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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18886-8.txt b/18886-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2bdea9a --- /dev/null +++ b/18886-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11457 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Franklin Kane, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Franklin Kane + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +Release Date: July 22, 2006 [EBook #18886] +[Last updated: December 30, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKLIN KANE *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Pryor, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: 'My dear Mr. Kane, I do congratulate you,' Helen said.] + + +FRANKLIN + +KANE + + +BY + +ANNE DOUGLAS + +SEDGWICK + +(MRS. BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT) + + + +T. NELSON & SONS +LONDON AND EDINBURGH +PARIS: 189, rue Saint-Jacques +LEIPZIG: 35-37 Königstrasse + + + + +FRANKLIN KANE. + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Miss Althea Jakes was tired after her long journey from Basle. It was a +brilliant summer afternoon, and though the shutters were half closed on +the beating Parisian sunlight, the hotel sitting-room looked, in its +brightness, hardly shadowed. Unpinning her hat, laying it on the table +beside her, passing her hands over the undisordered folds of her hair, +Miss Jakes looked about her at the old-gold brocade of the furniture, +the many mirrors in ornate gold frames, the photographs from Bougereau, +the long, crisp lace curtains. It was the same sitting-room that she had +had last year, the same that she had had the year before last--the same, +indeed, to which she had been conducted on her first stay at the Hôtel +Talleyrand, eight years ago. The brocade looked as new, the gilded +frames as glittering, the lace curtains as snowy as ever. Everything was +as she had always seen it, from the ugly Satsuma vases flanking the ugly +bronze clock on the mantelpiece, to the sheaf of pink roses lying beside +her in their white paper wrappings. Even Miss Harriet Robinson's choice +of welcoming flowers was the same. So it had always been, and so, no +doubt, it would continue to be for many years to come; and she, no +doubt, for many summers, would arrive from Basle to sit, jadedly, +looking at it. + +Amélie, her maid, was unpacking in the next room; the door was ajar, and +Miss Jakes could hear the creaking of lifted trays and the rustling of +multitudinous tissue-paper layers. The sounds suggested an answer to a +dim question that had begun to hover in her travel-worn mind. One came +back every summer to the Hôtel Talleyrand for the purpose of getting +clothes; that, perhaps, was a sufficient answer. Yet, to-day, it did not +seem sufficient. She was not really so very much interested in her +clothes; not nearly enough interested to make them a compensation for +such fatigue and loneliness as she was now feeling. And as she realised +this, a further question followed: in what was she particularly +interested? What was a sufficient motive for all the European +journeyings with which her life, for the past ten or twelve years, had +been filled? In a less jaded mood, in her usual mood of mild, if rather +wistful, assurance, she would have answered at once that she was +interested in everything--in everything that was of the best--pictures, +music, places, and people. These surely were her objects. + +She was that peculiarly civilised being, the American woman of +independent means and discriminating tastes, whose cosmopolitan studies +and acquaintances give, in their multiplicity, the impression of a full, +if not a completed, life. But to-day the gloomy question hovered: was +not the very pilgrimage to Bayreuth, the study of archæology in Rome, +and of pictures in Florence, of much the same nature as the yearly visit +to Paris for clothes? What was attained by it all? Was it not something +merely superficial, to be put on and worn, as it were, not to be lived +for with a growing satisfaction? Miss Jakes did not answer this +question; she dismissed it with some indignation, and she got up and +rang rather sharply for tea, which was late; and after asking the +garçon, with a smile that in its gentleness contrasted with the +sharpness of the pull, that it might be brought at once, she paused near +the table to lean over and smell her sheaf of roses, and to read again, +listlessly, Miss Harriet Robinson's words of affectionate greeting. Miss +Robinson was a middle-aged American lady who lived in Paris, and had +long urged Althea to settle there near her. Ten years ago, when she had +first met Miss Robinson in Boston, Althea had thought her a brilliant +and significant figure; but she had by now met too many of her kind--in +Rome, in Florence, in Dresden--to feel any wish for a more intimate +relationship. She was fond of Miss Robinson, but she prayed that fate +did not reserve for her a withering to the like brisk, colourless +spinsterhood. This hope, the necessity for such hope, was the final +depth of her gloomy mood, and she found herself looking at something +very dark as she stood holding Miss Robinson's expensive roses. For, +after all, what was going to become of her? The final depth shaped +itself to-day in more grimly realistic fashion than ever before: what +was she going to do with herself, in the last resort, unless something +happened? Her mind dwelt upon all the visible alternatives. There was +philanthropic lunch-going and lunch-giving spinsterhood in Boston; there +was spinsterhood in Europe, semi-social, semi-intellectual, and +monotonous in its very variety, for Althea had come to feel change as +monotonous; or there was spinsterhood in England established near her +friend, Miss Buckston, who raised poultry in the country, and went up to +London for Bach choir practices and Woman's Suffrage meetings. Althea +couldn't see herself as taking an interest in poultry or in Woman's +Suffrage, nor did she feel herself fitted for patriotic duties in +Boston. There was nothing for it, then, but to continue her present +nomadic life. After seeing herself shut in to this conclusion, it was a +real relief to her to hear the tea-tray chink outside, and to see it +enter, high on the garçon's shoulder, as if with a trivial but cheerful +reply to her dreary questionings. Tea, at all events, would always +happen and always be pleasant. Althea smiled sadly as she made the +reflection, for she was not of an Epicurean temperament. After she had +drunk her tea she felt strengthened to go in and ask Amélie about her +clothes. She might have to get a great many new ones, especially if she +went home for the autumn and winter, as she half intended to do. She +took up the roses, as she passed them, to show to Amélie. Amélie was a +bony, efficient Frenchwoman, with high cheek-bones and sleek black hair. +She had come to Althea first, many years ago, as a courier-maid, to take +her back to America. Althea's mother had died in Dresden, and Althea had +been equipped by anxious friends with this competent attendant for her +sad return journey. Amélie had proved intelligent and reliable in the +highest degree, and though she had made herself rather disagreeable +during her first year in Boston, she had stayed on ever since. She still +made herself disagreeable from time to time, and Althea had sometimes +lacked only the courage to dismiss her; but she could hardly imagine +herself existing without Amélie, and in Europe Amélie was seldom +disagreeable. In Europe, at the worst, she was gruff and ungracious, and +Althea was fond enough of her to ignore these failings, although they +frightened her a little; but though an easily intimidated person, and +much at a loss in meeting opposition or rudeness, she was also +tenacious. She might be frightened, but people could never make her do +what she didn't want to do, not even Amélie. Her relations with Amélie +were slightly strained just now, for she had not taken her advice as to +their return journey from Venice. Amélie had insisted on Mont Cenis, and +Althea had chosen the St. Gothard; so that it was as a measure of +propitiation that she selected three of the roses for Amélie as she went +into the bedroom. Amélie, who was kneeling before one of the larger +boxes and carefully lifting skirts from its trays, paused to sniff at +the flowers, and to express a terse thanks and admiration. 'Ah, bien +merci, mademoiselle,' she said, laying her share on the table beside +her. + +She was not very encouraging about the condition of Althea's wardrobe. + +'Elles sont défraîchies--démodées--en vérité, mademoiselle,' she +replied, when Althea asked if many new purchases were necessary. + +Althea sighed. 'All the fittings!' + +'Il faut souffrir pour être belle,' said Amélie unsympathetically. + +Althea had not dared yet to tell her that she might be going back to +America that winter. The thought of Amélie's gloom cast a shadow over +the project, and she could not yet quite face it. She wandered back to +the sitting-room, and, thinking of Amélie's last words, she stood for +some time and looked at herself in the large mirror which rose from +mantelpiece to cornice, enclosed in cascades of gilt. One of the things +that Althea, in her mild assurance, was really secure of--for, as we +have intimated, her assurance often covered a certain insecurity--was +her own appearance. She didn't know about 'belle,' that seemed rather a +trivial term, and the English equivalent better to express the +distinctive characteristic of her face. She had so often been told she +was nobly beautiful that she did not see herself critically, and she now +leaned her elbow on the mantelpiece and gazed at herself with sad +approbation. The mirror reflected only her head and shoulders, and Miss +Jakes's figure could not, even by a partisan, have been described as +beautiful; she was short, and though immature in outline, her form was +neither slender nor graceful. Althea did not feel these defects, and was +well satisfied with her figure, especially with her carriage, which was +full of dignity; but it was her head that best pleased her, and her +head, indeed, had aspects of great benignity and sweetness. It was a +large head, crowned with coils of dull gold hair; her clothing followed +the fashions obediently, but her fashion of dressing her hair did not +vary, and the smooth parting, the carved ripples along her brow became +her, though they did not become her stiffly conventional attire. Her +face, though almost classic in its spaces and modelling, lacked in +feature the classic decision and amplitude, so that the effect was +rather that of a dignified room meagrely furnished. For these +deficiencies, however, Miss Jakes's eyes might well be accepted as +atonement. They were large, dark, and innocent; they lay far apart, +heavily lidded and with wistful eyebrows above them; their expression +varied easily from lucid serenity to a stricken, expectant look, like +that of a threatened doe, and slight causes could make Miss Jakes's eyes +look stricken. They did not look stricken now, but they looked +profoundly melancholy. + +Here she stood, in the heartless little French sitting-room, meaning so +well, so desirous of the best, yet alone, uncertain of any aim, and very +weary of everything. