ing
a torrid heat; had found, on getting back to Aunt Grizel's--Aunt Grizel
was away--that the silly maid had muddled all her packing; then, late
already, had hurled herself into a cab, and observed, half-way to the
station, that the horse was on the point of collapse; had changed cabs
and had arrived at the station to see her train just going out. 'So
there I paced up and down like a caged, suffocating lioness for over an
hour, had a loathsome lunch, and read half a dozen papers before my
train started, I came third class with a weary mother and two babies,
the sun beat in all the way, and I had three changes. I'm hardly fit to
be seen, and not fit to speak. But, yes, I'll have a bath and come down
in time for something to eat. I'd rather come down; please don't wait
for me.'

They did, however, and she was very late. The windows in the
drawing-room were widely open to the evening air, and the lamps had not
yet been lit; and when Helen came she made Althea think a little of a
beautiful grey moth, hovering vaguely in the dusk.

Captain Merton dined with them that evening, and young Harry Evans, son
of a neighbouring squire; and Herbert Vaughan was still at Merriston,
the masculine equivalent of Mildred and Dorothy, an exquisitely
appointed youth, frank and boisterous, with charming, candid eyes, and
the figure of an Adonis. These young men's eyes were fixed upon Helen as
they took their places at the dinner-table, though not altogether,
Althea perceived, with admiration. Helen, wherever she was, would always
be centre; things and people grouped themselves about her; she made the
picture, and she was the focus of interest. Why was it? Althea wondered,
as, with almost a mother's wistful pleasure, she watched her friend and
watched the others watch her. Pale, jaded, in her thin grey dress,
haggard and hardly beautiful, Helen was full of apathetic power, and
Helen was interested in nobody. It was Althea's pride to trace out
reasons and to see in what Helen's subjugating quality consisted.
Franklin had taken Helen in, and she herself sat at some distance from
them, her heart beating fast as she wondered what Helen would think of
him. She could not hear what they said, but she could see that they
talked, though not eagerly. Helen had, as usual, the air of giving her
attention to anything put before her. One never could tell in the least
what she really thought of it. She smiled with pale lips and weary eyes
upon Franklin, l