"I must see Miss St. Clair to-night."
"Impossible."
"I must see Miss St. Clair. Find out for me when I can see her. I will go with you," in a white heat of passion. (We had been alone for some little time.)
I took the arm which he held out, not a little agitated by the excess of emotion which thrilled and quivered through his youthful frame, as he hurried me up the broad stone staircase and along the wide corridors that led to our rooms. What business had I to meddle? How should an old fogy like me know anything of the love-affairs of this generation? The girl would have managed more wisely than I, I reflected, by no means jubilant over the result.
"Wait here;" and I walked on to Miss St. Clair's door, opened it, and there sat Helen in her pretty white wrapper, bathed in the moonlight, serene as a star, as if there were no passionate young heart breaking in waves of anguish at her feet. "Helen, the count is in the corridor, and he will not go till I have told him when you will see him."
"How can I? You must think for me."
A hasty consultation. The count was standing where I had left him: "We shall be at the Sistine Chapel to-morrow at two o'clock."
He bowed and was gone.
I did not sleep well that night. A pretty person I am to take charge of a young girl! I wonder what Mr. St. Clair would think if he knew I had made an appointment for his daughter to meet a young Spaniard? On the way, however, I admonished Helen, as if no misgiving of my own wisdom had ever crossed my mind: "You must be firm with him. Tell him so decidedly that he cannot doubt you really mean it."
"Yes," said she, "but I do dread it so. I can't bear his thinking that I encouraged him."