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Althea, though a cosmopolitan wanderer, had seldom stayed in an hotel +unaccompanied. She did not like, now, going down to the _table d'hôte_ +dinner alone, and was rather glad that her Aunt Julia and Aunt Julia's +two daughters were to arrive in Paris next week. It was really almost +the only reason she had for being glad of Aunt Julia's arrival, and she +could imagine no reason for being glad of the girls'. Tiresome as it was +to think of going to tea with Miss Harriet Robinson, to think of hearing +from her all the latest gossip, and all the latest opinions of the +latest books and pictures--alert, mechanical appreciations with which +Miss Robinson was but too ready--it was yet more tiresome to look +forward to Aunt Julia's appreciations, which were dogmatic and often +belated, and to foresee that she must run once more the gauntlet of Aunt +Julia's disapproval of expatriated Americans. Althea was accustomed to +these assaults and met them with weary dignity, at times expostulating: +'It is all very well for you, Aunt Julia, who have Uncle Tom and the +girls; I have nobody, and all my friends are married.' But this brought +upon her an invariable retort: 'Well, why don't you get married then? +Franklin Winslow Kane asks nothing better.' This retort angered Althea, +but she was too fond of Franklin Winslow Kane to reply that perhaps +she, herself, did ask something better. So that it was as a convenience, +and not as a comfort, that she looked forward to Aunt Julia; and to the +girls she did not look forward at all. They were young, ebullient, +slangy; they belonged to a later generation than her own, strange to her +in that it seemed weighted with none of the responsibilities and +reverences that she had grown up among. It was a generation that had no +respect for and no anxiety concerning Europe; that played violent +outdoor games, and went without hats in summer. + +The dining-room was full when she went down to dinner, her inward tremor +of shyness sustained by the consciousness of the perfect fit and cut of +her elaborate little dress. People sat at small tables, and the general +impression was one of circumspection and withdrawal. Most of the +occupants were of Althea's type--richly dressed, quiet-voiced Americans, +careful of their own dignity and quick at assessing other people's. A +French family loudly chattered and frankly stared in one corner; for the +rest, all seemed to be compatriots. + +But after Althea had taken her seat at her own table near the pleasantly +open window, and had consulted the menu and ordered a half-bottle of +white wine, another young woman entered and went to the last vacant +table left in the room, the table next Althea's--so near, indeed, that +the waiter found some difficulty in squeezing himself between them when +he presented the _carte des vins_ to the newcomer. + +She was not an American, Althea felt sure of this at once, and the mere +negation was so emphatic that it almost constituted, for the first +startled glance, a complete definition. But, glancing again and again, +while she ate her soup, Althea realised there were so many familiar +things the newcomer was not, that she seemed made up of differences. The +fact that she was English--she spoke to the waiter absent-mindedly in +that tongue--did not make her less different, for she was like no +English person that Althea had ever seen. She engaged at once the whole +of her attention, but at first Althea could not have said whether this +attention were admiring; her main impression was of oddity, of something +curiously arresting and noticeable. + +The newcomer sat in profile to Althea, her back to the room, facing the +open window, out of which she gazed vaguely and unseeingly. She was +dressed in black, a thin dress, rather frayed along the edges--an +evening dress; though, as a concession to Continental custom, she had a +wide black scarf over her bare shoulders. She sat, leaning forward, her +elbows on the table, and once, when she glanced round and found Althea's +eyes fixed on her, she looked back for a moment, but with something of +the same vagueness and unseeingness with which she looked out of the +window. + +She was very odd. An enemy might say that she had Chinese eyes +and a beak-like nose. The beak was small, as were all the +features--delicately, decisively placed in the pale, narrow face--yet it +jutted over prominently, and the long eyes were updrawn at the outer +corners and only opened widely with an effect of effort. She had +quantities of hair, dense and dark, arranged with an ordered +carelessness, and widely framing her face and throat. She was very +thin, and she seemed very tired; and fatigue, which made Althea look +wistful, made this young lady look bored and bitter. Her grey eyes, +perhaps it was the strangeness of their straight-drawn upper lids, were +dazed and dim in expression. She ate little, leaned limply on her +elbows, and sometimes rubbed her hands over her face, and sat so, her +fingers in her hair, for a languid moment. Dinner was only half over +when she rose and went away, her black dress trailing behind her, and a +moon-like space of neck visible between her heavily-clustered hair and +the gauze scarf. + +Althea could not have said why, but for the rest of the meal, and after +she had gone back to her sitting-room, the thought of the young lady in +black remained almost oppressively with her. + +She had felt empty and aimless before seeing her; since seeing her she +felt more empty, more aimless than ever. It was an absurd impression, +and she tried to shake it off with the help of a recent volume of +literary criticism, but it coloured her mind as though a drop of some +potent chemical had been tipped into her uncomfortable yet indefinable +mood, and had suddenly made visible in it all sorts of latent elements. + +It was curious to feel, as a deep conviction about a perfect stranger, +that though the young lady in black might often know moods, they would +never be undefined ones; to be sure that, however little she had, she +would always accurately know what she wanted. The effect of seeing some +one so hard, so clear, so alien, was much as if, a gracefully moulded +but fragile earthenware pot, she had suddenly, while floating down the +stream, found herself crashing against the bronze vessel of the fable. + +A corrective to this morbid state of mind came to her with the evening +post, and in the form of a thick letter bearing the Boston postmark. +Franklin Winslow Kane had not occurred to Althea as an alternative to +the various forms of dignified extinction with which her imagination had +been occupied that afternoon. Franklin often occurred to her as a +solace, but he never occurred to her as an escape. + +He was a young man of very homespun extraction, who hovered in Boston on +the ambiguous verge between the social and the scholastic worlds; the +sort of young man whom one asked to tea rather than to dinner. He was an +earnest student, and was attached to the university by an official, +though unimportant, tie. A physicist, and, in his own sober way, with +something of a reputation, he was profoundly involved in theories that +dealt with the smallest things and the largest--molecules and the +formation of universes. + +He had first proposed to Althea when she was eighteen. She was now +thirty-three, and for all these years Franklin had proposed to her on +every occasion that offered itself. He was deeply, yet calmly, +determinedly, yet ever so patiently, in love with her; and while other +more eligible and more easily consoled aspirants had drifted away and +got married and become absorbed in their growing families, Franklin +alone remained admirably faithful. She had never given him any grounds +for expecting that she might some day marry him, yet he evidently found +it impossible to marry anybody else. This was the touching fact about +Franklin, the one bright point, as it were, in his singularly colourless +personality. His fidelity was like a fleck of orange on the wing of some +grey, unobtrusive moth; it made him visible. + +Althea's compassionate friendship seemed to sustain him sufficiently on +his way; he did not pine or protest, though he punctually requested. He +frequently appeared and he indefatigably wrote, and his long constancy, +the unemotional trust and closeness of their intimacy, made him seem +less a lover than the American husband of tradition, devoted and +uncomplaining, who had given up hoping that his wife would ever come +home and live with him. + +Althea rather resented this aspect of their relation; she was well aware +of its comicality; but though Franklin's devotion was at times something +of a burden, though she could expect from him none of the glamour of +courtship, she could ill have dispensed with his absorption in her. +Franklin's absorption in her was part of her own personality; she would +hardly have known herself without it; and her relation to him, irksome, +even absurd as she sometimes found it, was perhaps the one thing in her +life that most nearly linked her to reality; it was a mirage, at all +events, of the responsible affections that her life lacked. + +And now, in her mood of positive morbidity, the sight of Franklin's +handwriting on the thick envelope brought her the keenest sense she had +ever had of his value. One might have no aim oneself, yet to be some one +else's aim saved one from that engulfing consciousness of nonentity; one +might be uncertain and indefinite, but a devotion like Franklin's +really defined one. She must be significant, after all, since this very +admirable person--admirable, though ineligible--had found her so for so +many years. It was with a warming sense of restoration, almost of +reconstruction, that she opened the letter, drew out the thickly-folded +sheets of thin paper and began to read the neat, familiar writing. He +told her everything that he was doing and thinking, and about everything +that interested him. He wrote to her of kinetics and atoms as if she had +been a fellow-student. It was as if, helplessly, he felt the whole bulk +of his outlook to be his only chance of interesting her, since no detail +was likely to do so. Unfortunately it didn't interest her much. +Franklin's eagerness about some local election, or admiration for some +talented pupil, or enthusiasm in regard to a new theory that delved +deeper and circled wider than any before, left her imagination inert, as +did he. But to-night all these things were transformed by the greatness +of her own need and of her own relief. And when she read that Franklin +was to be in Europe in six weeks' time, and that he intended to spend +some months there, and, if she would allow it, as near her as was +possible, a sudden hope rose in her and seemed almost a joy. + +Was it so impossible, after all, as an alternative? Equipped with her +own outlooks, with her wider experience, and with her ample means, might +not dear Franklin be eligible? To sink back on Franklin, after all these +years, would be, of course, to confess to failure; but even in failure +there were choices, and wasn't this the best form of failure? Franklin +was not, could never be, the lover she had dreamed of; she had never met +that lover, and she had always dreamed of him. Franklin was +dun-coloured; the lover of her dreams a Perseus-like flash of purple and +gold, ardent, graceful, compelling, some one who would open doors to +large, bright vistas, and lead her into a life of beauty. But this was a +dream and Franklin was the fact, and to-night he seemed the only fact +worth looking at. Wasn't dun-colour, after all, preferable to the +trivial kaleidoscope of shifting tints which was all that the future, +apart from Franklin, seemed to offer her? Might not dun-colour, even, +illuminated by joy, turn to gold, like highway dust when the sun shines +upon it? Althea wondered, leaning back in her chair and gazing before +her; she wondered deeply. + +If only Franklin would come in now with the right look. If only he would +come in with the right word, or, if not with the word, with an even more +compelling silence! Compulsion was needed, and could Franklin compel? +Could he make her fall in love with him? So she wondered, sitting alone +in the Paris hotel, the open letter in her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +When Althea went in to lunch next day, after an arduous morning of +shopping, she observed, with mingled relief and disappointment, that the +young lady in black was not in her place. She might very probably have +gone away, and it was odd to think that an impression so strong was +probably to remain an impression merely. On the whole, she was sorry to +think that it might be so, though the impression had not been altogether +happy. + +After lunch she lay down and read reviews for a lazy hour, and then +dressed to receive Miss Harriet Robinson, who, voluble and beaming, +arrived punctually at four. + +Miss Robinson looked almost exactly as she had looked for the last ten +years. She changed as little as the hotel drawing-room, but that the +pictures on the wall, the vases on the shelf of her mental decoration +varied with every season. She was always passionately interested in +something, and it was surprising to note how completely in the new she +forgot last year's passion. This year it was eugenics and Strauss; the +welfare of the race had suddenly engaged her attention, and the menaced +future of music. She was slender, erect, and beautifully dressed. Her +hands were small, and she constantly but inexpressively gesticulated +with them; her elaborately undulated hair looked like polished, fluted +silver; her eyes were small, dark, and intent; she smiled as constantly +and as inexpressively as she gesticulated. + +'And so you really think of going back for the winter?' she asked Althea +finally, when the responsibilities of parenthood and the impermanency of +modern musical artifices had been demonstrated. 'Why, my dear? You see +everybody here. Everybody comes here, sooner or later.' + +'I don't like getting out of touch with home,' said Althea. + +'I confess that I feel this home,' said Miss Robinson. 'America is so +horribly changed, so vulgarised. The people they accept socially! And +the cost of things! My dear, the last time I went to the States I had to +pay five hundred francs--one hundred dollars--for my winter hat! _Je +vous demande!