and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always,
if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Three
of them kissed me," she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath.

They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of the
orphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money,
while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs of
the house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black women
were chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostly
silent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking through
his reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was he
pondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know that
his silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled other
people's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively
than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had
an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that
held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or
awkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one
sees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything.

"And as for temper!----"

After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. A
point of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to be
employed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr.
Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, there
seemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion that
certain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. The
architect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and the
ambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. The