"Oh, allow me to explain—"
"We are not so dull but that we can understand even the most stupid bungle at a compliment of any awkward man," yawned Georgy. "Some time, by and by, when I am very rich, and so old that I don't care what happens nor how I offend my admirers, I intend to give to the world a woman's opinion upon the fascinations of men."
"Bravo! I hope I may live a hundred or so years in order to hear it," said Mr. Floyd. "However, Miss Georgy, it would be safe enough for you to tell us now that you hold men contemptible, only practising your coquetries upon them for your own amusement, quite indifferent whether your shafts hit or go astray. We could bear the ordeal, for we should know very well that circumstances must vindicate us. We are, after all, superior to even the highest simian types, and our poor fascinations shine by comparison with those of even the most intelligent baboon; so we should be certain that, in spite of your opinion of us, you would go on making yourself beautiful for our approbation to the end of your life, because you have, in fact, no other object worth spending your energies upon."
"I confess," said Georgy, with a peculiar glance at Mr. Floyd, "some men are worth any effort."
Thorpe, after many vain attempts to engage Helen in conversation, took his leave, and when I went to the door with him he begged me to stroll down the grounds to the gate. He had a three-mile walk before him for his pains in coming home in the carriage with Miss Lenox, but he vowed that the pleasure he always found at The Headlands recompensed him for any labor. He burst into enthusiastic talk about the old times at Belfield: he remembered the charm of my mother's house, he said, and the good times we boys had enjoyed together. How was Holt now-a-days? and where was Dart? Was it true that Jack himself had thrown Miss Lenox over, or was the fault on her side? "She is much admired," he went on. "How do you think her looking? She has many lovers and two or three suitors. There is Judge Talbot, with his mind set on winning her."
"What category of her admirers do you come in?"
"I am neither lover nor suitor," he rejoined lightly. "Miss Lenox and I are on excellent terms of camaraderie—no more. Were I to admire any woman from my heart, it would be the one I have just left. Is she not the rarest, sweetest, dearest Lady Disdain in the world?"
"I cannot guess to whom you refer," said I, "for I am at a loss how to excuse the familiarity of your speech in reference to any lady in the house except Miss Lenox."
"Now, Randolph," exclaimed Thorpe, putting his hand on my shoulder, "you shall not bluff me off so. I would cut my tongue out before I used it too freely in praising a young lady like Miss Floyd. I knew her as a child: her father is my best friend, my benefactor. Remember, if I spoke too freely, that my Southern blood gives me more trouble than the chilly currents in your Northern veins."
He spoke so eagerly, and with such perfect temper, that I was ashamed of my momentary outburst. I shook hands with him cordially at the gate, and walked back slowly, looking at the heavy bank of fog lying in the east over which the moon was peering, and thinking of my mother, of Helen, perhaps a little of Georgy, although my heart was swelling with anger toward her still: so I told myself again and again. Yet how beautiful she was, with a new and bewildering tenderness in her manner! What had softened her? Was it suffering?