_ If they will drive us out they must take the +consequences.' + +Althea felt tempted to inquire what these might be. Miss Robinson +sometimes roused a slight irony in her; but she received the +expostulation with a dim smile. + +'Why won't you settle here?' Miss Robinson continued, 'or in Rome--there +is quite a delightful society in Rome--or Florence, or London. Not that +I could endure the English winter.' + +'I've sometimes thought of England,' said Althea. + +'Well, do think of it. I'm perfectly disinterested. Rather than have you +unsettled, I would like to have you settled there. You have interesting +friends, I know.' + +'Yes, very interesting,' said Althea, with some satisfaction. + +'You would probably make quite a place for yourself in London, if you +went at it carefully and consideringly, and didn't allow the wrong sort +of people to _accaparer_ you. We always count, when we want to, we +American women of the good type,' said Miss Robinson, with frank +complacency; 'and I don't see why, with your gifts and charm, you +shouldn't have a salon, political or artistic.' + +Althea was again tempted to wonder what it was Miss Robinson counted +for; but since she had often been told that her gifts and charm demanded +a salon, she was inclined to believe it. 'It's only,' she demurred, +'that I have so many friends, in so many places; it is hard to decide on +settling.' + +'One never does make a real life for oneself until one does settle. I've +found that out for myself,' said Miss Robinson. + +It did not enter into her mind that Althea might still settle, in a +different sense. She was of that vast army of rootless Europeanised +Americans, who may almost be said to belong to a celibate order, so +little does the question of matrimony and family life affect their +existence. For a younger, more frivolous type, Europe might have a +merely matrimonial significance; but to Miss Robinson, and to thousands +of her kind, it meant an escape from displeasing circumstance and a +preoccupation almost monastic with the abstract and the æsthetic. To +Althea it had never meant merely that. Her own people in America were +fastidious and exclusive; from choice, they considered, but, in reality, +partly from necessity; they had never been rich enough or fashionable +enough to be exposed to the temptation of great European alliances. +Althea would have scorned such ambitions as basely vulgar; she had never +thought of Europe as an arena for social triumphs; but it had assuredly +been coloured for her with the colour of romance. It was in Europe, +rather than in America, that she expected to find, if ever, her ardent, +compelling wooer. And it irritated her a little that Miss Robinson +should not seem to consider such a possibility for her. + +She did not accept her friend's invitation to go with her to the +Français that evening; the weariness of the morning of shopping was her +excuse. She wanted to study a little; she never neglected to keep her +mind in training; and after dinner she sat down with a stout tome on +political economy. She had only got through half a chapter when Amélie +came to her and asked her if she could suggest a remedy for a young lady +next door who, the _femme de chambre_ said, was quite alone, and had +evidently succumbed to a violent attack of influenza. + +'C'est une dame anglaise,' said Amélie, 'et une bien gentille.' + +Althea sprang up, strangely excited. Was it the lady in black? Had she +then not gone yet? 'Next door, you say?' she asked. Yes; the stranger's +bedroom was next her own, and she had no _salon_. + +'I will go in myself and see her,' said Althea, after a moment of +reflection. + +She was not at all given to such impulses, and, under any other +circumstances, would have sent Amélie with the offer of assistance. But +she suddenly felt it an opportunity, for what she could not have said. +It was like seeing a curious-looking book opened before one; one wanted +to read in it, if only a snatched paragraph here and there. + +Amélie protested as to infection, but Althea was a resourceful traveller +and had disinfectants for every occasion. She drenched her handkerchief, +gargled her throat, and, armed with her little case of remedies, knocked +at the door near by. A languid voice answered her and she entered. + +The room was lighted by two candles that stood on the mantelpiece, and +the bed in its alcove was dim. Tossed clothes lay on the chairs; a +battered box stood open, its tray lying on the floor; the dressing-table +was in confusion, and the scent of cigarette smoke mingled with that of +a tall white lily that was placed in a vase on a little table beside the +bed. To the well-maided Althea the disorder was appalling, yet it +expressed, too, something of charm. The invalid lay plunged in her +pillows, her dark hair tossed above her head, and, as Althea approached, +she did not unclose her eyes. + +'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Althea, feeling some trepidation. 'My maid +told me that you were ill--that you had influenza, and I know just what +to do for it. May I give you some medicine? I do hope I have not waked +you up,' for the invalid was now looking at her with some astonishment. + +'No; I wasn't asleep. How very kind of you. I thought it was the +chambermaid,' she said. 'Forgive me for seeming so rude.' + +Her eyes were more dazed than ever, and she more mysterious, with her +unbound hair. + +'You oughtn't to lie with your arms outside the covers like that,' said +Althea. 'It's most important not to get chilled. I'm afraid you don't +know how to take care of yourself.' She smiled a little, gentle and +assured, though inwardly with still a tremor; and she drew the clothes +about the invalid, who had relapsed passively on to her pillows. + +'I'm afraid I don't. How very kind of you!' she murmured again. + +Althea brought a glass of water and, selecting her little bottle, poured +out the proper number of drops. 'You were feeling ill last night, +weren't you?' she said, after the dose had been swallowed. 'I thought +that you looked ill.' + +'Last night?' + +'Yes, don't you remember? I sat next you in the dining-room.' + +'Oh yes; of course, of course! I remember now. You had this dress on; I +noticed all the little silver tassels. Yes, I've been feeling wretched +for several days; I've done hardly anything--no shopping, no +sight-seeing, and I ought to be back in London to-morrow; but I suppose +I'll have to stay in bed for a week; it's very tiresome.' She spoke +wearily, yet in decisive little sentences, and her voice, its hardness +and its liquid intonations, made Althea think of wet pebbles softly +shaken together. + +'You haven't sent for a doctor?' she inquired, while she took out her +small clinical thermometer. + +'No, indeed; I never send for doctors. Can't afford 'em,' said the young +lady, with a wan grimace. 'Must I put that into my mouth?' + +'Yes, please; I must take your temperature. I think, if you let me +prescribe for you, I can see after you as well as a doctor,' Althea +assured her. 'I'm used to taking care of people who are ill. The friend +I've just been staying with in Venice had influenza very badly while I +was with her.' + +She rather hoped, after the thermometer was removed, that the young lady +would ask her some question about Venice and her present destination; +but, though so amiable and so grateful, she did not seem to feel any +curiosity about the good Samaritan who thus succoured her. + +Althea found her patient less feverish next morning when she went in +early to see her, and though she said that her body felt as though it +were being beaten with red-hot hammers, she smiled in saying it, and +Althea then, administering her dose, asked her what her name might be. + +It was Helen Buchanan, she learned. + +'And mine is Althea Jakes. You are English, aren't you?' + +'Oh no, I'm Scotch,' said Miss Buchanan. + +'And I am American. Do you know any Americans?' + +'Oh yes, quite a lot. One of them is a Mrs. Harrison, and lives in +Chicago,' said Miss Buchanan, who seemed in a more communicative mood. +'I met her in Nice one winter; a very nice, kind woman, who gives most +sumptuous parties. Her husband is a millionaire; one never sees him. Do +you come from Chicago? Do you know her?' + +Althea, with some emphasis, said that she came from Boston. + +'Another,' Miss Buchanan pursued, 'lives in New York, though she is +usually over here; she is immensely rich, too. She hunts every winter +in England, and is great fun and is frightfully well up in +everything--pictures, books, music, you know: Americans usually are well +up, aren't they? She wants me to stay with her some day in New York; +perhaps I shall, if I can manage to afford the voyage. Her name is +Bigham; perhaps you know her.' + +'No. I know of her, though; she is very well known,' said Althea rather +coldly; for Mrs. Bigham was an excessively fashionable and reputedly +reckless lady who had divorced one husband and married another, and +whose doings filled more scrupulous circles with indignation and +unwilling interest. + +'Then I met a dear little woman in Oxford once,' said Miss Buchanan. +'She was studying there--she had come from a college in America. She was +so nice and clever, and charming, too; quaint and full of flavour. She +was going to teach in a college when she went back. She was very poor, +quite different from the others. Her father, she told me, kept a shop, +but didn't get on at all; and her brother, to whom she was devoted, sold +harmoniums. It was just like an American novel. Wayman was her +name--Miss Carrie Wayman; perhaps you know her. I forget the name of the +town she came from, but it was somewhere in the western part of +America.' + +No, Althea said, she did not know Miss Wayman, and she felt some little +severity for the confusion that Miss Buchanan's remarks indicated. With +greater emphasis than before, she said that she did not know the West at +all. + +'It must be rather nice--plains and cowboys and Rocky Mountains,' Miss +Buchanan said. 'I've a cousin on a ranch in Dakota, and I've often +thought I'd like to go out there for a season; he says the riding is +wonderful, and the scenery and flowers. Oh, my wretched head; it feels +as if it were stuffed with incandescent cotton-wool.' + +'You must remember to keep your arms under the covers,' said Althea, as +Miss Buchanan lifted her hands and pressed them to her brows. 'And let +me plait your hair for you; it must be so hot and uncomfortable.' + +And now again, looking up at her while the friendly office was +performed, Miss Buchanan said, 'How kind you are! too kind for words. I +can't think what I should have done without you.' + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It became easy after this for Althea to carry into effect all her +beneficent wishes. The friends who had taken Miss Buchanan to the +Riviera had gone on to London, leaving her alone in Paris for a week's +shopping, and there was no one else to look after her. She brought her +fruit and flowers and sat with her in all her spare moments. The feeling +of anxiety that had oppressed her on the evening of gloom when she had +first seen her was transformed into a soft and delightful perturbation. +As the unknown lady in black Miss Buchanan had indeed charmed as well as +oppressed her, and the charm grew while the oppression, though it still +hovered, was felt more as a sense of alluring mystery. She had never in +her life met any one in the least like Miss Buchanan. She was at once so +open and so impenetrable. She replied to all questions with complete +unreserve, but she had never, with all her candour, the air of making +confidences. It hurt Althea a little, and yet was part of the +allurement, to see that she was, probably, too indifferent to be +reticent. Lying on her pillows, a cigarette--all too frequently, Althea +considered--between her lips, and her hair wound in a heavy wreath upon +her head, she would listen pleasantly, and as pleasantly reply; and +Althea could not tell whether it was because she really found it +pleasant to talk and be talked to, or whether, since she had nothing +better to do, she merely showed good manners. Althea was sensitive to +every shade in manners, and was sure that Miss Buchanan, however great +her tact might be, did not find her a bore; yet she could not be at all +sure that she found her interesting, and this disconcerted her. +Sometimes the suspicion of it made her feel humble, and sometimes it +made her feel a little angry, for she was not accustomed to being found +uninteresting. She herself, however, was interested; and it was when she +most frankly owned to this, laying both anger and humility aside, that +she was happiest in the presence of her new acquaintance. She liked to +talk to her, and she liked to make her talk. From these conversations +she was soon able to build up a picture of Miss Buchanan's life. She +came of an old Scotch family, and she had spent her childhood and +girlhood in an old Scotch house. This house, Althea was sure, she really +did enjoy talking about. She described it to Althea: the way the rooms +lay, and the passages ran, and the queer old stairs climbed up and down. +She described the ghost that she herself had seen once--her +matter-of-fact acceptance of the ghost startled Althea--and the hills +and moors that one looked out on from the windows. Led by Althea's +absorbed inquiries, she drifted on to detailed reminiscence--the dogs +she had cared for, the flowers she had grown, and the dear red lacquer +mirror that she had broken. 