With a quiet dignity Helen received them all, the thought once creeping into her heart that she was preferred, notwithstanding that engagement. But she soon repudiated this idea as unworthy of her. She could not be wholly happy with one who, to win her hand, had trampled upon the affections of another, even if that other were Juno Cameron.
And so she kept out of his way as much as possible, watching her sister admiringly as she moved about with an easy, assured grace, or floated like a snow flake through the dance in which Wilford persuaded her to join, looking after her with a proud, all-absorbing feeling, which left no room for Sybil Grandon's coquettish advances.
As if the reappearance of Katy had awakened all that was weak and silly in Sybil's nature, she now put forth her full powers of attraction, but met only with defeat. Katy, and even Helen, was preferred before her--both belles of a different type; but both winning golden laurels from those who hardly knew which to admire most--Katy, with her pure, delicate beauty and charming simplicity, or Helen, with her attractive face and sober, quiet manner. But Katy grew tired early. She could not endure what she once did; and when she came to Wilford with a weary look upon her face and asked him to go home, he did not refuse, though Mark, who was near, protested against their leaving so soon.
"Surely Miss Lennox might remain; the carriage could be sent back for her; and he had hardly seen her at all."
But Miss Lennox chose to go; and after her white cloak and hood passed down the stairs and through the door into the street, there was nothing attractive for Mark in his crowded parlors, and he was glad when the last guest had departed and he was left alone with his mother.
Operas, parties, receptions, dinners, matineés, morning calls, drives, visits and shopping; how fast one crowded upon the other, leaving scarcely an hour of leisure to the devotee of fashion who attended to them all. How astonished Helen was to find what high life in New York implied, ceasing to wonder that so many of the young girls grew haggard and old before their time, or that the dowagers grew selfish and hard and scheming. She would die outright, she thought, and she pitied poor little Katy, who, having once returned to the world, seemed destined to remain there, in spite of her entreaties and the excuses she made for declining the invitations which poured in so fast.
"Baby was not well--baby needed her," was the plea with which she met Wilford's arguments, until the mention of his child was sure to bring a scowl upon his face, and it became a question in Helen's mind whether he would not be happier if baby had never come between him and his ambition.