any one in the least like Miss Buchanan. She was at once so open and so impenetrable. She replied to all questions with complete unreserve, but she had never, with all her candour, the air of making confidences. It hurt Althea a little, and yet was part of the allurement, to see that she was, probably, too indifferent to be reticent. Lying on her pillows, a cigarette—all too frequently, Althea considered—between her lips, and her hair wound in a heavy wreath upon her head, she would listen pleasantly, and as pleasantly reply; and Althea could not tell whether it was because she really found it pleasant to talk and be talked to, or whether, since she had nothing better to do, she merely showed good manners. Althea was sensitive to every shade in manners, and was sure that Miss Buchanan, however great her tact might be, did not find her a bore; yet she could not be at all sure that she found her interesting, and this disconcerted her. Sometimes the suspicion of it made her feel humble, and sometimes it made her feel a little angry, for she was not accustomed to being found uninteresting. She herself, however, was interested; and it was when she most frankly owned to this, laying both anger and humility aside, that she was happiest in the presence of her new acquaintance. She liked to talk to her, and she liked to make her talk. From these conversations she was soon able to build up a picture of Miss Buchanan's life. She came of an old Scotch family, and she had spent her childhood and girlhood in an old Scotch house. This house, Althea was sure, she really did enjoy talking about. She described it to Althea: the way the rooms lay, and the passages ran, and the queer old stairs climbed up and down. She described the ghost that she herself had seen once—her matter-of-fact acceptance of the ghost startled Althea—and the hills and moors that one looked out on from the windows. Led by Althea's absorbed inquiries, she drifted on to detailed reminiscence—the dogs she had cared for, the flowers she had grown, and the dear red lacquer mirror that she had broken. 'Papa did die that year,' she added, after mentioning the incident.
'Surely you don't connect the two things,' said Althea, who felt some remonstrance necessary. Miss Buchanan said no, she supposed not; it was silly to be superstitious; yet she didn't like breaking mirrors.
Her brother lived in the house now. He had married some one she didn't much care about, though she did not enlarge on this dislike. 'Nigel had to marry money,' was all she said. 'He couldn't have kept the place going if he hadn't. Jessie isn't at all a bad sort, and they get on very well and have three nice little boys; but I don't much take to her nor she to me, so that I'm not much there any more.'
'And your mother?' Althea questioned, 'where does she live? Don't you stay with her ever?' She had gathered that the widowed Mrs. Buchanan was very pretty and very selfish, but she was hardly prepared for the frankness with which Miss Buchanan defined her own attitude towards her.
'Oh, I can't stand Mamma,' she said; 'we don't get on at all. I'm not fond of rowdy people, and Mamma knows such dreadful bounders. So long as people have plenty of money and make things amusing for her, she'll put up with anything.'
Althea had all the American reverence for the sanctities and loyalties of the family, and these ruthless explanations filled her with uneasy surprise. Miss Buchanan was ruthless about all her relatives; there were few of them, apparently, that she cared for except the English cousins with whom she had spent many years of girlhood, and the Aunt Grizel who made a home for her in London. To her she alluded with affectionate emphasis: 'Oh, Aunt Grizel is very different from the rest of them.'
Aunt Grizel was not well off, but it was she who made Helen the little allowance that enabled her to go about; and she had insured her life, so that at her death, when her annuity lapsed, Helen should be sure of the same modest sum. 'Owing to Aunt Grizel I'll just not starve,' said Helen, with the faint grimace, half bitter, half comic, that sometimes made her strange face still stranger. 'One hundred and fifty pounds a year: think of it! Isn't it damnable? Yet it's better than nothing, as Aunt Grizel and I often say after groaning together.'
Althea, safely niched in her annual three thousand, was indeed horrified.
'One hundred and fifty,' she repeated helplessly. 'Do you mean that you manage to dress on that now?'
'Dress on it, my dear! I pay all my travelling expenses, my cabs, my stamps, my Christmas presents—everything out of it, as well as buy my clothes. And it will have to pay for my rent and food besides, when Aunt Grizel dies—when I'm not being taken in somewhere. Of course, she still counts on my marrying, poor dear.'
'Oh, but, of course you will marry,' said Althea, with conviction.
Miss Buchanan, who was getting much better, was propped high on her pillows to-day, and was attired in a most becoming flow of lace and silk. Nothing less exposed to the gross chances of the world could be imagined. She did not turn her eyes on her companion as the confident assertion was made, and she kept silence for a moment. Then she answered placidly:
'Of course, if I'm to live—and not merely exist—I must try to, I suppose.'
Althea was taken aback and pained by the wording of this speech. Her national susceptibilities were again wounded by the implication that a rare and beautiful woman—for so she termed Helen Buchanan—might be forced, not only to hope for marriage, but to seek it; the implication that urgency lay rather in the woman's state than in the man's. She had all the romantic American confidence in the power of the rare and beautiful woman to marry when and whom she chose.
'I am sure you need never try,' she said with warmth. 'I'm sure you have dozens of delightful people in love with you.'
Miss Buchanan turned her eyes on her and laughed as though she found this idea amusing. 'Why, in heaven's name, should I have dozens of delightful people in love with me?'
'You are so lovely, so charming, so distinguished.'
'Am I? Thanks, my dear. I'm afraid you see things en couleur de rose.' And, still smiling, her eyes dwelling on Althea with their indifferent kindness, she went on: 'Have you delightful dozens in love with you?'
Althea did not desert her guns. She felt that the very honour of their sex—hers and Helen's—was on trial in her person. She might not be as lovely as her friend—though she might be; that wasn't a matter for her to inquire into; but as woman—as well-bred, highly educated, refined and gentle woman—she, too, was chooser, and not seeker.
'Only one delightful person is in love with me at this moment, I'm sorry to say,' she answered, smiling back; 'but I've had very nearly my proper share in the past.' It had been necessary thus to deck poor Franklin out if her standpoint were to be maintained; and, indeed, could not one deem him delightful, in some senses—in moral senses; he surely was delightfully good. The little effort to see dear Franklin's goodness as delightful rather discomposed her, and as Miss Buchanan asked no further question as to the one delightful suitor, the little confusion mounted to her eyes and cheeks. She wondered if she had spoken tastelessly, and hastened away from this personal aspect of the question.
'You don't really mean—I'm sure you don't mean that you would marry just for money.'
Miss Buchanan kept her ambiguous eyes half merrily, half pensively upon her. 'Of course, if he were very nice. I wouldn't marry a man who wasn't nice for money.'
'Surely you couldn't marry a man unless you were in love with him?'
'Certainly I could. Money lasts, and love so often doesn't.' Helen continued to smile as she spoke.
There was now a tremor of pain in Althea's protest. 'Dear Miss Buchanan, I can't bear to hear you speak like that. I can't bear to think of any one so lovely doing anything so sordid, so miserable, as making a mariage de convenance.' Tears rose to her eyes.
Miss Buchanan was again silent