'Papa did die that year,' she added, after +mentioning the incident. + +'Surely you don't connect the two things,' said Althea, who felt some +remonstrance necessary. Miss Buchanan said no, she supposed not; it was +silly to be superstitious; yet she didn't like breaking mirrors. + +Her brother lived in the house now. He had married some one she didn't +much care about, though she did not enlarge on this dislike. 'Nigel had +to marry money,' was all she said. 'He couldn't have kept the place +going if he hadn't. Jessie isn't at all a bad sort, and they get on very +well and have three nice little boys; but I don't much take to her nor +she to me, so that I'm not much there any more.' + +'And your mother?' Althea questioned, 'where does she live? Don't you +stay with her ever?' She had gathered that the widowed Mrs. Buchanan was +very pretty and very selfish, but she was hardly prepared for the +frankness with which Miss Buchanan defined her own attitude towards her. + +'Oh, I can't stand Mamma,' she said; 'we don't get on at all. I'm not +fond of rowdy people, and Mamma knows such dreadful bounders. So long as +people have plenty of money and make things amusing for her, she'll put +up with anything.' + +Althea had all the American reverence for the sanctities and loyalties +of the family, and these ruthless explanations filled her with uneasy +surprise. Miss Buchanan was ruthless about all her relatives; there were +few of them, apparently, that she cared for except the English cousins +with whom she had spent many years of girlhood, and the Aunt Grizel who +made a home for her in London. To her she alluded with affectionate +emphasis: 'Oh, Aunt Grizel is very different from the rest of them.' + +Aunt Grizel was not well off, but it was she who made Helen the little +allowance that enabled her to go about; and she had insured her life, so +that at her death, when her annuity lapsed, Helen should be sure of the +same modest sum. 'Owing to Aunt Grizel I'll just not starve,' said +Helen, with the faint grimace, half bitter, half comic, that sometimes +made her strange face still stranger. 'One hundred and fifty pounds a +year: think of it! Isn't it damnable? Yet it's better than nothing, as +Aunt Grizel and I often say after groaning together.' + +Althea, safely niched in her annual three thousand, was indeed +horrified. + +'One hundred and fifty,' she repeated helplessly. 'Do you mean that you +manage to dress on that now?' + +'Dress on it, my dear! I pay all my travelling expenses, my cabs, my +stamps, my Christmas presents--everything out of it, as well as buy my +clothes. And it will have to pay for my rent and food besides, when Aunt +Grizel dies--when I'm not being taken in somewhere. Of course, she still +counts on my marrying, poor dear.' + +'Oh, but, of course you _will_ marry,' said Althea, with conviction. + +Miss Buchanan, who was getting much better, was propped high on her +pillows to-day, and was attired in a most becoming flow of lace and +silk. Nothing less exposed to the gross chances of the world could be +imagined. She did not turn her eyes on her companion as the confident +assertion was made, and she kept silence for a moment. Then she +answered placidly: + +'Of course, if I'm to live--and not merely exist--I must try to, I +suppose.' + +Althea was taken aback and pained by the wording of this speech. Her +national susceptibilities were again wounded by the implication that a +rare and beautiful woman--for so she termed Helen Buchanan--might be +forced, not only to hope for marriage, but to seek it; the implication +that urgency lay rather in the woman's state than in the man's. She had +all the romantic American confidence in the power of the rare and +beautiful woman to marry when and whom she chose. + +'I am sure you need never try,' she said with warmth. 'I'm sure you have +dozens of delightful people in love with you.' + +Miss Buchanan turned her eyes on her and laughed as though she found +this idea amusing. 'Why, in heaven's name, should I have dozens of +delightful people in love with me?' + +'You are so lovely, so charming, so distinguished.' + +'Am I? Thanks, my dear. I'm afraid you see things _en couleur de rose_.' +And, still smiling, her eyes dwelling on Althea with their indifferent +kindness, she went on: 'Have you delightful dozens in love with you?' + +Althea did not desert her guns. She felt that the very honour of their +sex--hers and Helen's--was on trial in her person. She might not be as +lovely as her friend--though she might be; that wasn't a matter for her +to inquire into; but as woman--as well-bred, highly educated, refined +and gentle woman--she, too, was chooser, and not seeker. + +'Only one delightful person is in love with me at this moment, I'm sorry +to say,' she answered, smiling back; 'but I've had very nearly my proper +share in the past.' It had been necessary thus to deck poor Franklin out +if her standpoint were to be maintained; and, indeed, could not one deem +him delightful, in some senses--in moral senses; he surely was +delightfully good. The little effort to see dear Franklin's goodness as +delightful rather discomposed her, and as Miss Buchanan asked no further +question as to the one delightful suitor, the little confusion mounted +to her eyes and cheeks. She wondered if she had spoken tastelessly, and +hastened away from this personal aspect of the question. + +'You don't really mean--I'm sure you don't mean that you would marry +just for money.' + +Miss Buchanan kept her ambiguous eyes half merrily, half pensively upon +her. 'Of course, if he were very nice. I wouldn't marry a man who wasn't +nice for money.' + +'Surely you couldn't marry a man unless you were in love with him?' + +'Certainly I could. Money lasts, and love so often doesn't.' Helen +continued to smile as she spoke. + +There was now a tremor of pain in Althea's protest. 'Dear Miss Buchanan, +I can't bear to hear you speak like that. I can't bear to think of any +one so lovely doing anything so sordid, so miserable, as making a +_mariage de convenance_.' Tears rose to her eyes. + +Miss Buchanan was again silent for a moment, and it was now her turn to +look slightly confused. 'It's very nice of you to mind,' she said; and +she added, as if to help Althea not to mind, 'But, you see, I am sordid; +I am miserable.' + +'Sordid? Miserable? Do you mean unhappy?' Poor Althea gazed, full of her +most genuine distress. + +'Oh no; I mean in your sense. I'm a poor creature, quite ordinary and +grubby; that's all,' said Miss Buchanan. + +They said nothing more of it then, beyond Althea's murmur of now +inarticulate protest; but the episode probably remained in Miss +Buchanan's memory as something rather puzzling as well as rather +pitiful, this demonstration of a feeling so entirely unexpected that she +had not known what to do with it. + +If, in these graver matters, she distressed Althea, in lesser ones she +was continually, if not distressing her, at all events calling upon her, +in complete unconsciousness, for readjustments of focus that were +sometimes, in their lesser way, painful too. When she asserted that she +was not musical, Althea almost suspected her of saying it in order to +evade her own descriptions of experiences at Bayreuth. Pleasantly as she +might listen, it was sometimes, Althea had discovered, with a restive +air masked by a pervasive vagueness; this vagueness usually drifted over +her when Althea described experiences of an intellectual or æsthetic +nature. It could be no question of evasion, however, when, in answer to +a question of Althea's, she said that she hated Paris. Since girlhood +Althea had accepted Paris as the final stage in a civilised being's +education: the Théâtre Français, the lectures at the Sorbonne, the +Louvre and the Cluny, and, for a later age, Anatole France--it seemed +almost barbarous to say that one hated the splendid city that clothed, +as did no other place in the world, one's body and one's mind. 'How can +you hate it?' she inquired. 'It means so much that is intellectual, so +much that is beautiful.' + +'I suppose so,' said Miss Buchanan. 'I do like to look at it sometimes; +the spaces and colour are so nice.' + +'The spaces, and what's in them, surely. What is it that you don't like? +The French haven't our standards of morality, of course, but don't you +think it's rather narrow to judge them by our standards?' + +Althea was pleased to set forth thus clearly her own liberality of +standard. She sometimes suspected Miss Buchanan of thinking her naïve. +But Miss Buchanan now looked a little puzzled, as if it were not this at +all that she had meant, and said presently that perhaps it was the +women's faces--the well-dressed women. 'I don't mind the poor ones so +much; they often look too sharp, but they often look kind and +frightfully tired. It is the well-dressed ones I can't put up with. And +the men are even more horrid. I always want to spend a week in walking +over the moors when I've been here. It leaves a hot taste in my mouth, +like some horrid liqueur.' + +'But the beauty--the intelligence,' Althea urged. 'Surely you are a +little intolerant, to see only people's faces in Paris. Think of the +Salon Carrée and the Cluny; they take away the taste of the liqueur. +How can one have enough of them?' + +Miss Buchanan again demurred. 'Oh, I think I can have enough of them.' + +'But you care for pictures, for beautiful things,' said Althea, half +vexed and half disturbed. But Miss Buchanan said that she liked having +them about her, not having to go and look at them. 'It is so stuffy in +museums, too; they always give me a headache. However, I don't believe I +really do care about pictures. You see, altogether I've had no +education.' + +Her education, indeed, contrasted with Althea's well-ordered and +elaborate progression, had been lamentable--a mere succession of +incompetent governesses. Yet, on pressing her researches, Althea, though +finding almost unbelievable voids, felt, more than anything else, tastes +sharp and fine that seemed to cut into her own tastes and show her +suddenly that she did not really like what she had thought she liked, or +that she liked what she had hardly before been aware of. All that Helen +could be brought to define was that she liked looking at things in the +country: at birds, clouds, and flowers; but though striking Althea as a +creature strangely untouched and unmoulded, she struck her yet more +strongly as beautifully definite. She marvelled at her indifference to +her own shortcomings, and she marvelled at the strength of personality +that could so dispense with other people's furnishings. + +Among the things that Helen made her see, freshly and perturbingly, was +the sheaf of friends in England of whom she had thought with such +security when Miss Robinson had spoken of the London _salon_. + +Althea had been trained in a school of severe social caution. Social +caution was personified to her in her memory of her mother--a slender, +black-garbed lady, with parted grey hair, neatly waved along her brow, +and a tortoiseshell lorgnette that she used to raise, mildly yet +alarmingly, at foreign _tables d'hôtes_, for an appraising survey of the +company. The memory of this lorgnette operated with Althea as a sort of +social standard; it typified delicacy, dignity, deliberation, a +scrupulous regard for the claims of heredity, and a scrupulous avoidance +of uncertain or all too certain types. Althea felt that she had carried +on the tradition worthily. The lorgnette would have passed all her more +recent friends--those made with only its inspiration as a guide. She was +as careful as her mother as to whom she admitted to her +acquaintanceship, eschewing in particular those of her compatriots whose +accents or demeanour betrayed them to her trained discrimination as +outside the radius of acceptance. But Althea's kindness of heart was +even deeper than her caution, and much as she dreaded becoming involved +with the wrong sort of people, she dreaded even more hurting anybody's +feelings, with the result that once or twice she had made mistakes, and +had had, under the direction of Lady Blair, to withdraw in a manner as +painful to her feelings as to her pride. 'Oh no, my dear,' Lady Blair +had said of some English acquaintances whom Althea had met in Rome, and +who had asked her to come and see them in England. 