Before Helen could make any further remonstrance the contessa had vanished through the hall-door, and a moment later the car could be heard moving out of the court-yard. She again leaned against her favorite pillar, trying to comprehend this new phase of life. Uncle Peabody found her standing there a few moments later when he returned from the city. Helen pulled herself together when she saw him coming, even though she made no attempt to change her position. Mr. Cartwright longed to comfort her, but something in the girl’s face told him that the time had not yet come. So he took his place beside her, and, passing his arm about her waist, gently drew her toward him. Helen accepted the caress with the smile which she had learned to use to conceal the ruffled surface of her heart.
“The Contessa Morelli has just been here,” she observed.
“Ah! Did you find her entertaining?”
“Yes; I think that just expresses it.”
“And—worldly?”
Helen laughed. “She is certainly worldly. Yet there is something beneath it all which attracts me.”
“She is a splendid example of a woman who takes the world as she finds it,” Uncle Peabody continued, seriously. “Most women consider their husbands as material for idealizing. Then they rub their Aladdin’s lamp, set a train of wishing in operation, and expect their selected material to live up to the ideals. When the material proves unworthy, they lose faith in everything instead of letting their experience educate their ideals. The contessa has risen above this.”
“Yet, I judge, her husband has given her plenty of opportunity to lose her faith,” Helen added.
“Yes,” Uncle Peabody acquiesced. He looked affectionately at her, and fastened behind her ear a little strand of hair which had become loose. Then he continued, half-jocosely, “The men I know whom I would marry if I were a woman are so precious few that I would certainly be a bachelor maid.”
Helen smiled at the expression on Uncle Peabody’s face. “Is it not good to be here together?” she said, simply. “Your visit has meant so much to me, and now I have been considering a lot of plans which you must help me to work out. I have been waiting for just the right time, and now I believe it has come.”