Why was it?
Althea wondered, as, with almost a mother's wistful pleasure, she watched her friend and watched the others watch her.

Pale, jaded, in her thin grey dress, haggard and hardly beautiful, Helen was full of apathetic power, and Helen was interested in nobody.

It was Althea's pride to trace out reasons and to see in what Helen's subjugating quality consisted.
Franklin had taken Helen in, and she herself sat at some distance from them, her heart beating fast as she wondered what Helen would think of him.

She could not hear what they said, but she could see that they talked, though not eagerly.

Helen had, as usual, the air of giving her attention to anything put before her.