'Quite impossible; +most worthy people, I am sure, and no doubt the daughter took honours +at Girton--the middle classes are highly educated nowadays; but one +doesn't know that sort of people.' + +Lady Blair was the widow of a judge, and, in her large velvet +drawing-room, a thick fog outside and a number of elderly legal ladies +drinking tea about her, Althea had always felt herself to be in the very +heart of British social safety. Lady Blair was an old friend of her +mother's, and, with Miss Buckston, was her nearest English friend. She +also felt safe on the lawn under the mulberry-tree at Grimshaw Rectory, +and when ensconced for her long visit in Colonel and Mrs. Colling's +little house in Devonshire, where hydrangeas grew against a blue +background of sea, and a small white yacht rocked in the bay at the foot +of the garden. + +It was therefore with some perplexity that, here too, she brought from +her interviews with Helen an impression of new standards. They were not +drastic and relegating, like those of Lady Blair's; they did not make +her feel unsafe as Lady Blair's had done; they merely made her feel that +her world was very narrow and she herself rather ingenuous. + +Helen herself seemed unaware of standards, and had certainly never +experienced any of Althea's anxieties. She had always been safe, partly, +Althea had perceived, because she had been born safe, but, in the main, +because she was quite indifferent to safety. And with this indifference +and this security went the further fact that she had, probably, never +been ingenuous. With all her admiration, her affection for her new +friend, this sense of the change that she was working in her life +sometimes made Althea a little afraid of her, and sometimes a little +indignant. She, herself, was perfectly safe in America, and when she +felt indignant she asked herself what Helen Buchanan would have done had +she been turned into a strange continent with hardly any other guides +than the memory of a lorgnette and a Baedeker. + +It was when she was bound to answer this question, and to recognise that +in such circumstances Miss Buchanan would have gone her way, entirely +unperturbed, and entirely sure of her own preferences, that Althea felt +afraid of her. In all circumstances, she more and more clearly saw it, +Miss Buchanan would impose her own standards, and be oppressed or +enlightened by none. Althea had always thought of herself as very calm +and strong; it was as calm and strong that Franklin Winslow Kane so +worshipped her; but when she talked to Miss Buchanan she had sharp +shoots of suspicion that she was, in reality, weak and wavering. + +Althea's accounts of her friends in England seemed to interest Miss +Buchanan even less than her accounts of Bayreuth. She had met Miss +Buckston, but had only a vague and, evidently, not a pleasant impression +of her. Lady Blair she had never heard of, nor the inmates of Grimshaw +Rectory. The Collings were also blanks, except that Mrs. Colling had an +uncle, an old Lord Taunton; and when Althea put forward this identifying +fact, Helen said that she knew him and liked him very much. + +'I suppose you know a great many people,' said Althea. + +Yes, Miss Buchanan replied, she supposed she did. 'Too many, sometimes. +One gets sick of them, don't you think? But perhaps your people are +more interesting than mine; you travel so much, and seem to know such +heaps of them all over the world.' + +But Althea, from these interviews, took a growing impression that though +Miss Buchanan might be sick of her own people, she would be far more +sick of hers. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Miss Buchanan was well on the way to complete recovery, was able to have +tea every afternoon with Althea, and to be taken for long drives in the +Bois, when Aunt Julia and the girls arrived at the Hôtel Talleyrand. + +Mrs. Pepperell was a sister of Althea's mother, and lived soberly and +solidly in New York, disapproving as much of millionaires and their +manners as of expatriated Americans. She was large and dressed with +immaculate precision and simplicity, and had it not been for a homespun +quality of mingled benevolence and shrewdness, she might have passed as +stately. But Mrs. Pepperell had no wish to appear stately, and was +rather intolerant of the pretension in others. Her sharp tongue had +indulged itself in a good many sallies on this score at her sister +Bessie's expense; Bessie being the lady of the lorgnette, Althea's +deceased mother. + +Althea, remembering that dear mother so well, all dignified elegance as +she had been--too dignified, too elegant, perhaps, to be either so +shrewd or so benevolent as her sister--always thought of Aunt Julia as +rather commonplace in comparison. Yet, as she followed in her wake on +the evening of her arrival, she felt that Aunt Julia was obviously and +eminently 'nice.' The one old-fashioned diamond ornament at her throat, +the ruffles at her wrist, the gloss of her silver-brown hair, reminded +her of her own mother's preferences. + +The girls were 'nice,' too, as far as their appearance and breeding +went, but Althea found their manners very bad. They were not strident +and they were not arrogant, but so much noisiness and so much innocent +assurance might, to unsympathetic eyes, seem so. They were handsome +girls, fresh-skinned, athletic, tall and slender. They wore beautifully +simple white lawn dresses, and their shining fair hair was brushed off +their foreheads and tied at the back with black bows in a very becoming +fashion, though Althea thought the bows too large and the fashion too +obviously local. + +Helen was in her old place that night, and she smiled at Althea as she +and her party took their places at a table larger and at a little +distance. She was to come in for coffee after dinner, so that Althea +adjourned introductions. Aunt Julia looked sharply and appraisingly at +the black figure, and the girls did not look at all. They were filled +with young delight and excitement at the prospect of a three weeks' romp +in Paris, among dressmakers, tea-parties, and the opera. 'And Herbert +Vaughan is here. I've just had a letter from him, forwarded from +London,' Dorothy announced, to which Mildred, with glad emphasis, cried +'Bully!' + +Althea sighed, crumbled her bread, and looked out of the window +resignedly. + +'You mustn't talk slang before Cousin Althea,' said Dorothy. + +'What Cousin Althea needs is slang,' said Mildred. + +'I shan't lack it with you, shall I, Mildred?' Althea returned, with, a +rather chilly smile. She knew that Dorothy and Mildred considered her, +as they would have put it, 'A back number'; they liked to draw her out +and to shock her. She wanted to make it clear that she wasn't shocked, +but that she was wearied. At the same time it was true that Mildred and +Dorothy made her uncomfortable in subtler ways; she was, perhaps, a +little afraid of them, too. They, too, imposed their own standards, and +were oppressed and enlightened by none. + +Aunt Julia smiled indulgently at her children, and asked Althea if she +did not think that they were looking very well. They certainly were, and +Althea had to own it. 'But don't let them overdo their athletics, Aunt +Julia,' she said. 'It is such a pity when girls get brawny.' + +'I'm brawny; feel my muscle,' said Mildred, stretching a hard young arm +across the table. Althea shook her head. She did not like being made +conspicuous, and already the girls' loud voices had drawn attention; the +French family were all staring. + +'Who is the lady in black, Althea?' Mrs. Pepperell asked. 'A friend of +yours?' + +'Yes, a most charming friend,' said Althea. 'Helen Buchanan is her name; +she is Scotch--a very old family--and she is one of the most interesting +people I've ever known. You will meet her after dinner. She is coming in +to spend the evening.' + +'Where did you meet her? How long have you known her?' asked Aunt Julia, +evidently unimpressed. + +Althea said that she had met her here, but that they had mutual +friends, thinking of Miss Buckston in what she felt to be an emergency. + +Aunt Julia, with her air of general scepticism as to what she could find +so worth while in Europe, often made her embark on definitions and +declarations. She could certainly tolerate no uncertainty on the subject +of Helen's worth. + +'Very odd looking,' said Aunt Julia, while the girls glanced round +indifferently at the subject of discussion. + +'And peculiarly distinguished looking,' said Althea. 'She makes most +people look so half-baked and insignificant.' + +'I think it a rather sinister face,' said Aunt Julia. 'And how she +slouches! Sit up, Mildred. I don't want you to catch European tricks.' + +But, after dinner, Althea felt that Helen made her impression. She was +still wan and weak; she said very little, though she smiled very +pleasantly, and she sat--as Aunt Julia had said, 'slouched,' yet so +gracefully--in a corner of the sofa. The charm worked. The girls felt +it, Aunt Julia felt it, though Aunt Julia held aloof from it. Althea saw +that Aunt Julia, most certainly, did not interest Helen, but the girls +amused her; she liked them. They sat near her and made her laugh by +their accounts of their journey, the funny people on the steamer, their +plans for the summer, and life in America, as they lived it. Dorothy +assured her that she didn't know what fun was till she came to America, +and Mildred cried: 'Oh, do come! We'll give you the time of your life!' +Helen declared that she hoped some day to experience this climax. + +Before going to bed, and attired in her dressing-gown, Althea went to +Helen's room to ask her how she felt, but also to see what impression +her relatives had made. Helen was languidly brushing her hair, and +Althea took the brush from her and brushed it for her. + +'Isn't it lamentable,' she said, 'that Aunt Julia, who is full of a +certain sort of wise perception about other things, doesn't seem to see +at all how bad the children's manners are. She lets them monopolise +everybody's attention with the utmost complacency.' + +Helen, while her hair was being brushed, put out her hand for her watch +and was winding it. 'Have they bad manners?' she said. 'But they are +nice girls.' + +'Yes, they are nice. But surely you don't like their slang?' + +Helen smiled at the recollection of it. 'More fun than a goat,' she +quoted. 'Why shouldn't they talk slang?' + +'Dear Helen,'--they had come quite happily to Christian names--'surely +you care for keeping the language pure. Surely you think it regrettable +that the younger generation should defile and mangle it like that.' + +But Helen only laughed, and confessed that she really didn't care what +happened to the language. 'There'll always be plenty of people to talk +it too well,' she said. + +Mrs. Pepperell, on her side, had her verdict, and she gave it some days +later when she and her niece were driving to the dressmaker's. + +'She is a very nice girl, Miss Buchanan, and clever, too, in her quiet +English way, though startlingly ignorant. Dorothy actually told me that +she had never read any Browning, and thought that Sophocles was +Diogenes, and lived in a tub. But frankly, Althea, I can't say that I +take to her very much.' + +Aunt Julia, often irritating to Althea, was never more so than when, as +now, she assumed that her verdicts and opinions were of importance to +her niece. Althea shrank from open combat with anybody, yet she could, +under cover of gentle candour, plant her shafts. She planted one now in +answering: 'I don't think that you would, either of you, take to one +another. Helen's flavour is rather recondite.' + +'Recondite, my dear,' said Aunt Julia, who never pretended not to know +when a shaft had been planted. 'I think, everyday _mère de famille_ as I +am, that I am quite capable of appreciating the recondite. Miss +Buchanan's appearance is striking, and she is an independent creature; +but, essentially, she is the most commonplace type of English +girl--well-bred, poor, idle, uneducated, and with no object in life +except to amuse herself and find a husband with money. And under that +air of sleepy indifference she has a very sharp eye to the main chance, +you may take my word for it.' + +Althea was very angry, the more so for the distorted truth this judgment +conveyed. 'I'm afraid I shouldn't take your word on any matter +concerning my friend,' she returned; 'and I think, Aunt Julia, that you +forget that it is my friend you are speaking of.' + +'My dear, don't lose your temper. I only say it to put you on your +guard. You are so given to idealisation, and you may find yourself +disappointed if you trust to depths that are not there. As to +friendship, don't forget that she is, as yet, the merest acquaintance.' + +'One may feel nearer some people in a week than to others after years.' + +'As to being near in a week--she doesn't feel near _you_; that is all I +mean. Don't cast your pearls too lavishly.' + +Althea made no reply, but under her air of unruffled calm, Aunt Julia's +shaft rankled. + +She found herself that afternoon, when she and Helen were alone at tea, +sounding her, probing her, for reassuring symptoms of warmth or +affection. 'I so hope that we may keep really in touch with one +another,' she said. 