The Bacillus of Beauty Part 51

That's what eating me!" Kitty groaned. "But do you see our Princess? All she needed was me to make her comfy. Shall I get you the least little bit of colour, out of a box, Helen? Or--no; you're too lovely. But come, you must have some roses."

As Helen joined us, very pale in her s.h.i.+mmering dress, with her hair like an aureole about her head, she looked a tall, white Grace, a swaying lily s.h.i.+ning in the dusky place. Almost with the old reverence I whispered:--

"You are the most beautiful of woman!"

"Do I please you, Sir?" she said, smiling as she moved away again with Kitty. "Won't you see to Father? He's come without his necktie."

"Sho, Sis!" said Mr. Wins.h.i.+p; "don't my beard hide it? Declare I clean forgot."

Soon Helen returned to pin a flower at my b.u.t.ton-hole.

"Where _can_ Cadge be?" she cried gaily; but her hands shook and she dropped the rose. "Do you suppose she's interviewing a lunatic asylum?"

What had changed her voice and burned fever spots in her cheeks? I wasn't so indifferent as I had seemed to Kitty's news. Had she told Helen, too, that Ned Hynes--what was he to my betrothed?

"Can't you rest somewhere and just show for the ceremony?" I said, "Nelly, you're not strong."

"There's not a place big enough for a mouse. But did you mean it? Do I really look well to-night? Am I just as beautiful as I was three-four months ago, or have I--"

"Oh, do slip out and 'phone the _Star_! I can feel my hair whitening," whispered Kitty, turning to me hastily, as a couple of women entered. "See, folks are beginning to come."

I went out into the warm and rainy night, but there was no Cadge at the _Star_ office. By the time I had returned with this information, the eyry held a considerable gathering. Mrs. Baker had arrived, and her two daughters; but I had no time to wonder at Milly's coming, for behind me entered Mrs. Van Dam and then, among a group of strangers, I noticed Hynes.

Involuntarily, at sight of him, my eyes turned to Helen; but not a muscle of her face betrayed deeper feeling than polite pleasure as she helped Kitty receive the wedding guests, greeting the General cordially, Hynes with graciousness.

Kitty's welcome to Mrs. Van Dam would have been irresistibly funny, if I had had eyes to see the humour.

"Cadge promised to be home early," she sputtered, "but probably she's telling some one this minute: 'Oh, I'll be there in time; I don't need much--not much more than the programme.'

"Can't _you_ guess where she is, Pros.?" she implored in an undertone, as her brother approached us. "If the minister gets here before Cadge does, I'll cut her off with a s.h.i.+lling."

"What an interesting place!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dam, examining her surroundings through her quizzing gla.s.ses. "I've heard so much about your paintings, Miss Reid. And what an astonis.h.i.+ng girl, this Miss Bryant!

Where can she be? Helen, you sly girl, I hear news about you."

"Oh, very likely Miss Bryant is out of town," Reid answered for her with a quiet smile. "She'll show up after the paper goes to press, if not sooner."

"On her wedding day! The girl's a genius! And when may that be? When will the--ah--when will the paper go to press?"

"They take copy up to two o'clock for the second edition. But she maybe here at any moment."

The General stared at him with amazement.

"Oh, you don't know Cadge," sighed Kitty, "if you think she'd be jarred by her own wedding. But we must do something. Everybody's here and waiting.

Sing, Helen, won't you? Oh, do sing."

Helen had not joined in the rapid conversation. Now she smiled a.s.sent with stately compliance. Undulating across the studio, she returned with a mandolin--not the one I remembered, but a pretty bit of workmans.h.i.+p in inlaid wood. Bending above this, she relieved the wait by merry, lilting tunes like the music of a bobolink, while Kitty fidgetted in and out, the puckers in her forehead every minute growing deeper.

While I listened to the gladsome music, my glance strayed to Milly, but she was almost hidden by the curtains of the tepee; and then to Ned, who sat with his face turned partly away from us. I noticed that he looked gaunt, and I found a bitter satisfaction in the thought that, perhaps, in Helen's "three-four months" he had not seen, until that night, either of the women with whose lives his own had been entangled.

"Just one more," begged Kitty, when Helen stopped. "You're my only hope; do sing, Helen."

Dropping the mandolin, Helen began without accompaniment "The King of Thule:"--

"'There stood the old carouser, And drank the last life glow; And hurled the hallowed goblet Into the tide below.

"He saw it plunging and filling, And sinking deep in the sea; Then fell his eyelids forever, And never more drank he!'"

It was the ballad she had sung at Christmas--in what different mood! Then her voice had been as carefree as a bird's carol, but now it lent to the limpid simplicity of the air a sobbing, shuddering sweetness--an almost weird intensity that strangely affected her listeners.

When she had finished, something like a gasp went through the room. With a heart-breaking coldness I felt that I was her only unmoved auditor, or-- no; Ned seemed studying with weary disapproval the pattern of his shoes.

"Love and death; and at a wedding!" Mrs. Van Dam s.h.i.+vered. "Something more cheerful, Helen."

"Let's go--let's go and eat up Cadge's spread; that'd be cheerful,"

sniffed Kitty, her hot, nervous hand patting Helen's shoulder. "The Princess's tired. But we must do something."

"Eat the wedding supper before the wedding. Original, I must say!"

But the General willingly enough helped Kitty to marshal us into the crowded little dining-room; where Helen and I found ourselves beside Mr.

Wins.h.i.+p and Ethel. Her father accepted Helen's music with as little surprise as he had shown at her beauty.

"Comin' home pretty soon, ain't ye," he asked, "to give us some hymn tunes Sunday evenings? W'at'll I git for ye? Must be hungry after so much singing."

"I'm afraid I wasn't in voice to-night," said she rather wearily.

"Not in voice!" protested Ethel with shy enthusiasm; "why, Nelly, I never before heard even you sing like that; it was-it was-oh, it was wonderful!"

I dared not look at her, yet I saw every movement of the slight little figure--saw the blush of eagerness that mounted even to the blonde little curls about her forehead; and, retreating impatiently, I tried to follow Mr. Wins.h.i.+p's example, as he waited on the company with a quaintly fine courtesy. Indeed, he made quite a conquest of the General, who presently, after chatting with him for some time with keen interest, asked abruptly:--

"Why haven't we had him here before? So interesting, such an original!

Room here for you, Milly. Some salad, please, Mr. Hynes."

Hynes's pinched face took colour. With alacrity he obeyed the General's orders, fetching plates and gla.s.ses, and hovering about the group that included Milly and her mother, until Mrs. Baker's face began to wear a disturbed flush, though Milly's small, white features remained impa.s.sive.

I watched the little drama with dawning comprehension. Then Ned did not-- Helen--it was really Ethel's sister with whom he longed to make peace, while I--Ethel--

Helen's voice roused me.

"Can't we go into the other room?" she asked. "I'm tired; can't we go and sit quietly together?"

With the fading of the glow and colour left by the music, she looked indeed tired, almost haggard. In spite of the regal self possession with which she rose, drawing Ethel with her, I knew in the face of Milly's triumph-yes, I had known before--why her restless spirit had spurred her on to such flights of folly; why she had--she brings no love to me; has she perhaps offered pity?

We turned together to the door, but there was a sound of hurrying feet, and Miss Bryant rushed before us, followed by a big bearded giant of a man.

"Forbear and eat no more till my necessities be served," she declaimed, advancing to the table. "Food has not pa.s.sed my lips to-day; or--not much food."

"Cadge!" gasped Helen with a choking laugh, sinking again upon her chair.

Reid calmly extended a plate of salad to his betrothed, while Kitty groaned, scandalized:--