Warm-hearted Helen had been sadly disappointed because Kathleen had not come to the luncheon, and the excuse that Alpine offered--namely, that her step-sister could not tear herself away from a new novel--seemed too shallow to entertain. "I'm really mad with Kathleen, the lazy thing!" she said, frankly, to Ralph Chainey, who smiled, but made no comment. He was thinking about what Miss Belmont had told him just now. It rankled in his mind. "I am anxious for you to meet her, she is such a beauty!" continued Helen, enthusiastically. He gave some flattering answer that made her dimple and blush, but she answered, with a careless glance around: "Oh, yes, we girls are well enough; but wait till you see my bonny Kathleen. Such lips, such hair, such eyes!" Ralph Chainey laughed. "You needn't be so sarcastic, Mr. Chainey. You haven't seen our beauty yet." "I saw her last night at the theater." "Oh, so you did. I forgot that. Well, isn't she charming?" The handsome actor replied with a quotation: "'Perfectly beautiful, faultily faultless.'" "She is all that," Helen Fox replied; but she looked at him with puzzled eyes, and thought within herself that he was somehow piqued at Kathleen Carew. But why, since the two had never met? Suddenly the reason presented itself to her mind. "The great vain thing! He is piqued because the beauty didn't come to the luncheon. He is offended because she did not seem anxious to meet him." And she was secretly amused at the young actor's palpable vanity, regarding it as a good joke, little dreaming of the seed that Alpine Belmont had been sowing in his mind. Many envious glances followed Alpine, a little later, when she bore Ralph Chainey off in triumph as her escort home; but Helen was pleased, for she thought: "If Alpine asks him into the house he will get acquainted with Kathleen, and then he will find out how lovable she is." But when George Fox, who had also walked home with a young lady on Commonwealth Avenue, returned home he reported that Ralph Chainey had left Miss Belmont at the door. Suddenly Helen remembered sundry small matters that were not at all to Alpine's credit. "That girl is tricky, I know," she said to herself. "Perhaps she did not ask Mr. Chainey to go in. Perhaps she kept Kathleen from coming here to-day. She has been known to do shabby things to cut other girls out of their lovers. Not that Ralph Chainey is Kathleen's lover _yet_, but he ought to be. They are just suited to each other, both are so splendid. It may be that Alpine intends to catch him herself before her sister gets a chance." Helen laughed a sage little laugh to herself, and added: "I'll ask mamma to let us call at Mrs. Carew's and take Kathleen with us to the theater to-night." * * * * * "Oh, Alpine! where is Kathleen? George and mamma are waiting out here in the carriage. We have just one seat left, and we stopped to ask Kathleen to go with us to the theater."