'I couldn't bear not to keep in touch with you, +Helen.' + +Helen looked at her with the look, vague, kind, and a little puzzled, +that seemed to plant Aunt Julia's shaft anew. 'Keep in touch,' she +repeated. 'Of course. You'll be coming to England some day, and then +you'll be sure to look me up, won't you?' + +'But, until I do come, we will write? You will write to me a great +deal?' + +'Oh, my dear, I do so hate writing. I never have anything to say in a +letter. Let us exchange postcards, when our doings require it.' + +'Postcards!' Althea could not repress a disconsolate note. 'How can I +tell from postcards what you are thinking and feeling?' + +'You may always take it for granted that I'm doing very little of +either,' said Helen, smiling. + +Althea was silent for a moment, and then, with a distress apparent in +voice and face, she said: 'I can't bear you to say that.' + +Helen still smiled, but she was evidently at a loss. She added some milk +to her tea and took a slice of bread and butter before saying, more +kindly, yet more lightly than before: 'You mustn't judge me by yourself. +I'm not a bit thoughtful, you know, or warm-hearted and intellectual, +like you. I just rub along. I'm sure you'll not find it worth while +keeping in touch with me.' + +'It's merely that I care for you very much,' said Althea, in a slightly +quivering voice. 'And I can't bear to think that I am nothing to you.' + +There was again a little pause in which, because her eyes had suddenly +filled with tears, Althea looked down and could not see her friend. +Helen's voice, when she spoke, showed her that she was pained and +disconcerted. 'You make me feel like such a clumsy brute when you say +things like that,' she said. 'You are so kind, and I am so selfish and +self-centred. But of course I care for you too.' + +'Do you really?' said Althea, who, even if she would, could not have +retained the appearance of lightness and independence. 'You really feel +me as a friend, a true friend?' + +'If you really think me worth your while, of course. I don't see how you +can--an ill-tempered, ignorant, uninteresting woman, whom you've run +across in a hotel and been good to.' + +'I don't think of you like that, as you know. I think you a strangely +lovely and strangely interesting person. From the first moment I saw you +you appealed to me. I felt that you needed something--love and sympathy, +perhaps. The fact that it's been a sort of chance--our meeting--makes +it all the sweeter to me.' + +Again Helen was silent for a moment, and again Althea, sitting with +downcast eyes, knew that, though touched, she was uncomfortable. 'You +are too nice and kind for words,' she then said. 'I can't tell you how +kind I think it of you.' + +'Then we are friends? You do feel me as a friend who will always be +interested and always care?' + +'Yes, indeed; and I do so thank you.' + +Althea put out her hand, and Helen gave her hers, saying, 'You _are_ a +dear,' and adding, as though to take refuge from her own discomposure, +'much too dear for the likes of me.' + +The bond was thus sealed, yet Aunt Julia's shaft still stuck. It was she +who had felt near, and who had drawn Helen near. Helen, probably, would +never have thought of keeping in touch. She was Helen's friend because +she had appealed for friendship, and because Helen thought her a dear. +The only comfort was to know that Helen's humility was real. She might +have offered her friendship could she have realised that it was of value +to anybody. + +It was a few evenings after this, and perhaps as a result of their talk, +that, as they sat in Althea's room over coffee, Helen said: 'Why don't +you come to England this summer, Althea?' + +Aunt Julia had proposed that Althea should go on to Bayreuth with her +and the girls, and Althea was turning over the plan, thinking that +perhaps she had had enough of Bayreuth, so that Helen's suggestion, +especially as it was made in Aunt Julia's presence, was a welcome one. +'Perhaps I will,' she said. 'Will you be there?' + +'I'll be in London, with Aunt Grizel, until the middle of July; after +that, in the country till winter. You ought to take a house in the +country and let me come to stay with you,' said Helen, smiling. + +'Will you pay me a long visit?' Althea smiled back. + +'As long as you'll ask me for.' + +'Well, you are asked for as long as you will stay. Where shall I get a +house? There are some nice ones near Miss Buckston's.' + +'Oh, don't let us be too near Miss Buckston,' said Helen, laughing. + +'But surely, Althea, you won't give up Bayreuth,' Aunt Julia interposed. +'It is going to be specially fine this year. And then you know so few +people in England, you will be very lonely. Nothing is more lonely than +the English country when you know nobody.' + +'Helen is a host in herself,' said Althea; and though Helen did not +realise the full force of the compliment, it was more than satisfactory +to have her acquiesce with: 'Oh, as to people, I can bring you heaps of +them, if you want them.' + +'It is a lovely idea,' said Althea; 'and if I must miss Bayreuth, Aunt +Julia, I needn't miss you and the girls. You will have to come and stay +with me. Do you know of a nice house, Helen, in pretty country, and not +too near Miss Buckston?' It was rather a shame of her, she felt, this +proviso, but indeed she had never found Miss Buckston endearing, and +since knowing Helen she had seen more clearly than before that she was +in many ways oppressive. + +Helen was reflecting. 'I do know of a house,' she said, 'in a very nice +country, too. You might have a look at it. It's where I used to go, as a +girl, you know, and stay with my cousins, the Digbys.' + +'That would be perfect, Helen.' + +'Oh, I don't know that you would find it perfect. It is a plain stone +house, with a big, dilapidated garden, nice trees and lawns, miles from +everything, and with old-fashioned, shabby furniture. Since Gerald came +into the place, he's not been able to keep it up, and he has to let it. +He hasn't been able to let it for the last year or so, and would be glad +of the chance. If you like the place you'll only have to say the word.' + +'I know I shall like it. Don't you like it?' + +'Oh, I love it; but that's a different matter. It is more of a home to +me than any place in the world.' + +'I consider it settled. I don't need to see it.' + +'No; it certainly isn't settled,' Helen replied, with her pleasant +decisiveness. 'You certainly shan't take it till you see it. I will +write to Gerald and tell him that no one else is to have it until you +do.' + +'I am quite determined to have that house,' said Althea. 'A place that +you love must be lovely. Write if you like. But the matter is settled in +my mind.' + +'Don't be foolish, my dear,' said Aunt Julia. 'Miss Buchanan is quite +right. You mustn't think of taking a house until you see it. How do you +know that the drainage is in order, or even that the beds are +comfortable. Miss Buchanan says that it is miles away from everything, +too. You may find the situation very dismal and unsympathetic.' + +'It's pretty country, I think,' said Helen, 'and I'm sure the drainage +and the beds are all right. But Althea must certainly see it first.' + +It was settled, however, quite settled in Althea's mind that she was to +take Merriston House. She bade Helen farewell three days later, and they +had arranged that they were, within a fortnight, to meet in London, and +go together to look at it. + +And Althea wrote to Franklin Winslow Kane, and informed him of her new +plans, and that he must be her guest at Merriston House for as long as +his own plans allowed him. Her mood in regard to Franklin had greatly +altered since that evening of gloom a fortnight ago. Franklin, then, had +seemed the only fact worth looking at; but now she seemed embarked on a +voyage of discovery, where bright new planets swam above the horizon +with every forward rock of her boat. Franklin was by no means dismissed; +Franklin could never be dismissed; but he was relegated; and though, as +far as her fondness went, he would always be firmly placed, she could +hardly place him clearly in the new and significantly peopled +environment that her new friendship opened to her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Helen Buchanan was a person greatly in demand, and, in her migratory +existence, her pauses at her Aunt Grizel's little house near Eaton +Square were, though frequent, seldom long. When she did come, her +bedroom and her sitting-room were always waiting for her, as was Aunt +Grizel with her cheerful 'Well, my dear, glad to see you back again.' +Their mutual respect and trust were deep; their affection, too, though +it was seldom expressed. She knew Aunt Grizel to the ground, and Aunt +Grizel knew her to the ground--almost; and they were always pleased to +be together. + +Helen's sitting-room, where she could see any one she liked and at any +time she liked, was behind the dining-room on the ground floor, and from +its window one saw a small neat garden with a plot of grass, bordering +flower-beds, a row of little fruit-trees, black-branched but brightly +foliaged, and high walls that looked as though they were built out of +sooty plum cake. Aunt Grizel's cat, Pharaoh, sleek, black, and stalwart, +often lay on the grass plot in the sunlight; he was lying there now, +languidly turned upon his side, with outstretched feet and drowsily +blinking eyes, when Helen and her cousin, Gerald Digby, talked together +on the day after her return from Paris. + +Gerald Digby stood before the fireplace looking with satisfaction at his +companion. He enjoyed looking at Helen, for he admired her more than any +woman he knew. It was always a pleasure to see her again; and, like Aunt +Grizel, he trusted and respected her deeply, though again, like Aunt +Grizel, he did not, perhaps, know her quite down to the ground. He +thought, however, that he did; he knew that Helen was as intimate with +nobody in the world as with him, not even with Aunt Grizel, and it was +one of his most delightful experiences to saunter through all the +chambers of Helen's mind, convinced that every door was open to him. + +Gerald Digby was a tall and very slender man; he tilted forward when he +walked, and often carried his hands in his pockets. He had thick, +mouse-coloured hair, which in perplexed or meditative moments he often +ruffled by rubbing his hand through it, and even when thus disordered it +kept its air of fashionable grace. His large, long nose, his finely +curved lips and eyelids, had a delicately carved look, as though the +sculptor had taken great care over the details of his face. His brown +eyes had thick, upturned lashes, and were often in expression absent and +irresponsible, but when he looked at any one, intent and merry, like a +gay dog's eyes. And of the many charming things about Gerald Digby the +most charming was his smile, which was as infectious as a child's, and +exposed a joyous array of large white teeth. + +He was smiling at his cousin now, for she was telling him, dryly, yet +with a mocking humour all her own, of her Paris fiasco that had delayed +her return to London by a fortnight, and, by the expense it had +entailed upon her, had deprived her of the new hat and dress that she +had hoped in Paris to secure. Talking of Paris led to the letter she had +sent him four or five days ago. 'About this rich American,' said Gerald; +'is she really going to take Merriston, do you think? It's awfully good +of you, Helen, to try and get a tenant for me.' + +'I don't know that you'd call her rich--not as Americans go; but I +believe she will take Merriston. She wanted to take it at once, on +faith; but I insisted that she must see it first.' + +'You must have cried up the dear old place for her to be so eager.' + +'I think she is eager about pleasing me,' said Helen. 'I told her that I +loved the place and hadn't been there for years, and that moved her very +much. She has taken a great fancy to me.' + +'Really,' said Gerald. 'Why?' + +'I'm sure I don't know. She is a dear little person, but rather funny.' + +'Of course, there is no reason why any one shouldn't take a fancy to +you,' said Gerald, smiling; 'only--to that extent--in so short a time.' + +'I appealed to her pity, I think; she came in and took care of me, and +was really unspeakably kind. And she seemed to get tremendously +interested in me. But then, she seemed capable of getting tremendously +interested in lots of things. I've noticed that Americans often take +things very seriously.' + +'And you became great pals?' + +'Yes, I suppose we did.' + +'She interested you?' + +Helen smiled a little perplexedly, and lit a cigarette before +answering. 'Well, no; I can't say that she did that; but that, probably, +was my own fault.' + +'Why didn't she interest you?' Gerald went on, taking a cigarette from +the case she offered. He was fond of such desultory pursuit of a +subject; he and Helen spent hours in idle exchanges of impression. + +Helen's answer was hardly illuminating: 'She wasn't interesting.' + +'It was rather interesting of her to take such an interest in you,' said +Gerald subtly. + +'No.' Helen warmed to the theme. It had indeed perplexed her, and she +was glad to unravel her impressions to this understanding listener. 