Cleo put her hand appealingly on Helen's arm:

"Don't be foolish, child!"

The girl drew away suddenly with instinctive aversion. The act was slight and quick, but not too slight or quick for the woman's sharp eye. She threw Helen a look of resentment:

"Why do you draw away from me like that?"

The girl flushed with embarra.s.sment and stammered:

"Why--you see, I've lived up North all my life, shut up in a convent most of the time and I'm not used--to--colored people----"

"Well, I'm not a negro, please remember that. I'm a nurse and housekeeper, if you please, and there happens to be a trace of negro blood in my veins, but a white soul throbs beneath this yellow skin. I'd strip it off inch by inch if I could change its color"--her voice broke with a.s.sumed emotion--it was a pose for the moment, but its apparent genuineness deceived the girl and roused her sympathy.

"I'm sorry if I hurt you," she said contritely.

"Oh, it's no matter."

Helen snapped the lid of her trunk:

"I'm leaving on the first train."

"Oh, come now," Cleo urged impatiently. "You'll do nothing of the kind--the major will be himself to-morrow."

"I am going at once----"

"You're not going!" the woman declared firmly, laying her hand again on the girl's arm.

With a shudder Helen drew quickly away.

"Please--please don't touch me again!" she cried with anger. "I'm sorry, but I can't help it."

With an effort Cleo suppressed her rage:

"Well, I won't. I understand--but you can't go like this. The major will be furious."

"I'm going," the girl replied, picking up the odds and ends she had left and placing them in her travelling bag.

Cleo watched her furtively:

"I--I--ought to tell you something that I know about your life--"

Helen dropped a brush from her hand and quickly crossed the room, a bright color rushing to her cheeks:

"About my birth?"

"You believe," Cleo began cautiously, "that the major is the agent of your guardian who lives abroad. Well, he's not the agent--he is your guardian."

"Why should he deceive me?"

"He had reasons, no doubt," Cleo replied with a smile.

"You mean that he knows the truth? That he knows the full history of my birth and the names of my father and mother?"

"Yes."

"He has a.s.sured me again and again that he does not--"

"I know that he has deceived you."

Helen looked at her with a queer expression of angry repulsion that she should possess this secret of her unhappy life.

"You know?" she asked faintly.

"No," was the quick reply, "not about your birth; but I a.s.sure you the major does. Demand that he tell you."

"He'll refuse--"

"Ask him again, and stay until he does."

"But I'm intruding!" Helen cried, brushing a tear from her eyes.

"No matter, you're here, you're of age, you have the right to know the truth--stay until you learn it. If he slights you, pay no attention to it--stay until you know."

The girl's form suddenly stiffened and her eyes flashed:

"Yes, I will--I'll know at any cost."

With a soft laugh which Helen couldn't hear Cleo hurried from the room.

CHAPTER XIII

Andy's Proposal

Andy had been waiting patiently for Cleo to leave Helen's door. He had tried in vain during the entire morning to get an opportunity to see her alone, but since Helen's appearance at breakfast she had scarcely left the girl's side for five minutes.

He had slipped to the head of the back stairs, lifted the long flaps of the tail of his new coat and carefully seated himself on the last step to wait her appearance. He smiled with a.s.surance. She couldn't get down without a word at least.

"I'm gwine ter bring things to er head dis day, sho's yer born!" he muttered, wagging his head.

He had been to Norfolk the week before on an excursion to attend the annual convention of his African mutual insurance society, "The Children of the King." While there he had met the old woman who had given him a startling piece of information about Cleo which had set his brain in a whirl. He had long been desperately in love with her, but she had treated him with such scorn he had never summoned the courage to declare his affection.

The advent of Helen at first had made no impression on his slowly working mind, but when he returned from Norfolk with the new clew to Cleo's life he watched the girl with increasing suspicion. And when he saw the collapse of Norton over the announcement of her presence he leaped to an important conclusion. No matter whether his guess was correct or not, he knew enough to give him a power over the proud housekeeper he proposed to exercise without a moment's delay.

"We see now whether she turns up her nose at me ergin," he chuckled, as he heard the door open.