It was a flash of Helen"s old merriment, but it did not seem so natural as usual, even to her. She forced herself to laugh, for she was growing more and more excited and uneasy.
"My dear," said Aunt Polly, "please do not begin making fun again."
"But you must let me joke a little, Auntie," said the girl. "I have never been serious for so long before."
"You ought to be serious about it, my dear."
"I will," said Helen. "I have really listened attentively; you must tell me all about these rich men that I am to meet, and what I am to do. I hope I am not the only girl."
"Of course not," was the response; "I would not do anything ridiculous. I have invited a number of other girls--but they won"t trouble you in the least."
"No," said Helen. "I am not afraid of other girls; but what"s to be done? It"s a sort of house-warming, I suppose?"
"Yes," was the reply, "I suppose so, for I only came down last week myself. I have asked about twenty people for a week or two; they all know each other, more or less, so there won"t be much formality. We shall amuse ourselves with coaching and golf, and anything else we please; and of course there will be plenty of music in the evening."
Helen smiled at the significant tone of her aunt"s voice. "Are the people there now?" she asked.
"Those who live anywhere in the neighborhood are; most of the men will be down on the afternoon train, in time for dinner."
"And tell me who are the men, Auntie?"
"I"m afraid I won"t have time," said Mrs. Roberts, glancing out of the carriage. "We are too near home. But I will tell you about one of them, if you like."
"The king-bee?" laughed Helen. "Is there a king-bee?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Roberts; "there is. At any rate, my husband and I think he is, and we are anxious to see what you think. His name is Gerald Harrison, and he comes from Cincinnati."
"Oh, dear," said Helen, "I hate to meet men from the West. He must be a pork-packer, or something horrible."
"No," said the other, "he is a railroad president."
"And why do you think he"s the king-bee; is he very rich?"
"He is worth about ten million dollars," said Aunt Polly.
Helen gazed at her wildly. "Ten million dollars!" she gasped.
"Yes," said the other; "about that, probably a little more. Mr.
Roberts knows all about his affairs."
Helen was staring into her aunt"s face. "Tell me," she asked, very nervously indeed. "Tell me, honestly!"
"What?"
"Is that the man you are bringing me here to meet?"
"Yes, Helen," said the other quietly.
The girl"s hands were clasped tightly together just then. "Aunt Polly," she asked, "what kind of a man is he? I will not marry a bad man!"
"A bad man, child? How ridiculous! Do you suppose I would ask you to marry a bad man, if he owned all New York? I want you to be happy.
Mr. Harrison is a man who has made his own fortune, and he is a man of tremendous energy. Everyone is obliged to respect him."
"But he must be old, Auntie."
"He is very young, Helen, only about forty."
"Dear me," said the girl, "I could never marry a man as old as forty; and then, I"d have to go out West!"
"Mr. Harrison has come to New York to live," was the other"s reply.
"He has just bought a really magnificent country seat about ten miles from here--the old Everson place, if you remember it; and he is negotiating for a house near ours in the city. My husband and I both agreed, Helen, that if you could make Mr. Harrison fall in love with you it would be all that we could desire."
"That is not the real problem," Helen said, gazing out of the carriage with a frightened look upon her face; "it is whether I can fall in love with him. Aunt Polly, it is dreadful to me to think of marrying; I don"t want to marry! I don"t care who the man is!"
"We"ll see about that later on," said the other, smiling rea.s.suringly, and at the same time putting her arm about the girl; "there is no hurry, my love, and no one has the least thought of asking you to do what you do not want to do. But a chance like this does not come often to any girl, my dear. Mr. Harrison is in every way a desirable man."
"But he"s stupid, Aunt Polly, I know he"s stupid! All self-made men are; they tell you about how they made themselves, and what wonderful things they hare made!"
"You must of course not expect to find Mr. Harrison as cultured as yourself, Helen," was the reply; "his education has been that of the world, and not of books. But n.o.body thinks less of a man for that in the world; the most one can ask is that he does not make pretenses.
And he is very far from stupid, I a.s.sure you, or he would not have been what he is."
"I suppose not," said Helen, weakly.
"And, besides," observed Aunt Polly, laughing to cheer the girl up, "I a.s.sure you it doesn"t make any difference. My husband makes no pretense to being a wit, or a musician, or anything like that; he"s just a plain, sensible man, but we get along as happily as you could wish. We each of us go our own way, and understand each other perfectly."
"So I"m to marry a plain, sensible man?" asked the girl, apparently not much comforted by the observation.
"A plain, sensible man with ten million dollars, my dear," said Aunt Polly, "who adores you and has nothing to do with his money but to let you make yourself happy and glorious with it? But don"t worry yourself, my child, because the first thing for you to feel is that if you don"t like him you need not take him. It all rests upon you; he won"t be here till after the rest, till the evening train, so you can have time to think it over and calculate whether ten million dollars will buy anything you want." And Mrs. Roberts laughed.
Then the carriage having pa.s.sed within the gates of her home, she kissed the girl upon her cheek. "By the way," she added, "if you want to meet a romantic person to offset Mr. Harrison, I"ll tell you about Mr. Howard. I haven"t mentioned him, have I?"
"I never heard of him," said Helen.
"It"s a real romance," said the other. "You didn"t suppose that your sensible old auntie could have a romance, did you?"
"Tell me about it," laughed Helen.
The carriage was driving up the broad avenue that led to the Roberts house; it was a drive of a minute or two, however, and so Aunt Polly had time for a hasty explanation.
"It was over twenty years ago," she said, "before your mother was married, and when our family had a camp up in the Adirondacks; there were only two others near us, and in each of them there was a young man about my age. We three were great friends for three or four years, but we"ve never seen each other since till a short while ago."
"And one of them is this man?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Roberts; "his name is David Howard; I met him quite by accident the other day, and recognized him. He lives all alone, in the winter in New York somewheres, and in the summer up at the same place in the mountains; he"s the most romantic man you ever met, and I know you"ll find him interesting. He"s a poet, I fancy, or a musician at any rate, and he"s a very great scholar."
"Is he rich too?" asked the girl, laughing.
"I fancy not," was the reply, "but I can"t tell; he lives very plainly."