'No, +that's just what it wasn't; it might have been if one hadn't felt her a +person so easily affected. She had--how can I put it?--it seems brutal +when she is such a dear--but she had so little stuff in her; it was as +if she had to find it all the time in other things and people. She is +like a glass of water that would like to be wine, and she has no wine in +her; it could only be poured in, and there's not room for much. At best +she can only be _eau rougie_.' + +Gerald laughed. 'How you see things, and say them! Poor Miss +Jakes!--that's her name, isn't it? She sounds tame.' + +'She is tame.' + +'Is she young, pretty?' + +'Not young, about my age; not pretty, but it's a nice face; wistful, +with large, quite lovely eyes. She knows a lot about everything, and has +been everywhere, and has kept all her illusions intact--a queer mixture +of information and innocence. It's difficult to keep one's mind on what +she's saying; there is never any background to it. She wants something, +but she doesn't know whether it's what other people want or whether it's +what she wants, so that she can't want anything very definitely.' + +Gerald still laughed. 'How you must have been taking her in!' + +'I suppose I must have been, though I didn't know it. But I did like +her, you know. I liked her very much. A glass of water is a nice thing +sometimes.' + +'Nicer than _eau rougie_; I'm afraid she's _eau rougie_.' + +'_Eau rougie_ may be nice, too, if one is tired and thirsty and needs +mild refreshment, not altogether tasteless, and not at all intoxicating. +She was certainly that to me. I was very much touched by her kindness.' + +'I shall be touched if she'll take Merriston. I'm fearfully hard up. I +suppose it would only be a little let; but that would be better than +nothing.' + +'She might stay for the winter if she liked it. I shan't try to make her +like it, but I'll do my best to make her stay on if she does, and with a +clear conscience, for I think that her staying will depend on her seeing +me.' + +'Wouldn't that mean that she'd be a great deal on your hands?' + +'I shouldn't mind that; we get on very well. She will be here next week, +you know. You must come to tea and meet her.' + +'Well, I don't know. I don't think that I'm particularly eager to meet +her,' Gerald confessed jocosely. + +'You'll have to meet her a good deal if you are to see much of me,' said +Helen; on which he owned that, with that compulsion put upon him, he +and Miss Jakes might become intimates. + +Gerald Digby was a young man who did very little work. He had been +vaguely intended, by an affectionate but haphazard family, for the +diplomatic service, but it was found, after he had done himself some +credit at Eton and Oxford, that the family resources didn't admit of +this obviously suitable career for him; and an aged and wealthy uncle, +who had been looked to confidently for succour, married at the moment, +most unfeelingly, so that Gerald's career had to be definitely +abandoned. Another relation found him a berth in the City, where he +might hope to amass quite a fortune; but Gerald soon said that he far +preferred poverty. He thought that he would like to paint and be an +artist; he had a joyful eye for delicate, minute forms of beauty, and +was most happily occupied when absorbed in Japanese-like studies of +transient loveliness--a bird in flight, a verdant grasshopper on a +wheat-blade, the tangled festoons of a wild convolvulus spray. His +talent, however, though genuine, could hardly supply him with a +livelihood, and he would have been seriously put to it had not his +father's death left him a tiny income, while a half-informal +secretaryship to a political friend, offered him propitiously at the +same time, gave him leisure for his painting as well as for a good many +other pleasant things. He had leisure, in especial, for going from +country-house to country-house, where he was immensely in demand, and +where he hunted, danced, and acted in private theatricals--usually in +company with his cousin Helen. Helen's position in life was very much +like his own, but that she hadn't even an informal secretaryship to +depend upon. He had known Helen all his life, and she was almost like a +sister, only nicer; for he associated sisters with his own brood, who +were lean, hunting ladies, pleasant, but monotonous and inarticulate. +Helen was very articulate and very various. He loved to look at her, as +he loved to look at birds and flowers, and he loved to talk with her. He +had many opportunities to look and talk. They stayed at the same houses +in the country, and in London, when she was with old Miss Buchanan, he +usually saw her every day. If he didn't drop in for a moment on his way +to work at ten-thirty in the morning, he dropped in to tea; and if his +or Helen's day were too full to admit of this, he managed to come in for +a goodnight chat after a dinner or before a dance. He enjoyed Helen's +talk and Helen's appearance most of all, he thought, at these late +hours, when, a little weary and jaded, in evening dress and cloak, she +lit her invariable cigarette, and mused with him over the events and +people of the day. He liked Helen's way of talking about people; they +knew an interminable array of them, many involved in enlivening +complications, yet Helen never gossiped; the musing impersonality and +impartiality with which she commented and surmised lifted her themes to +a realm almost of art; she was pungent, yet never malicious, and the +tolerant lucidity of her insight was almost benign. + +Her narrow face, leaning back in its dark aureole of hair, her strange +eyes and bitter-sweet lips--all dimmed, as it were, by drowsiness and +smoke, and yet never more intelligently awake than at these nocturnal +hours--remained with him as most typical of Helen's most significant and +charming self. It was her aspect of mystery and that faint hint of +bitterness that he found so charming; Helen herself he never thought of +as mysterious. Mystery was a mere outward asset of her beauty, like the +powdery surface of a moth's wing. He didn't think of Helen as +mysterious, perhaps because he thought little about her at all; he only +looked and listened while she made him think about everything but +herself, and he felt always happy and altogether at ease in her +presence. There seemed, indeed, no reason for thinking about a person +whom one had known all one's life long. + +And Helen was more than the best of company and the loveliest of +objects; she was at once comrade and counsellor. He depended upon her +more than upon any one. Comically helpless as he often found himself, he +asked her advice about everything, and always received the wisest. + +He had had often, though not so much in late years, to ask her advice +about girls, for in spite of his financial ineligibility he was so +engaging a person that he found himself continually drawn to the verge +of decisive flirtations. His was rarely the initiative; he was +responsive and affectionate and not at all susceptible, and Helen, who +knew girls of her world to the bone, could accurately gauge the effect +upon him of the pleading coquetry at which they were such adepts. She +could gauge them the better, no doubt, from having herself no trace of +coquetry. Men often liked her, but often found her cold and cynical, and +even suspected her of conceit, especially since it was known that she +had refused many excellent opportunities for establishing herself in +life. She was also suspected by many of abysmal cleverness, and this +reputation frightened admiring but uncomplicated young men more than +anything else. Now, when her first youth was past, men more seldom fell +in love with her and more frequently liked her; they had had time to +find out that if she were cold she was also very kind, and that if +abysmally clever, she could adapt her cleverness to pleasant, trivial +uses. + +Gerald, when he thought at all about her, thought of Helen as indeed +cold, clever, and cynical; but these qualities never oppressed him, +aware from the first, as he had been, of the others, and he found in +them, moreover, veritable shields and bucklers for himself. It was to +some one deeply experienced, yet quite unwarped by personal emotions, +that he brought his recitals of distress and uncertainty. Lady Molly was +a perfect little dear, but could he go on with it? How could he if he +would? She hadn't any money, and her people would be furious; she +herself, he felt sure, would be miserable in no time, if they did marry. +They wouldn't even have enough--would they, did Helen think?--for love +in a cottage, and Molly would hate love in a cottage. They would have to +go about living on their relations and friends, as he now did, more or +less; but with a wife and babies, how could one? Did Helen think one +could? Gerald would finish dismally, standing before her with his hands +thrust deeply into his pockets and a ruffled brow of inquiry. Or else it +was the pretty Miss Oliver who had him--half alarmed, half enchanted--in +her toils, and Gerald couldn't imagine what she was going to do with +him. For such entanglements Helen's advice had always shown a way out, +and for his uncertainties--though she never took the responsibility of +actual guidance--her reflective questionings, her mere reflective +silences, were illuminating. They made clear for him, as for her, that +recklessness could only be worth while if one were really--off one's own +bat, as it were--'in love'; and that, this lacking, recklessness was +folly sure to end in disaster. 'Wait, either until you care so much that +you must, or else until you meet some one so nice, so rich, and so +suitable that you may,' said Helen. 'If you are not careful you will +find yourself married to some one who will bore you and quarrel with you +on twopence a year.' + +'You must be careful for me,' said Gerald. 'Please warn and protect.' + +And Helen replied that she would always do her best for him. + +It had never occurred to Gerald to turn the tables on Helen and tell her +that she ought to marry. His imagination was not occupied with Helen's +state, though once, after a conversation with old Miss Buchanan, he +remarked to Helen, looking at her with a vague curiosity, that it was a +pity she hadn't taken Lord Henry or Mr. Fergusson. 'Miss Buchanan tells +me you might have been one of the first hostesses in London if you +hadn't thrown away your chances.' + +'I'm all right,' said Helen. + +'Yes, you yourself are; but after she dies?' + +Helen owned, with a smile, that she could certainly do with some few +thousands a year; but that, in default of them, she could manage to +scrape along. + +'But you've never had any better chances, have you?' said Gerald rather +tentatively. He might confide everything in Helen, but he realised, as a +restraining influence, that she never made any confidences, even to him, +who, he was convinced, knew her down to the ground. + +Helen owned that she hadn't. + +'Your aunt thinks it a dreadful pity. She's very much worried about +you.' + +'It's late in the day for the poor dear to worry. The chances were over +long ago.' + +'You didn't care enough?' + +'I was young and foolish enough to want to be in love when I married,' +said Helen, smiling at him with her half-closed eyes. + +And Gerald said that, yes, he would have expected that from her; and +with this dismissed the subject from his mind, taking it for granted +that Helen's disengaged, sustaining, and enlivening spinsterhood would +always be there for his solace and amusement. