He believed that beautiful Kathleen was cold, proud and ungrateful.
So, after bowing over her little hand when George Fox presented them, he turned his attention to the vivacious Helen, and scarcely looked at the radiant creature close to her side.
Kathleen bit her red lips and remained silent. She understood Ralph Chainey's mood, and knew that she had to thank Alpine for his indifference.
Her sweet lips quivered with a repressed sob, and her dark eyes swam in moisture that threatened to fall in blinding tears. It was hard—cruelly hard to have him believe her proud and ungrateful, and to see him resent it in this cavalier fashion.
He bowed himself out presently, and then Helen Fox turned to her, eagerly.
"How did you like him, Kathleen? Isn't he just splendid?" she exclaimed. Then she saw how grave and quiet the young girl looked, and remembered what Kathleen had told her in the carriage. "Oh! I forgot; he did not really pass one word with you. He was piqued and stiff over what Alpine told him," she cried, and added, consolingly: "Never mind; he'll come round. He admires you very much—I saw that in his eyes—and, of course, he is secretly very much interested in you, having saved your life! It is very romantic, Kathleen, and I shouldn't wonder if it's a match."
"Don't, Helen!" answered the girl, somewhat incoherently.
But Helen laughed gayly, and when the next act was over and the actor came again for a few minutes, he found her whispering very mysteriously to her mother. She nodded at him, and went on confiding something to her mother's ear.
George Fox had gone out, so there was no one to speak to but Kathleen—trembling Kathleen—who blushed warmly when he came to her side, and murmured, tremulously:
"I want to thank you for—for last summer. It was so good of you, so noble, to risk your life for a—a stranger."