Chapter III

"You have not told me yet, Marion, what you think of Paul," said Helen the next day.

The two girls were together in a handsome, airy parlor, through which the stream of family life had been flowing all morning, but from which it had now ebbed, leaving them alone. Helen, who had been flitting like a bird from one occupation, or attempt at occupation, to another, now threw herself into a chair by one of the low open windows, and looked at Marion, who was lying luxuriously on a couch near by, and for an hour past had not lifted her eyes from her book.

They were lifted now, however, and regarded the speaker quietly. "What do I think of Mr. Rathborne?" she asked. "My dear Helen, what can I possibly think of him on such short acquaintance, except that he is tall and good-looking, and appears to have a very good opinion of himself?"

"O Marion!"

"For all that I know, it may be an opinion based on excellent grounds, but it is undoubtedly the first thing about him that attracts one's attention."

"It _is_ based on excellent grounds," said Helen, with some spirit. "Everyone who knows Paul admires and looks up to him."

"Not quite everyone," observed an unexpected voice, and through the window by which she sat Mr. Frank Morley stepped into the room. "I am sorry to come upon the scene with a contradiction," he said, as he took his cousin's hand; "but really, you know, Helen, that is too sweeping an assertion. _I_ don't look up to Paul Rathborne."

"So much the worse for you, then," said Helen. "A boy like you could not do better."

"I think that a boy, even though he were like me, might do much better. He might look up to someone who was not so selfish and conceited."

A rose flame came into Helen's cheeks. "You are very rude as well as ill-natured," she answered in a low tone. "You have no right to say such things to _me_."

"I have never been told that there was any reason why I should not say them to you," replied the young man, significantly; "but I had no intention of making myself disagreeable. After all, the truth is not always to be told."

"It is not the truth," exclaimed Helen, with a flash of fire in her glance. "Paul is neither selfish nor conceited. But you never liked him, Frank--you know you never did."

"I never hesitated to confess it," said Frank; "but I regret having annoyed you, Helen. I did not think you would take my opinion of Mr. Rathborne so much to heart."

"It is not your opinion," responded Helen. "It is--it is the injustice!" And then, as if unwilling to trust herself further, she sprang up and left the room.

There was an awkward pause for a moment after her departure. Mr. Frank Morley began to whistle, but checked himself, with an apologetic glance at Marion, who, leaning back on the cushions of her couch, was faintly smiling.

"I have, as usual, put my foot into it," said the young man. "But I could not imagine that Helen would be so fiery. She used to laugh when I abused Paul."

"Did she?" asked Marion. "But, then, you know, there comes a time when one ceases to laugh; and if one likes a friend, one does not wish to hear him abused. That time seems to have arrived with her."

"Yes," said Morley, rather ruefully. "And the worst of it is that it looks as if she liked the fellow better than I imagined. I am awfully sorry for that."

"You evidently do not like him."

"I!--no indeed. As Helen remarked, I never liked him, but I like him less and less as time goes on."

"What is the matter with him?"

"Everything is the matter with him. He is as cold as a stone; he cares for nobody in the world but Paul Rathborne, and for nothing that does not advance that important person's interest. He is supercilious until one longs to knock him down; and so ambitious that he would walk over the body of his dearest friend--granting that he had such a thing--to advance himself in life one inch."

"Altogether a very charming character!" remarked Marion. "It is certain that you are not the dearest friend over whose body he would walk."

Young Morley laughed. "No," he said, frankly. "I would walk over _his_ with a good deal of pleasure; but he will never walk over mine, if I can help it. Though he may, for all that," he added, after an instant; "for he is so sharp that one can never tell what he is up to, until it is too late to frustrate him."

"This is very interesting," said Marion. "It is like reading a novel to hear a character analyzed in so masterly a manner."

Morley colored. He was too shrewd not to know that she was laughing at him; but while the fact was sufficiently evident, it was not exactly evident how best to show his appreciation of it. After a moment he spoke in a tone which had a little offense in it:--

"I don't suppose the subject interests you, so I ought to beg pardon for dwelling on it. But I only meant to explain why Helen was vexed."

"And now _you_ are vexed," observed Marion. "What have I done? I assure you I was in earnest in saying I was interested in your analysis of Mr. Rathborne's character."

"It sounded more as if you were satirical," said Morley. "And I was not trying to analyze his character: I was only answering your questions about it."

"Quite true, but those questions led to your analyzing it--and so successfully, too, that I am going to ask another. Tell me if you think he is much attached to Helen?"

A sudden cloud came over the young man's face, and his eyes seemed to darken. "I do not think he is attached to her at all," he replied, bluntly. "Or, if that is saying too much (for everyone _must_ be attached to Helen), I do not believe he would wish to marry her but for her fortune."

"Well," said Marion, philosophically, "I suppose it is the ordinary fate of rich women to be married for their money. And, after all, they do not seem to mind it: they appear happy enough."

"Helen would never be happy," said Frank Morley, impetuously.

"Do not be sure of that," responded the young cynic on the couch. "There is a French proverb, you know, which says: '_Il y a toujours l'un qui baisse et l'un qui tend la joue._' Helen would play the active part in that to perfection."

The young man looked at her with something of indignation. "You may consider yourself a friend of Helen's," he remarked, "but you certainly do not understand her."

"No?" said Marion, smiling. "Then perhaps you will enlighten me, as you have about Mr. Rathborne. I am probably deficient in penetration."

