I began stammering some reply, but she recurred abruptly to the serious business that hung over us.
"I know you will do what you can for Aunt Pat. I wish you would tell her, if you think it wise, that father is here. They should understand each other. And Helen, my splendid, courageous, beautiful cousin,--you see I don't grudge her even her better looks, or that intrepid heart that makes us so different. I am sure you can manage all these things in the best possible way. And now I must find my father, and tell him that you are going to arrange a meeting with Aunt Pat, and talk to him of our future."
She led the way up to the garden, and as I struck off into the road she waved her hand to me, standing under the overhanging sign that proclaimed Hartridge, the canoe-maker, at Red Gate.
My Lady's name, when I hear strangers use, Not meaning her, to me sounds lax misuse; I love none but my Lady's name; Maude, Grace, Rose, Marian, all the same, Are harsh, or blank and tame.
Fresh beauties, howsoe'er she moves, are stirr'd: As the sunn'd bosom of a humming-bird At each pant lifts some fiery hue, Fierce gold, bewildering green or blue; The same, yet ever new. --_Thomas Woolner_.
I paced the breezy terrace at Glenarm, studying my problems, and stumbling into new perplexities at every turn. My judgment has usually served me poorly in my own affairs, which I have generally confided to Good Luck, that most amiable of goddesses; and I glanced out upon the lake with some notion, perhaps, of seeing her fairy sail drifting toward me. But there, to my vexation, hung the _Stiletto_, scarcely moving in the indolent air of noon. There was, I felt again, something sinister in the very whiteness of its pocket-handkerchief of canvas as it stole lazily before the wind. Did Miss Pat, in the school beyond the wall, see and understand, or was the yacht hanging there as a menace or stimulus to Helen Holbrook, to keep her alert in her father's behalf?
"There are ladies to see you, sir," announced the maid, and I found Helen and Sister Margaret waiting in the library.
The Sister, as though by prearrangement, went to the farther end of the room and took up a book.
"I wish to see you alone," said Helen, "and I didn't want Aunt Pat to know I came," and she glanced toward Sister Margaret, whose brown habit and nun's bonnet had merged into the shadows of a remote alcove.