"Hm-m. Is he really, indeed," murmured John Denby. "No, I had not noticed."

John Denby spoke vaguely, yet with a shade of irritation. Fond as he was of his sister and of his small nephews, he was finding it difficult to accustom himself to the revolutionary changes in his daily routine that their presence made necessary. He was learning to absent himself more and more from the house.

For a week, therefore, unchallenged, and cheerfully intent on his benevolent mission, Burke Denby continued his drives and picnics and ball-playing with Masters Paul and Percy Allen; then, very suddenly, four little words from the lips of Helen Barnet changed for him the earth and the sky above.

"When I go away--" she began.

"When you--_go--away_!" he interrupted.

"Yes. Why, Mr. Denby, what makes you look so--queer?"

"Nothing. I was thinking--that is, I had forgotten--I--" He rose to his feet abruptly, and crossed the room. At the window, for a full minute, he stood motionless, looking out at the falling rain. When he turned back into the room there was a new expression on his face. With a quick glance at the children playing on the rug before the fireplace, he crossed straight to the plainly surprised young woman and dropped himself in a chair at her side.

"Helen Barnet, will you--marry me?" he asked softly.

"_Mr. Denby!_"

With a boyish laugh Burke Denby drew his chair nearer. His face was alight with the confident happiness of one who has never known rebuff.

"You are surprised--and so was I, a minute ago. You see, it came to me all in a flash--what it would be to live--without you." His voice grew tender. "Helen, you will stay, and be my wife?"

"Oh, no, no--I mustn't, I can't! Why, of course I can't, Mr. Denby,"

fluttered the girl, in a panic of startled embarra.s.sment. "I'm sure you--you don't want me to."

"But I do. Listen!" He threw another quick glance at the absorbed children as he reached out and took possession of her hand. "It all came to me, back there at the window--the dreariness, the emptiness of--everything, without _you_. And I saw then what you've been to me every day this past week. How I've watched for you and waited for you, and how everything I did and said and had was just--something for you.

And I knew then that I--I loved you. You see, I--I never loved any one before,"--the boyish red swept to his forehead as he laughed whimsically,--"and so I--I didn't recognize the symptoms!" With the lightness of his words he was plainly trying to hide the shake in his voice. "Helen, you--will?"

"Oh, but I--I--!" Her eyes were frightened and pleading.

"Don't you _care_ at all?"

She turned her head away.

"If you don't, then won't you let me _make_ you care?" he begged. "You said you had no one now to care--at all; and I care so much! Won't you let--"

Somewhere a door shut.

With a low cry Helen Barnet pulled away her hand and sprang to her feet.

She was down on the rug with the children, very flushed of face, when Mrs. Allen appeared in the library doorway.

"Oh, here you are!" Mrs. Allen frowned and spoke a bit impatiently.

"I've been hunting everywhere for you. I supposed you were in the nursery. Won't you put the boys into fresh suits? I have friends calling soon, and I want the children brought to the drawing-room when I ring, and left till I call you again."

"Yes, ma'am."

With a still more painful flush on her face Helen Barnet swept the blocks into her ap.r.o.n, rose to her feet, and hurried the children from the room. She did not once glance at the young man standing by the window.

Mrs. Allen tossed her nephew a smile and a shrug which might have been translated into "You see what we have to endure--so tiresome!" as she, too, disappeared.

Burke Denby did not smile. He did frown, however. He felt vaguely irritated and abused. He wished his aunt would not be so "bossy" and disagreeable. He wished Helen would not act so cringingly submissive. As if she-- But then, it would be different right away, of course, as soon as he had made known the fact that she was to be his wife. Everything would be different. For that matter, Helen herself would be different.

Not only would she hold her head erect and take her proper place, but she would not--well, there were various little ways and expressions which she would drop, of course. And how beautiful she was! How sweet!

How dear! And how she had suffered in her loneliness! How he would love to make for her a future all gloriously happy and tender with his strong, encircling arms!

It was a pleasant picture. Burke Denby's heart quite swelled within him as he turned to leave the room.

Upstairs, the girl, the cause of it all, hurried with palpitating nervousness through the task of clothing two active little bodies in fresh garments. That her thoughts were not with her fingers was evident; but not until the summoning bell from the drawing-room gave her a few minutes' respite from duty did she have an opportunity really to think.

