However, Helen was again relieved from her plight by the fact that as the fiddler stopped and the faint applause died out, she saw Mr. Harrison coming towards her.  Mr. Harrison had somehow succeeded in extricating himself from the difficulty in which his hostess had placed him, and had no doubt guessed that Helen was no better pleased with her new companion.

“May I join you?” he asked, as he neared the sofa.

“Certainly,” said Helen, smiling; she introduced the two men, and Mr. Harrison sat down upon the other side of the girl.  Somehow or other he seemed less endurable than he had just before, for his voice was not as soft as Mr. Howard’s, and now that Helen’s animation was gone she was again aware of the millionaire’s very limited attainments.

“That was a very interesting thing we just heard,” he said.  “What was it?  Do you know?”

Helen answered that it was Raff’s Cavatina.

“Cavatina?” said Mr. Harrison.  “The name sounds familiar; I may have heard it before.”

Helen glanced nervously at Mr. Howard; but the latter gave no sign.

“Mr. Howard is himself a violinist,” she said.  “We must be careful what criticisms we make.”

“Oh, I do not make any—­I do not know enough about it,” said the other, with heartiness which somehow seemed to Helen to fail of deserving the palliating epithet of “bluff.”

“Mr. Howard has just been telling me about my own playing,” Helen went on, growing a little desperate.

“I hope he admired it as much as I did,” said the unfortunate railroad-president.

“I’m afraid he didn’t,” said Helen, trying to turn the matter into a laugh.

“He didn’t!” exclaimed Mr. Harrison, in surprise.  “Pray, why not?”

He asked the question of Mr. Howard, and Helen shuddered, for fear he might begin with that dreadful “There are always three persons concerned, you know.”  But the man merely said, very quietly, “My criticism was of rather a technical nature, Mr. Harrison.”

“I’m sure, for my part I thought her playing wonderful,” said the gentleman from Cincinnati, to which the other did not reply.

Helen felt herself between two fires and her vexation was increasing every moment; yet, try as she might, she could not think of anything to change the subject, and it was fortunate that the watchful Aunt Polly was on hand to save her.  Mrs. Roberts was too diplomatic a person not to see the unwisdom of putting Mr. Harrison in a position where his deficiencies must be so very apparent, and so she came over, determined to carry one of the two men away.  She was relieved of the trouble by the fact that, as she came near, Mr. Howard rose, again with some pain as it seemed to Helen, and asked the girl to excuse him.  “I have been feeling quite ill today,” he explained.

Helen, as she saw him walk away with Mrs. Roberts, sank back with a sigh which was only half restrained.  “A very peculiar person,” said Mr. Harrison, who was clever enough to divine her vexation.”