Morley made a gallant effort not to be betrayed into boyish petulance, and succeeded sufficiently to say, with a dignity which amused his tormentor:--

"I am sure that penetration is the last thing you are deficient in, Miss Lynde. But you do not credit others with enough of the quality. I, at least, know when I am laughed at. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go and make my peace with Helen."

He walked out of the room, holding his slim, young figure very erect; and Marion looked after him with a glance of mingled amusement and approval.

"Very well done, Mr. Morley!" she said to herself. "You are an uncommonly nice boy, with uncommonly clear reasons for your opinions. Ten years hence you may be a very agreeable man. As for Mr. Rathborne, your account of him agrees entirely with my own impressions. I really do possess a little penetration, after all."

Then she took up her novel again, and settled back among the sofa-cushions with an air of comfort. At that moment her only desire was that she might not be disturbed for a reasonable length of time. The people in the book interested her much more than the people who surrounded her in life. At this period of her existence she was wrapped in a ruthless egotism, which made all human beings shadows to her, unless they touched her interest. It was not yet apparent whether any of those who were now about her would touch her interest; and until that fact was demonstrated, she troubled herself very little about them.

A quarter of an hour, perhaps, had passed without any one appearing to disturb her quiet, when, through the same window by which young Morley had entered, another presence stepped into the room. It was Rathborne, who looked around, met Marion's eyes, and came toward her with a pleased expression.

"It seems to me my good fortune to find you always alone, Miss Lynde," he observed.

"And it seems to be the custom here that visitors shall appear in the most unexpected and informal manner," said Marion. "Do they always come in unannounced, by way of the window?"

"Oh, no! Here, as elsewhere, most visitors enter decorously by way of the door. But I have long been as familiarly intimate in this house as if it were my home, and I expected to find the family assembled."

"The family has been assembled, but the different members have been called away by one thing or another, until only I remain."

"You appear to be fond of solitude."

"Is not that a wide conclusion to draw from the fact that you have found me twice alone?"

"Discerning people can draw wide conclusions from slight indications. On each occasion a person sociably inclined would not have been left alone."

"Generally speaking, I am not very sociably inclined, I suppose; but that does not mean that I object to society--when it pleases me."

"I judge that you are not very easily pleased," answered Rathborne, regarding the face which he found even more beautiful than his recollection had painted it.

She looked at him with a smile so brilliant that it almost startled him. "Are you trying to give me another proof of your discernment?" she asked. "If so, you will be gratified to hear that you are right. I am _not_ easily pleased--as a rule. I suppose people are much happier who are not so 'difficult,' as my French teacher used to call me. There is Helen, for instance; she likes everything and everybody, and she is certainly happier than I am."

"But, then, unfortunately it is not very flattering to the vanity when one pleases a person who is so easily pleased."

Marion lifted her eyebrows with a mocking expression. "But why should one's vanity be flattered?" she asked. "It is not good for one that it should be."

"Not good perhaps, but very pleasant," replied Mr. Rathborne; "and I am, like yourself, somewhat 'difficult,' and hard to please."

"Ah! then you can sympathize with me. It is not an agreeable disposition to possess."

"I can sympathize with you on a good many points--or at least so I have the presumption to fancy," he said. "There is an instinct that tells one these things. Even in our brief conversation yesterday evening I felt as if a sympathetic understanding was established between us. It seemed to me that we were likely to look at many things in the same light."

It is hardly necessary to observe that, considering what she had recently heard of the speaker's character, and hence of his probable way of looking at things, Marion should not have been very much flattered by this. But, as a matter of fact, she was flattered. She had as strong a belief in her own powers, as strong a determination to make events and people serve her ends, as Mr. Rathborne himself possessed. But her powers were untried, her ability to impress people untested; and this first proof that she _was_ remarkable--that even this cold, selfish man recognized in her something altogether uncommon--something allied to his own ambitious spirit,--was like wine to her self-esteem. She thought that here was material on which she might try whatever power she had, without fear of doing mischief,--material certain to look after itself and its own interest in any event, and with which no unpleasant results could be feared.

To do her justice, Marion wanted only to make a mental impression: to extort admiration for her unusual gifts of mind and character from this man, who, she knew instinctively, was not easily moved to admiration or interest. If she forced it from him, then she might be sure that it would be easy to win it from others. These thoughts were not absolutely formulated in her mind at this moment, but they were impressed on her consciousness sufficiently to make her reply:--

"You flatter me by saying so; for you are a man who knows the world, and I was yesterday a school-girl. It would be strange, then, if we did see things in the same light."

"It is difficult to realize that you were yesterday--or ever--a school-girl," said Rathborne, leaning back and looking at her intently from under his dark brows.

"That does not sound very flattering," she replied, with a laugh; and yet in her heart she knew that it was just the kind of flattery she desired.

"I am not trying to flatter you," he replied. "I am telling you exactly how you impress me. And I do not see how, in the name of all that is wonderful, you ever became what you are in that convent from which you come."

A swift shade passed over Marion's face. "You must not blame or credit the convent with what I am," she said. "If I had gone there earlier, I might be a very different person. But my character and disposition were formed when I went there, two years ago; and the influences of the place could not change me, though they often made me feel as if change would be desirable."

"They made you feel a mistake, then," remarked her companion, with emphasis. "Change in you would not be desirable. You are--"

But Marion was not destined to hear just then what she was. Steps and voices came across the hall; Helen's laugh sounded, and the next moment Helen herself appeared in the doorway, followed by Frank Morley, who had apparently succeeded in making his peace.