one slim hand from the blaze of the fire.
“What on earth could you do this morning? Play golf in the snow?”
“Oh, we tried to, but it didn’t amount to anything. A lot of us got around the fire in the hall and talked. They said—But sister, aren’t you tired? Weren’t you up all night? Have you been home long?”
“I did sit up all night,” said Helen, “but I am not tired, and I have been home for some time.”
“And she—poor Mrs. Rhodes?”