She threw herself as much in his way as possible, whether in the presence of her family or alone, and she exerted all her powers to enslave him. She was by turns full of fire and life, seemingly gratified by his presence; anon, cold and pettish. She would laugh with him, and frown at him, display interest in what he said or did when he appeared least to desire to chain her attention, and seem most provokingly indifferent when he wished her to listen to him heedfully.
Most of all, when alone, did she play with him.
When, by some tenderness of manner, he would be induced to commence acknowledgments warmer than those warranted by friendship, she would parry his observations, turn them to ridicule, or give to them an interpretation they were never intended to bear: so that he would trust only to his expressive eyes to say what she refused to hear his tongue utter.
He could tell by her drooping lid and rising blush that she comprehended that language, and that if she would defiantly encounter his gaze, she must read it and interpret it.
“She loves me,” he would say to himself, “and she must be mine—under what contract circumstances must alone decide for me.”
That decision was arrived at when he heard that Flora Wilton was well born and rich—his hand should be for her, his passion for Helen.
It is easy to make calculations based on probabilities, but when contingencies are left out, the result mostly takes a very different form to that which it first promised to assume.
Helen had carefully watched his countenance while her father spoke of Flora Wilton; she had not forgotten how his eyes seemed to gloat on her beauty when he beheld her in the garden, and she felt convinced by the expression which passed over his features when he learned that Miss Wilton was of good birth and rich, that he then formed designs respecting her.
A flush of indignation and mortification passed through her frame.
“I will bring him to my feet, and spurn him yet!” she said to herself.