CHAPTER II.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN THE WORLD.
Both girls ran to the window. Miss Reid laughed teasingly. "I seenobody--or all the world; it's much the same," she said; "but you havea caller."
I rose from behind the desk with some confused, trivial thought that Iought to have spent part of the afternoon getting my hair cut.
I had had but a glimpse of the new comer in her flight across thefloor; I knew she had scarlet lips and shining eyes; that youth and joyand unimagined beauty had entered with her like a burst of sunlight andflooded the room. I felt, rather than saw, that she had turned from thewindow and was looking at me, curiously at first, then smiling. Hersmile had bewildered me when she opened the door; it was a soft,flashing light that shone from her face and blessed the air. She seemedsurrounded by an aureole.
But she--how could this wonderful girl know me?--she surely wassmiling! She was coming towards me. She was putting out her hands. Thatglorious voice was speaking.
"John! Is it you? I'm so glad!" it said.
Had I read about her? Had I seen her picture? Had Helen described herin a letter? Was she Cadge? No; not altogether a stranger; somewherebefore I had seen--or dreamed--
"John," she persisted. "Why didn't you write? I thought you were comingnext week. Did you plan to surprise me?"
Miss Reid must have made a mistake, I felt; I must explain that I waswaiting for Helen. But I could not speak; I could only gape, chokingand giddy. I did not speak when the bright vision seemed to take thehands I had not offered. I could feel the blood beat in my neck. Icould not think; and yet I knew that a real woman stood before me,albeit unlike all the other women that ever lived in the world; andthat something surprised and perplexed her. The smile still curved herlips; I felt myself grin in idiotic imitation.
"What is the matter?" the radiant stranger persisted. "You act as if--"
The smile grew sunnier; it rippled to a laugh that was merriment set tomusic.
"John! John Burke!" she said, giving my hands a little, impatientshake, just as Nelly used to do. "It isn't possible! Don't you--why,you goose! Don't you know me?"
"Helen!"
Of course! I had known her from the beginning! A man couldn't be in thesame room with Nelly Winship and feel just as if she were any othergirl. But she was not Helen at all--that radiant impossibility! And yetshe was. Or she said so, and my heart agreed. But when I would havedrawn her to me, she stepped back in lovely confusion, with a flutteredquestion:--
"How long have you been here, John?"
That voice! Sweet, fresh; full of exquisite cadences such as one mighthear in dreams and ever after yearn for--from the first it had baffledme more than the beautiful face. It was not Helen's. What a blunder!
I gazed at her, still giddy. Who was she? I could not trust theastounding recognition. She returned the look, bending towards me,seeking as eagerly, I saw with confused wonderment, to read my thoughtas I to fathom hers. Then, as some half knowledge grew to certainty,the light of her beauty became a glory; she seemed transfigured by amighty joy such as no other woman could ever have felt.
An instant she stood motionless, the sunshine of her eyes still on me.Then, drawing a long breath, she turned away, pulling the pins out ofher feathered hat with hands that trembled.
I watched the process with the strained attention one gives at crucialmoments to nothings. I laughed out of sheer inanity; every pulse in mybody was throbbing. She lifted the hat from her shining head. She putit down. She unfastened her coat. In a minute she would turn again, andI should once more see that face imbued with light and fire. I waitedfor her voice.
"I'm sure of it!" she cried, wheeling about of a sudden, with a laughlike 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 inthe world. A mirthful goddess might have trilled it--a laugh likesunshine and flowers and chasing cloud shadows on waving grass.
"Helen Winship, stop it! Stop this masquerade!" I shouted, not knowingwhat I did.
"But I--I'm afraid I can't, John."
The glorious face brimmed with mischief. In vain the Woman Perfectstruggled to subdue her mirth to penitence.
"I--I'm so glad to see you, John. Won't you--won't you sit down and letKitty give you some tea?"
Tea! At that moment!
Clattering little blue and white cups and saucers, Miss Reid recalledherself to my remembrance. I had forgotten that she was in the room. Isuspect that she dared not lift her head for fear I might see thelaughter in her eyes.
"I've made it extra strong, Mr. Burke," she managed to say, "becauseI'm starting for the _Star_ office to find the photo-engravers routingthe noses and toeses off all my best beastesses."
"Kitty thinks all photo-engravers the embodiment of original sin," saidthe Shining One. "They clip her bears' claws."
"Well," returned Miss Reid, making a flat parcel of her drawings, "thisis the den of Beauty and the beasts, and the beasts must be worthy ofBeauty. Mr. Burke, don't you know from what county of fairyland Helenhails? Is she the Maiden Snow-white--but no; see her blush--or thePrincess Marvel? And if she's Cinderella, can't we have a peep at thefairy 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. Icould have wept at the greatness and the beauty of it, but the littleartist laughed through her tears.
"Helen Eliza, I repent," she said. "Time to be good, Mr. Burke, whenshe says 'Kathryn.'"
Adjusting her hat before a glass, Kitty hummed with a voice that triednot 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, whiskingout of the room.
"Such a chatterbox!" the goddess said. "But, John, am I really so muchaltered? Is it true that--just at first, you know, of course--youdidn'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 toyou, John."
She put out a hand as if to fend me off, then let it fall. A suddenheart sickness came upon me. It was not her words, not the movementthat chilled me, but the paling of the wonderful light of her face, thelook that crept over it, as if I had startled a nymph to flight. I wasangry with my clumsy self that I should have caused that look, andyet--from my own Helen, not this lovely, poising creature that hardlyseemed 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. Therattle of street cars came up from below. A child was sitting on thebench where I had sat and feasted my eyes upon the flutter of Helen'scurtains. My numb brain vaguely speculated whether that child could seeme. 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 fromthe wrong I did so beautiful a creature.
