("And she'd be certain to do it, right away," interpolated the reader, "so I don't see where I come in at all.")
Helen would in fact be one of the most enviable young women in America. In conclusion, while urging upon Miss Bleecker the necessity of prompt and vigorous action in this delicate matter, Mrs. Carstairs made an offer to her own account. To the chaperon, if successful in effecting the reconciliation, she would give, unknown to any one, a check for so many dollars, that, again, the frog-eyes opened widely, and Miss Bleecker slapped the letter upon her knee.
"The woman mayn't be well born, and she certainly deserves all Helen's done to her; but she's got brains, and I think she'll get there," said Miss Bleecker, in conclusion.
The beginning of February saw Miss Carstairs, her companion and the admirable Eulalie—who, of course, started the journey with a headache in order to justify her claim to be a first-class ladies' maid—leaving Paris in the Côte d'Azur Rapide, their destination the Riviera. So great was the exodus for that coveted spot that not only had the travellers been unable to secure for themselves places in the melancholy resort of a dames seules carriage, but the compartment in which they found cards bearing their names over the end seats was ominously placarded in all the other divisions. In vain Miss Bleecker fumed and fussed and put on her best grand duchess manner; in vain Mlle. Eulalie looked like an early Christian martyr; the guard could give them no promise of better things.
After adjusting her many belongings in the racks and settling down with a look of grim resolution to bear all for Helen's sake, it occurred to Miss Bleecker to get up again and read the names of their yet absent fellow-passengers. Two of them were foreign, undistinguished, presenting nothing to her imagination, and as their owners took possession at the moment, the lady sat down in some confusion at being detected in her access of curiosity.
"If the other man comes, we'll be knee-to-knee all day, and there won't be breathing space," she whispered across to Helen, next whom, in the middle seat, the fair Eulalie was installed, leaving one place vacant near the door upon the corridor.
"If it's a man, so much the better," whispered Helen back. "Imagine another headache, beside Eulalie's."
"Oh! but I saw the name. English or American, 'Mr. John Glynn,'" returned the unknowing chaperon, who having cast her bombshell, opened a Paris New York Herald and began to read the column of social movements in America.
Helen sat bolt upright, the blood tingling in her veins. Before she could recover from the first stupor of astonishment, the train was in motion, and, simultaneously, the guard hurried into his place the one person in the world whom Miss Carstairs had least dreamed of seeing.
She had shaken hands with him, and named him to Miss Bleecker, who wondered where Helen had picked up this surprisingly good-to-look-upon young man, before her heart ceased its wild palpitation, and she could fairly control her voice. He was direct from Cherbourg, it appeared, had crossed Paris in a slow fiacre, barely catching the Côte d'Azur, in which his place had been retained by wire, and was on his way to the Riviera in answer to a summons concerning important business for a friend resident there for the winter.