"It"s time!" said Henriette mercilessly; but her features had resumed their calm.
"I am going away, Henriette," Helen went on, "and if you will wait I"ll find Cousin Phil and confess the trick that I played. That is what I should have done at once."
"Suppose that I saved you the humiliation--and it must be humiliation even to such a practical joker as you," Henriette replied, smiling now.
"Suppose that I let it stand that he has proposed to me and I have accepted?"
"Henriette!" Helen put accusation into the word.
"Well!"
"That will mean that you have agreed to be his wife--to go to America with him! Would you do that?"
"Perhaps he will come to Europe to live."
"That was not his expectation."
"So you have arranged the details for me, too?"
"No, I have told you all. What I mean is that he is not like the other men. He is down-right and not used to such affairs. I--I mean, his heartbreak might last."
"By which you imply that I am a flirt. Is that it?"
"No, not that you mean to be. But one so charming as you and so used to attention finds it very easy to win men."
"And"--Henriette smiling quite sweetly took an excruciatingly long time to say it--"you love him yourself. Is that it?"
Helen was silent, her eyes downcast, feeling all the blood in her body running to her face. To have the question put bluntly--this question which she had never put to herself!
"How you blush!" Henriette remarked. "Oh, I"ve watched you plotting!
I know!"
Helen looked up and her glance was so steady and prolonged that Henriette averted hers.
"No, I have not plotted. I plot for such a purpose! One does not know what is in one"s heart and one does not say "no" or "yes" if it means lying. I am going away, so I"ll leave it to you. He shall not know that it was not you."
"On the contrary, on thinking it out I"ve concluded to win my own proposals--I think I"m capable of it," she smiled charmingly, "and not to work in pairs in affairs of this kind."
"That is better," Helen agreed. "It"s more straightforward for me."
"And gives you a chance, too," said Henriette benignly. "As it"s dark, perhaps he may take pity and elope with you to-night."
"In that case," Helen replied, with an effort at humour, "we shall be breakfasting in Paris and not at Mervaux."
As she held the door open before starting on her errand she hesitated, thinking that perhaps Henriette might ask forgiveness for the blow which still stung her cheek. But Henriette gave no sign for contrition and Helen made no further overture. St.u.r.dily as a grenadier she marched down the stairs and out into the grounds to have the agony of her confession to Philip Sanford over as speedily as possible. She was suffering horribly, but the spirit of a new freedom possessed her. She blessed that thousand francs and uttered a silent prayer for M.
Vailliant, out there in his place among the walls of men trying to stem the tide of invasion, in a way that would have made him feel that he had not been an art dealer in vain.
The Rubicon was crossed, and plain girls no less than Caesar feel relieved after a decision which makes the path to battle clear and chooses the enemy. The thousand francs would take her to America.
Perhaps if M. Vailliant had liked her charcoals well enough to exhibit them, some one in New York would take them up. If not, well, she had seen those enormous American papers with pages and pages of cartoons.
Might not she sell enough of her conceits to make a living? With the American strain in her blood she ought to be able to adapt herself to conditions. She recalled the saying of her old teacher: "Don"t be afraid. Make the fight. Crusts earned by pot-boilers taste sweet if true art is in your heart."
She felt a new strength in her limbs; the very breaths in her lungs going deeper, as true warriors" must when they cross the Rubicon. But ahead of her was a duty which was humiliation in every fibre for any woman; yes, the more so the plainer she was. For she was a woman, quite full grown; she thought of herself in this way for the first time.
Her courage was screwed to the sticking point until she reached the terrace and, on the spot where that afternoon she had drawn cartoons of jest and the true picture of him and Henriette, saw Phil standing, his figure outlined in the rays of the moon which had at last freed itself of obscuring clouds. She stopped, numb, cold. Then she drew a deep breath, drove her fingers into her palms, and Phil turned at the sound of a merry "h.e.l.lo!" to see Helen before him, laughing softly as she had over her work in the afternoon. She hurried her speech, with interludes of laughter which asked for forgiveness.
"You know how mischievous I am--and--well--mind, I"ll keep the secret, and my voice is like Henriette"s and my figure, too, they say--and when you began to--well, to be eloquent to me on the bench, taking me for Henriette, I couldn"t resist. I--I"m ashamed, but it was such a joke--I couldn"t help it!" she finished with a peal of laughter.
He had guessed the truth before she came to the climax and he rose to his part in answering laughter; lame, but still it was laughter, for which she thanked him from her heart and brain, now giddy with relief.
"The joke is on me!" he agreed.
"It was wicked--there isn"t the slightest excuse!" she proceeded.
"Personally, I don"t see how you could have resisted it," he said.
"Honestly not."
"It"s--it"s awfully good of you!" she replied. "I don"t feel quite so shameful now that you take it that way. You"re a brick!"
She was pleased with the way that she was carrying it out, thanks to having crossed the Rubicon and put all illusions behind her.
"Acting for Henriette, I believe that you said yes," he resumed quizzically.
Laughter was the cue here, too. She was prompt with it.
"Did I? You were so eloquent I thought that I ought, instead of spoiling the play. It was the quickest way. I was getting embarra.s.sed with my own joke."
"You are a brick, too, my seventeenth cousin!" he said. "No harm done, as you have told n.o.body else."
"Oh, but I have!" She could not help letting the truth go. "I told Henriette."
"Oh!" Phil was thoughtful. "What did she say?"
"To tell you--that is--I mean, the sense of it--that she was not acting by proxy in such matters."
"Naturally not," he replied. "However, she knows," he concluded.
"All"s well that ends well," said Helen.
"Yes."
It was on her tongue"s end to tell him of her resolution to go to America, but she changed her mind instantly and finally. She would not ask his help, not after this affair under the tree. And she would start to-morrow. She would not, could not, spend another day at Mervaux. The resolution had occupied her in a moment of silence.
Awakening from it, she saw that he had turned as one drawn by something of intense interest and was gazing out across the fields. Far away on the horizon was a flash and another flash and then many flashes. It was like sheet lightning.
"There must be a storm in the distance!" she exclaimed.
"Listen!" he said sharply.
From that direction came a sound like thunder, yet not like thunder, for its dull peals had a booming regularity.