The Bacillus of Beauty | Page 5

it!" she cried, wheeling about of a sudden, with a laugh like caressing music, and confronting me again. "You didn't know me, John; did you?"
"Why didn't I know you?" I gasped. "Why are you glad I don't know you? What does it all mean, Helen?"
Instead of answering she laughed again. It was the happiest joy-song in the world. A mirthful goddess might have trilled it--a laugh like sunshine and flowers and chasing cloud shadows on waving grass.
"Helen Winship, stop it! Stop this masquerade!" I shouted, not knowing what I did.
"But I--I'm afraid I can't, John."
The glorious face brimmed with mischief. In vain the Woman Perfect struggled to subdue her mirth to penitence.
"I--I'm so glad to see you, John. Won't you--won't you sit down and let Kitty give you some tea?"
Tea! At that moment!
Clattering little blue and white cups and saucers, Miss Reid recalled herself to my remembrance. I had forgotten that she was in the room. I suspect that she dared not lift her head for fear I might see the laughter in her eyes.
"I've made it extra strong, Mr. Burke," she managed to say, "because I'm starting for the Star office to find the photo-engravers routing the noses and toeses off all my best beastesses."
"Kitty thinks all photo-engravers the embodiment of original sin," said the Shining One. "They clip her bears' claws."
"Well," returned Miss Reid, making a flat parcel of her drawings, "this is the den of Beauty and the beasts, and the beasts must be worthy of Beauty. Mr. Burke, don't you know from what county of fairyland Helen hails? Is she the Maiden Snow-white--but no; see her blush--or the Princess Marvel? And if she's Cinderella, can't we have a peep at the fairy godmother? Cadge will call her nothing but 'H. the M.'--short for 'Helen the Magnificent.' And--and--oh, isn't she!"
"Kathryn!"
Before that grieved organ-tone of reproach, Kitty's eyes filled. I could have wept at the greatness and the beauty of it, but the little artist laughed through her tears.
"Helen Eliza, I repent," she said. "Time to be good, Mr. Burke, when she says 'Kathryn.'"
Adjusting her hat before a glass, Kitty hummed with a voice that tried not quaver:--
"Mirror, mirror on the wall, Am I most beautiful of all?
"Queen, thou art not the fairest now; Snow-white over the mountain's brow A thousand times fairer is than thou.
"Poor Queen; poor all of us. I'm good, Helen," she repeated, whisking out of the room.
"Such a chatterbox!" the goddess said. "But, John, am I really so much altered? Is it true that--just at first, you know, of course--you didn't know me?"
She bent on me the breathless look I had seen before. In her eagerness, it was as if the halo of joy that surrounded her were quivering.
"I know you now; you are my Helen!"
Again I would have caught her in my arms; but she moved uneasily.
"Wait--I--you haven't told me," she stammered; "I--I want to talk to you, John."
She put out a hand as if to fend me off, then let it fall. A sudden heart sickness came upon me. It was not her words, not the movement that chilled me, but the paling of the wonderful light of her face, the look that crept over it, as if I had startled a nymph to flight. I was angry with my clumsy self that I should have caused that look, and yet--from my own Helen, not this lovely, poising creature that hardly seemed to touch the earth--I should have had a different greeting!
I gazed at her from where I stood, then I turned to the window. The rattle of street cars came up from below. A child was sitting on the bench where I had sat and feasted my eyes upon the flutter of Helen's curtains. My numb brain vaguely speculated whether that child could see me. The sun had gone, the square was wintry.
After a long minute Helen followed me.
"John," she said, "I am so glad to see you; but I--I want to tell you. Everything here is so new, I--I don't--"
It must all be true; I remember her exact words. They came slowly, hesitated, stopped.
"Are you--what do you mean, Helen?"
"Let me tell you; let me think. Don't--please don't be angry."
Through the fog that enveloped me I felt her distress and smarted from the wrong I did so beautiful a creature.
"I--I didn't expect you so soon," the music sighed pleadingly. "I--we mustn't hurry about--what we used to talk of. New York is so different!-- Oh, but it isn't that! How shall I make you understand?"
"I understand enough," I said dully; "or rather--Great Heavens!--I understand nothing; nothing but that--you are taking back your promise, aren't you? Or Helen's promise; whose was it?"
I could not feel as if I were speaking to my sweetheart. The figure before me wore her pearl-set Kappa key--the badge