"I--I didn't expect you so soon," the music sighed pleadingly. "I--wemustn't hurry about--what we used to talk of. New York is sodifferent!--Oh, but it isn't t
hat! How shall I make you understand?"
"I understand enough," I said dully; "or rather--Great Heavens!--Iunderstand 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 figurebefore me wore her pearl-set Kappa key--the badge of her collegefraternity; it wore, too, a trim, dark blue dress--Helen's favouritecolour and mine--but there resemblance seemed to stop.
Confused as I still was by the glory I gazed on, I began painfullycomparing the Nelly I remembered and the Helen I had found. My Helenwas not quite so tall, but at twenty girls grow. She did not sway withthe yielding grace of a young white birch; but she was slim andstraight, and girlish angles round easily to curves. Though I felt asubtle and wondrous change, I could not trace or track the miracle.
My Helen had blue-gray eyes; this Helen's eyes might, in some lights,be blue-gray; they seemed of as many tints as the sea. They were dark,luminous and velvet soft as they watched my struggle. A few minutesearlier they had been of extraordinary brilliancy.
My Helen had soft brown hair, like and how unlike these fragrant locksthat lay in glinting waves with life and sparkle in every thread!
My Helen's face was expressive, piquantly irregular. The face intowhich I looked lured me at moments with a haunting resemblance; but thebrow was lower and wider, the nose straighter, the mouth more subtlymodelled. It was a face Greek in its perfection, brightened by westernforce and softened by some flitting touch of sensuousness and mysticism.
My Helen blushed easily, but otherwise had little colour. This Helenhad a baby's delicate skin, with rose-flushed cheeks and red, red lips.When she spoke or smiled, she seemed to glow with an inner radiancethat had nothing to do with colour. And, oh, how beautiful! Howbeautiful!
I don't know how long I gazed.
I was trying to study the girl before me as if she had been merely afact--a statue, a picture. But here was none of the calm certainty ofart; I was in the grip of a power, a living charm as mighty as elusive,no more to be fixed in words than are the splendours of sunset. Yet Isaw the vital harmonies of her figure, the grace of every exquisitecurve--the firm, strong line of her white throat, the gracious poise ofher head, her sweeping lashes.
I looked down at her hands; they were of marvellous shape and tint, butI missed a little sickle-shaped scar from the joint of the left thumb.I knew the story of that scar. I had seen the child Nelly run to hermother when the knife slipped while she was paring a piece of cocoanutfor the Saturday pie-baking. That scar was part of Helen; I loved it. Ifelt a sudden revolt against this goddess who usurped little Nelly'splace, and said that she had changed. Why was she looking at me? Whatdid she want?
"You are the most beautiful woman in the world," said a choked voicethat I hardly recognised as my own.
Instantly the joy light shone again from her face, bathing me in itssunshine, and the world was fair. She started forward impulsively,holding out her hands.
"Then it's true! Oh, it's true!" she cried. "How can I believe it?I--Nelly Winship--am I really--"
"Ah--you are Nelly! My Nelly!"
What happened is past telling!
With that jubilant outburst, as naive as a child's, she was my own loveagain, but dearer a thousand times. Would I have given her up if herhair were blanched by pain or sorrow, her cheeks furrowed, her facegrown pale in illness? Need I look upon her coldly because she hadbecome radiant, compellingly lovely? Why, she was enchanting!
And she was Helen. A miracle had been worked, but Helen's self waslooking at me out of that goddess-like face as unmistakably as from anunfamiliar dress. It was seeing her in a marvellous new garb of flesh.
"Oh, I'm so happy! I'm the happiest girl on earth; I'm--am I reallybeautiful?"
The rich, low, brooding, wondering voice was not Helen's, but in everysentence some note or inflection was as familiar as were her tricks ofmanner, her impulsive gestures. Yes, she was Helen; warm-breathing,flushed with joy of her own loveliness, her perfect womanhood--the girlI adored, the loveliest thing alive!
I seized the hands she gave me; I drew her nearer.
"Helen," I cried, "you are indeed the most beautiful being God evercreated, and--last June you kissed me--"
"I didn't!"
"--Or I kissed you, which is the same thing--after the Commencementreception, by the maple trees, in front of the chapter house; and----"
"And thence in an east-southeasterly direction; with all thehereditaments and appurtenances--Oh, you funny Old Preciseness!"
"And now I'm going to----" The words were brave, but there wassomething in the pose and poise of her--the wonder of her beauty, themajesty--perhaps the slightest withdrawal, the start of surprise--thatawed me. Lamely enough the sentence ended:
"Helen, kiss me!" I begged, hoarsely.
For just a fraction of a second she hesitated. Then the merriment ofcoquetry again sparkled in her smile.
"Ah, but I'm afraid--" she mocked.
Her eyes danced with mischief as she drew away from me.
"I'm afraid of a man who's going to be a great city lawyer. Andthen--oh, listen!"
Hurried, ostentatiously heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. Theystopped at the door, and some one fumbled noisily at the knob. Therewas a stage cough, and Kitty plunged into the room, carefullyunnoticing.
"Such an idea for--a hippopotamus comic," she panted; "a darling! Sentdrawings down--messenger--rushed back to sketch--"
Here she paused to take breath.
"--lest I forget."
Snatching off her gloves she resumed her place at the big table, andbegan making wild strokes with a crayon on a great sheet of cardboard.
"I just _had_ to do it," said she apologetically over her shoulder;"but--don't mind me."
Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day Page 2