Book One The Broken Chysalis Chapter 2 The Most Beautiful Woman in the World

Miss Reid must have made a mistake, I felt; I must explain that I was waiting for Helen. But I could not speak; I could only gape, choking and giddy. I did not speak when the bright vision seemed to take the hands I had not offered. I could feel the blood beat in my neck. I could 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; and that something surprised and perplexed her. The smile still curved her lips; 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 to music.

"John! John Burke!" she said, giving my hands a little, impatient shake, 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 the same room with Nelly Winship and feel just as if she were any other girl. But she was not Helen at all--that radiant impossibility! And yet she was. Or she said so, and my heart agreed. But when I would have drawn her to me, she stepped back in lovely confusion, with a fluttered question:-"How long have you been here, John?"

That voice! Sweet, fresh; full of exquisite cadences such as one might hear in dreams and ever after yearn for--from the first it had baffled me more than the beautiful face. It was not Helen's. What a blunder!