The House of Velvet and Glass Read Free

along their son. He was older than Eulah, to be sure, but not so very much. Twenties, thereabouts. A Harvard man, impeccably dressed. Hair a bit messy, but it gave him a sweet, bookish air. Fine jaw. Lovely, straight Roman nose. Roman, or Grecian? Oh, she could never remember. Helen wondered if he was entering into his father’s business. Trolley cars, wasn’t it? Lan would know. Of course, his mother being an Elkins, what his father did hardly mattered.
    “I was just telling your mother,” Helen ventured, “that Eulah and I are returning from Paris. Her first time, you know.”
    Harry’s eyes settled on Eulah with interest. “Why, that’s capital! Everyone should go to Paris at least once. Some excellent book dealers there as well. How’d you find it?”
    Eulah allowed herself a small, mysterious smile, as though she were newly privy to untold mysteries at which Harry could only guess.
    “Why, I suppose it was . . .” She paused, pretending to search for the perfect word, and so drawing his attention. He edged closer to hear what she might say, and Helen felt her heart flutter.
    “Magical,” Eulah finished. “Just so. It was all magical. The art. The opera. The balls.”
    “The ateliers,” Mr. Widener muttered to no one in particular.
    “What is it that you do, Harry?” Helen dove in, rescuing the table from Eulah’s tendency to rhapsodize.
    “I am a bibliophile,” he said with gravity, ignoring Mr. Widener’s audible snort.
    “Are you!” Eulah exclaimed as Helen blinked in confusion.
    “Indeed. We were just in Paris as well, as a matter of fact. I was there seeing if I could hunt down this particular volume, and Mother and Father decided they would come along for a change of scene.”
    “Paris!” Eulah cried. “How funny we didn’t see you any sooner. I wish you’d tell me about the book you were looking for. I just love books, you know. Did you find it?”
    “It’s called Le Sang de Morphée ,” Harry said, rising. “And I will tell you everything there is to know about it, if you’ll only dance with me.”
    Mrs. Widener suppressed a startled cough as Eulah turned her delighted eyes to Helen. “May I?” she asked, already halfway to her feet, Harry reaching, too late, to pull back her chair.
    “Why, of course, my dear!” Helen beamed. “You needn’t bother about us. Catch them while they’re still playing that song you like.”
    Giggling, Eulah placed her hand into Harry’s and allowed him to help her away from the table, the music seeming to swell in concert with Eulah’s growing pleasure. Harry supported her back with a firm hand and, executing a few masterly steps, waltzed them away into the throng of dancers at the end of the gallery.
    Helen sighed, pleased, thinking of the cotillion when she first saw Lan. She had felt so grown up, in the stiff silk evening dress her mother ordered, her hair put up for the first time. Helen noticed him right away, even before her mother pointed him out, whispering his marriageable qualifications in her ear with irritating urgency. Helen hadn’t heard a thing her mother said. Perhaps his being so much older was a part of it: his face was nut brown, and his eyes looked haunted and knowing. All those years at sea, and it seemed that part of him was forever at sea, unreachable. She shivered at the memory.
    Harry Widener might not be as mysterious to Eulah as Lan had been to her, but then Eulah didn’t have Helen’s taste for mystery. Mrs. Dee had recognized the spark of the unusual in Helen right away, but it was a private spark, one that she kept hidden beneath a well-rehearsed public face.
    Eulah, however, was an outward-looking girl. Headstrong, too quick with her desires and opinions. Helen worried that she was hungry for life, almost demanding of it. She would do well with a young man like Harry: well educated, moneyed, bookish, reliable. A trifle boring. He would settle Eulah down. Helen pressed her lips together in resolve. Never mind