"Shall we not begin?" he said, breaking the silence.

Helene walked slowly to the piano and sat down.

At that moment Joles entered the room with a message for Miss Stanton.

"Put it down, Joles," she said, striking a note here and there on the piano.

"It's a telegram, miss."

"Oh! bring it to me, then." He obeyed. She opened it and read:

"Left Paris this morning en route to New York.

FATHER."

A feeling of dread crept over her; the smile on her face gave way to a hardness of expression. Gone was the joy, the happiness, in the girl's face, and in its place was doubt, apprehension, anxiety.

Von Barwig looked at her; the keen eye of love quickly detected the presence of fear. He did not speak, but his look demanded an answer to its question.

"My father is coming home," she said, forcing herself to smile.

"Ah? So? I shall be glad to meet him," said Von Barwig.

Chapter Nineteen

Henry Stanton's return to New York was not marked by any special outburst of joy on the part of the large retinue of dependents that const.i.tuted the machinery of his household. He was feared rather than loved by his servants, and this feeling, as has been indicated, was shared by his daughter in common with others. It was not that he did not want to be loved, or that he was indifferent to the feelings and opinion of others concerning him. On the contrary, he, of all men, was most anxious that others should think well of him. But his manner was stern, harsh and repellent, and he did not seem to have the capacity to gain the confidence or sympathy of those around him. Although generous even to extravagance where it gratified his vanity, of broad-minded charity in its higher and n.o.bler sense the man knew nothing. He gave not because he loved, but because his charities reflected l.u.s.tre on his name; and here was the man's most vulnerable point, his sensitiveness as to name, fame, honour, reputation dignity, public opinion. "What will the world think?" stood out in blazing letters on a glittering signpost pointing to the motive of all he did. And so when Mr. Stanton told his daughter, the day after his arrival, that he approved of her engagement to Beverly Cruger and that it gave him great happiness, the utter absence of genuine fatherly tenderness in his manner showed the girl plainly that his happiness was brought about mainly by the fact that it advanced him several rungs in the social ladder, and not because she was going to marry a man who would make her happy.

"He is a splendid catch," were Mr. Stanton's words on first hearing the news. "He belongs to a fine solid family and you will have _entree_ into the first establishments in America and Europe."

Helene was instinctively repelled by the manner of his congratulations.

Not one solitary word was uttered as to love, happiness, or the sacred nature of marriage itself, not a regret at parting with her; nothing but an adding up of the advantages that would accrue to him from a social point of view.

"The Van Nesses and the de Morelles can't refuse to meet us now. We can snap our fingers at them! Bravo, my girl, you have achieved a splendid victory. They can't dig up hidden and dead scandals now."

Helene had never known that the Van Nesses and the de Morelles had refused to meet them. She knew that several of the historic New York families did not make it a point to ask them to their functions, but she had always thought it was because her father was personally unpopular with the more exclusive set. His reference to hidden and dead scandals she did not in the least understand, for she had heard nothing.

"At a moment like this," Helene thought, "if he had only opened his heart, if he would only let me love him!" But no, he had not shown the slightest encouragement, not a particle of sentiment.

"With your husband's people and my money back of you," he said, "you ought to become a leader, nothing less than a leader! I'd give half a million to see you take Julia Van Ness's place."

Helene was disappointed. "Oh, father, please don't speak of those things now! It's not a question of social advantage. It's my whole future happiness; my whole life itself is Involved."

"Do you know, Helene, you are rather selfish in your love affair as I suppose you call it," cried Mr. Stanton angrily. "My ambition is for you, not for myself."

"I have no ambition," said Helene, stifling a tendency to burst into tears, "that is, no social ambition. I love my friends and they love me. Indeed, father, I have no desire to extend my circle of acquaintances; I can't do justice to those I know now! If it is for my sake you are trying to----"

At these words Mr. Stanton completely lost his temper. "Of course it is for your sake, don't you believe me when I say so? Please remember that I am your father, and it is your duty to believe me whether my statement convinces you or not. It is your duty to believe me and to love me!"

"G.o.d knows I try hard enough," broke from the girl, and now she too lost control of herself. "I hate myself for saying it, but it's true, father, it's true! I don't seem to love you, not as most girls love their fathers, and I want to, I do so want to! You believe that, don't you, father?"

Mr. Stanton was silent, and Helene went on: "I always feel that there is something between us. I think of myself only as one of your possessions. You were so good, so gentle to mother; why aren't you more kind, more loving to me?"

"Is there anything you want that you do not get?" demanded Mr. Stanton.

"Yes," cried Helene, "there is love, love! I do not get it! Your manner is cold, hard, repellent!"

"How dare you!" shouted her father.

"I repeat it!" cried Helene, now utterly regardless of consequences.

"Something in you repels me. I came to you this morning with the news of my engagement of marriage. I came to you with earnest longing to have you take me into your arms and kiss me, to have you congratulate me on my happiness. Instead of this you repelled me with cold calculations as to the effect the marriage would have on your own social position. Oh, father, father! is that the way to sympathise with a girl? I have no mother; you should supply her place. All the luxuries in this palace don't make up to me for the lack of love I find in it."

"Is it my fault that your mother died when you were eight years old?"

said Mr. Stanton in a milder tone. The reference to his dead wife had had a softening influence upon him.

"No, no, father; no, no! I can't help thinking of her now, that's all!

I need her now, so much. I have no one to go to but you, and--" the girl shook her head helplessly. "I can just remember her, so delicate, so beautiful! She was an angel, wasn't she?"

He nodded a.s.sent. "I remember that she was always in tears, always afraid to go out in the streets, afraid to be seen," said Helene somewhat irrelevantly. "You did love her, didn't you? I always feel you did! Why, why can't you love me as you did her? Why am I not as near to you as she was? Your own flesh and blood should be very near and very dear to you; especially at such a time as this."

He regarded her more tenderly. "You are near me," he said and kissed her. "Poor little thing," he muttered to himself. "I suppose I am selfish," he said aloud, "but you'll have my money some day. Surely that should give you a great deal of comfort!"

Helene smiled sadly. Her father seemed incapable of understanding her.

She could only shake her head and say, "That's nothing, nothing!"

"You'll find it a great deal, my girl," he said.

That afternoon when her music master came he was astonished to find her pensive and downcast instead of joyful and happy, as he expected.

"There has been a lovers' quarrel," he said to himself. "Little missie wanted her way and young master wanted his. It is nothing," he decided, as he opened the music books.

"Have you studied your lesson?" he asked.

"No," replied Helene, without thinking.

"Well, do the best you can," he said. To his utter astonishment she played the whole exercise through without looking at the music, without any effort and without playing a single false note.

To say that Von Barwig was astounded is putting it mildly. He simply gasped for breath.

"Gott in Himmel, Fraulein! Ach, du lieber Gott! what style, what touch, what progress! Ah," and then it came to him all at once, "your father has come back; you want to show him progress, is it not? You have practised on the sly, eh? Ah--" and he shook his finger reproachfully at her.

Helene looked at him and laughed. "If father was only like you," she thought.

"Yes," she said aloud. "I suppose I wanted to show my father the progress I have made, so I practised on the sly."

"Let us continue," said Von Barwig, who was now very anxious to see what new surprise his pupil was going to give him.