Even then she could not think lucidly or connectedly. Always before her eyes was Burke Denby's face, ardent, pleading, confident. And he expected-- Before she saw him again she must be ready, she knew, with her answer. But how _could_ she answer?

Helen Barnet was lonely, heartsick, and frightened--a combination that could hardly aid in the making of a wise, unprejudiced decision, especially when one was very much in love. And Helen Barnet knew that she was that.

Less than two years before, Helen Barnet had been the petted daughter of a village storekeeper in a small Vermont town. Then, like the proverbial thunderbolt, had come death and financial disaster, throwing her on her own resources. And not until she had attempted to utilize those resources for her support, had she found how frail they were.

Though the Barnets had not been wealthy, the village store had been profitable; and Helen (the only child) had been almost as greatly overindulged as was Burke Denby himself. Being a very pretty girl, she had become the village belle before she donned long dresses. Having been shielded from work and responsibility, and always carefully guarded from everything unpleasant, she was poorly equipped for a struggle of any sort, even aside from the fact that there was, apparently, nothing that she could do well enough to be paid for doing it. In the past twenty months she had obtained six positions--and had abandoned five of them: two because of incompetency, two because of lack of necessary strength, one because her beauty was plainly making the situation intolerable. For three months now she had been nurse to Masters Paul and Percy Allen. She liked Mrs. Allen, and she liked the children. But the care, the confinement, the never-ending task of dancing attendance upon the whims and tempers of two active little boys, was proving to be not a little irksome to young blood unused to the restraints of self-sacrifice. Then, suddenly, there had come the visit to the Denby homestead, and the advent into her life of Burke Denby; and now here, quite within her reach, if she could believe her eyes and ears, was this dazzling, unbelievable thing--Burke Denby's love.

Helen Barnet knew all about love. Had she not lisped its praises in odes to the moon in her high-school days? It had to do with flowers and music and angels. On the old porch back home--what was it that long-haired boy used to read to her? Oh, Tennyson. That was it.

And now it had come to _her_--love. Not that it was exactly unexpected: she had been waiting for her lover since she had put up her hair, of course. But to have him come like this--and such a lover! So rich--and he was such a grand, handsome young man, too! And she loved him. She loved him dearly. If only she dared say "yes"! No more poverty, no more loneliness, no more slaving at the beck and call of some hated employer.

Oh, if she only dared!

For one delirious moment Helen Barnet almost thought she did--dare.

Then, bitterly, the thought of his position--and hers--rolled in upon her. Whatever else the last two wretched years had done for her, it had left her no illusions. She had no doubts as to her reception, as Burke Denby's wife, at the hands of Burke Denby's friends and relatives. And again, whatever the last two years had done for her, they had not robbed her of her pride. And the Barnets, away back in the little Vermont town, had been very proud. To Helen Barnet now, therefore, the picture of herself as Burke Denby's wife, flouted and frowned upon by Burke Denby's friends, was intolerable. Frightened and heartsick, she determined to beat a hasty retreat. It simply could not be. That was all. Very likely, anyway, Burke Denby had not been more than half in earnest himself.

The bell rang then again from the drawing-room, and Helen went down to get the children. In the hall she met Burke Denby; but she only shook her head in answer to his low "Helen, when may I see you?" and hurried by without a word, her face averted.

Three times again within the next twenty-four hours she pursued the same tactics, only to be brought up sharply at last against a peremptory "Helen, you shall let me talk to you a minute! Why do you persist in hiding behind those two rascally infants all the time, when you know that you have only to say the word, and you are as free as the air?"

"But I must--that is--I can't say the word, Mr. Denby. Truly I can't!"

His face fell a little.

"What do you mean? You can't mean--you _can't_ mean--you won't--marry me?"

She threw a hurried look about her. He had drawn her into the curtained bay window of the upper hallway, as she was pa.s.sing on to the nursery.

"Yes, I mean--that," she panted, trying to release her arm from his clasp.

"Helen! Do you mean you don't _care_?" he demanded pa.s.sionately.

"Yes, yes--that's what I mean." She pulled again at her arm.

"Helen, look at me. You can't look me straight in the eye and say you don't--_care_!"

"Oh, yes, I can. I--I--" The telltale color flooded her face. With a choking little breath she turned her head quite away.

"You do--you do! And you shall marry me!" breathed the youth, his lips almost brushing the soft hair against her ear.

"No, no, Mr. Denby, I can't--I--_can't_!" With a supreme effort she wrenched herself free and fled down the hall.