“Yes, I am. I'm glad because I don't want you to go away off down there and marry a stranger to us. I really hope something will break it up. I know Mr. Sanders must be awfully fond of you—any man would be who had a ghost of a chance of winning you—and I know your aunt has been doing all in her power to bring the match about—but I understand you, dear, and I am afraid you would not be happy.”
“Why do you say that so—so positively?” Helen asked, coldly.
“Because,” Ida said, impulsively, “I don't believe a girl of your disposition ever could love in the right way more than once, and—”
“And what?” Helen demanded, her proud lips compressed, her eyes flashing defiantly.
“Well, I may be wrong, dear,” Miss Tarpley went on, “but if you were not actually in love before you went to Augusta, you were very near it.”
“How absurd!” Helen exclaimed, with a little angry toss of her head.
“Do you remember the night our set drove out to the Henderson party? I went with Mr. Garner and Carson Dwight took you? Oh, Helen, I met you and Carson walking together in the moonlight that evening under the apple-trees in the old meadow, and if ever a pair of human beings really loved each other you two must have done so that night. I saw it in his happy, triumphant face, and in the fact, Helen dear, that you allowed him to be with you so much, when you knew other admirers were waiting to see you.”
Helen looked down; her face was clouded over, her proud lip twitched.
“Ida,” she said, tremulously, “I don't want you ever again to mention Carson Dwight's name to me in—in that way. You have no right to.”
“Yes, I have,” Ida protested, firmly. “I have the right as a loyal friend to the best, most suffering, and noblest young man I ever knew. I read you like a book, dear. You really cared very, very much for Carson once, but after your great loss you never thought the same of him again.”