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Helen was on one side of her and Mr. Digby sat in an opposite corner of +the railway carriage, and they were approaching the end of the journey +to Merriston House on a bright July day soon after Althea's arrival in +England. She had met Mr. Digby at Helen's the day before and had +suggested that he should come with them. Gerald had remarked that it +might be tiresome if she hated Merriston, and he were there to see that +she hated it; but Althea was so sure of liking it that her conviction +imposed itself. + +Mr. Digby and Helen were both smoking; they had asked her very +solicitously whether she minded, and she had said she didn't, although +in fact she did not like the smell of tobacco, and Helen's constant +cigarette distressed her quite unselfishly on the score of health. The +windows were wide open, and though the gale that blew through ruffled +her smooth hair and made her veil tickle disagreeably, these minor +discomforts could not spoil her predominant sense of excitement and +adventure. Mr. Digby's presence, particularly, roused it. He was so +long, so limp, so graceful, lounging there in his corner. His socks and +his tie were of such a charming shade of blue and his hair such a +charming shade of light mouse-colour. He was vague and blithe, immersed +in his own thoughts, which, apparently, were pleasant and superficial. +When his eyes met Althea's, he smiled at her, and she thought his smile +the most engaging she had ever seen. For the rest, he hardly spoke at +all, and did not seem to consider it incumbent on him to make any +conversational efforts, yet his mere presence lent festivity to the +occasion. + +Helen did not talk much either; she smoked her cigarette and looked out +of the window with half-closed eyes. Her slender feet, encased in grey +shoes, were propped on the opposite seat; her grey travelling-dress hung +in smoke-like folds about her; in her little hat was a bright green +wing. + +Althea wondered if Mr. Digby appreciated his cousin's appearance, or if +long brotherly familiarity had dimmed his perception of it. She wondered +how her own appearance struck him. She knew that she was very trim and +very elegant, and in mere beauty--quite apart from charm, which she +didn't claim--she surely excelled Helen; Helen with her narrow eyes, odd +projecting nose, and small, sulkily-moulded lips. Deeply though she felt +the fascination of her friend's strange visage, she could but believe +her own the lovelier. So many people--not only Franklin Winslow +Kane--had thought her lovely. There was no disloyalty in recognising the +fact for oneself, and an innocent satisfaction in the hope that Mr. +Digby might recognise it too. + +The day that flashed by on either side had also a festive quality: blue +skies heaped with snowy clouds; fields brimmed with breeze-swept grain, +green and silver, or streaked with the gold of butter-cups; swift +streams and the curves of summer foliage. It was a country remote, +wooded and pastoral, and Althea, a connoisseur in landscapes, was +enchanted. + +'Do you like it?' Helen asked her as they passed along the edge of a +little wood, glimpses of bright meadow among its clearings. 'We are +almost there now, and it's like this all about Merriston.' + +'I've hardly seen any part of England I like so much,' said Althea. 'It +has a sweet, untouched wildness rather rare in England.' + +'I always think that it's a country to love and live in,' said Helen. +'Some countries seem made only to be looked at.' + +Althea wondered, as she then went on looking at this country, whether +she were thinking of her girlhood and of her many journeys to Merriston. +She wondered if Mr. Digby were thinking of his boyhood. Ever since +seeing those two together yesterday afternoon she had wondered about +them. She had never encountered a relationship quite like theirs; it was +so close, so confident, yet so untender. She could hardly make out that +they liked each other; all that one saw was that they trusted, so that +it had something of the businesslike quality of a partnership. Yet she +found herself building up an absurd little romance about their past. It +might be, who knew, that Mr. Digby had once been in love with Helen and +that she had refused him; he was poor, and she had said that she must +marry money. Althea's heart tightened a little with compassion for Mr. +Digby. Only, if this ever had been, it was well over now; and more +narrowly observing Mr. Digby's charming and irresponsible face, she +reflected that he was hardly the sort of person to illustrate large +themes of passion and fidelity. + +A fly was waiting for them at the station, and as they jolted away +Gerald remarked that she was now to see one of the worst features of +Merriston; it was over an hour from the station, and if one hadn't a +motor the drive was a great bore. Althea, however, didn't find it a +bore. Her companions talked now, their heads at the windows; it had been +years since they had traversed that country together; every inch of it +was known to them and significant of weary waits, wonderful runs, feats +and misadventures at gates and ditches; for their reminiscences were +mainly sportsmanlike. Althea listened, absorbed, but distressed. It was +Gerald who caught and interpreted the expression of her large, gentle +eyes. + +'I don't believe you like fox-hunting, Miss Jakes,' he said. + +'No, indeed, I do not,' said Althea, shaking her head. + +'You mean you think it cruel?' + +'Very cruel.' + +'Yet where would we be without it?' said Gerald. 'And where would the +foxes be? After all, while they live, their lives are particularly +pleasant.' + +'With possible intervals of torture? Don't you think that, if they could +choose, they would rather not live at all?' + +'Oh, a canny old fox doesn't mind the run so much, you know--enjoys it +after a fashion, no doubt.' + +'Don't salve your conscience by that sophism, Gerald; the fox is canny +because he has been terrified so often,' said Helen. 'Let us own that it +is barbarous, but such glorious sport that one tries to forget the fox.' + +It required some effort for Althea to testify against her and Mr. Digby, +but she felt so strongly on the subject of animals, foxes in particular, +that her courage did not fail her. 'I think it is when we forget, that +the dreadful things in life, the sins and cruelties, happen,' she said. + +Gerald's gay eyes were cogitatingly fixed on her, and Helen continued to +look out of the window; but she thought that they both liked her the +better for her frankness, and she felt in the little ensuing silence +that it had brought them nearer--bright, alien creatures that they were. + +Her first view of Merriston House hardly confirmed her hopes of it, +though she would not have owned to herself that this was so. It was +neither so beautiful nor so imposing as she had expected; it was even, +perhaps, rather commonplace; but in a moment she was able to +overcome this slight disloyalty and to love it the more for its +unpretentiousness. A short, winding avenue of limes led to it, and it +stood high among lawns that fell away to lower shrubberies and woods. It +was a square stone house, covered with creepers, a white rose clustering +over the doorway and a group of trees over-topping its chimneys. + +Inside, where the housekeeper welcomed them and tea waited for them, was +the same homely brightness. Hunting prints hung in the hall; rows of +mediocre, though pleasing, family portraits in the dining-room. The long +drawing-room at the back of the house, overlooking the lawns and a far +prospect, was a much inhabited room, cheerful and shabby. There were +old-fashioned water-colour landscapes, porcelain in cabinets and on +shelves, and many tables crowded with ivory and silver bric-à-brac; +things from India and things from China, that Digbys in the Army and +Digbys in the Navy had brought home. + +'What a Philistine room it is,' said Gerald, smiling as he looked around +him; 'but I must say I like it just as it is. It has never made an +æsthetic effort.' + +Gerald's smile irradiated the whole house for Althea, and lit up, in +especial, the big, sunny school-room where he and Helen found most +memories of all. 'The same old table, Helen,' he said, 'and other +children have spilled ink on it and scratched their initials just as we +used to; here are yours and mine. Do you remember the day we did them +under Fräulein's very nose? And here are all our old books, too. Look, +Helen, the Roman history with your wicked drawings on the fly-leaves: +Tullia driving over her poor old father, and Cornelia--ironic little +wretch you were even then--what a prig she is with her jewels! And what +splendid butter-scotch you used to make over the fire on winter +evenings.' + +Helen remembered everything, smiling as she followed Gerald about the +room and looked at ruthless Tullia; and Althea, watching them, was +touched--for them, and then, with a little counter-stroke of memory, for +herself. She remembered her old home too--the dignified old house in +steep Chestnut Street, and the little house on the blue Massachusetts +coast where she had often passed long days playing by herself, for she +had been an only child. She loved it here, for it was like a home, +peaceful and sheltering; but where in all the world had she really a +home? Where in all the world did she belong? The thought brought tears +to her eyes as she looked out of the schoolroom window and listened to +Gerald and Helen. It had ended, of course, for of course it had really +begun, in Althea's decision to take Merriston House. It was quite fixed +now, and on the way back she had made her new friends promise to be +often together with her in the home of their youth. She had made them +promise this so prettily and with such gentle warmth that it was very +natural that Gerald, in talking over the event with Helen that evening, +should say, strolling round Helen's little sitting-room, 'She's rather a +dear, that little friend of yours.' + +Helen was tired and lay extended on the divan in the grey dress she had +not had time to change. She had doffed her hat and, thrusting its +hatpins through it, had laid it on her knees, so that, as Gerald had +remarked, she looked rather like Brünhilde on her rocky couch. But, +unlike Brünhilde, her hands were clasped behind her neck, and she looked +up at the ceiling. 'A perfect little dear,' she assented. + +'Did you notice her eyes when she was talking about the foxes? They were +as sorrowful and piteous as a Mater Dolorosa's. She is definite enough +about some things, isn't she? Things like right and wrong, I mean, as +she sees them.' + +'Yes; she is clear about outside things, like right and wrong.' + +'It's a good deal to be clear about, isn't it?' + +'I suppose so,' Helen reflected. 'I don't feel that I really understand +Althea. People who aren't clear about themselves are difficult to +understand, I think.' + +'It's that that really gives them a mystery. I feel that she really is a +little mysterious,' said Gerald. 'One wonders what she would do in +certain cases, and feel in certain situations, and one can't remotely +imagine. She is a sealed book.' + +'_She_ wonders,' said Helen. + +'And you suspect that her pages are empty?' + +Helen reflected, but nothing seemed to come. She closed her eyes, +smiling, and said, 'Be off, please. I'm getting too sleepy to have +suspicions. We have plenty of time to find out whether anything is +written on Althea's pages.' + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +But, when Gerald was gone, Helen found that she was no longer sleepy. +She lay, her eyes closed, straight and still, like an effigy on a tomb, +and she thought, intently and quietly. It was more a series of pictures +than a linking of ideas with which her mind was occupied--pictures of +her childhood and girlhood in Scotland and at Merriston House. It was +dispassionately that she watched the little figure, lonely, violent, +walking over the moors, hiding in the thickets of the garden, choking +with tears of fury, clenching teeth over fierce resentments. She almost +smiled at the sight of her. What constant resentments, what frequent +furies! They centred, of course, about the figure of her mother, lovely, +vindictive, and stony-hearted, as she had been and was. Helen's life had +dawned in the consciousness of love for this beautiful mother, whom she +had worshipped with the ardent humility of a little dog. Afterwards, +with a vehemence as great, she had grown to hate her. All her girlhood +had been filled with struggles against her mother. Sometimes for weeks +they had not spoken to each other, epochs during which, completely +indifferent though she was, Mrs. Buchanan had given herself the +satisfaction of smartly boxing her daughter's ears when her mute, +hostile presence too much exasperated her. There had been no refuge for +Helen with her father, a gloomy man, immersed in sport and study, nor in +her brother Nigel, gay and pleasant though he was. When once Nigel got +away to school and college, he spent as little time at home as possible. +Helen was as solitary as a sea-bird, blown far inland and snared. Then +came the visits to Merriston House--the cheerful, chattering houseful of +happy girls, the kind father and mother, and Gerald. Gerald! From the +time that he came into her life all the pictures were full of him, so +full that she hardly saw herself any longer; she was only some one who +watched and felt. + +Her violent nature, undisciplined except by its own pride, did not +submit easily to the taming processes of a wholesome family life; she +dominated the girl cousins, and they only counted as chorus in the drama +of her youth. It was Gerald who counted, at once, counted for everything +else. She cared so much for him that, feeling her independence slipping +from her, she at first quarrelled with him constantly, as far as he +would let her quarrel with him. Her brooding bitterness amazed and +amused him. While she stormed, he would laugh at her, gaily and +ironically, and tell her that she was an absurd little savage. And, +after she had burst into a frenzy of tears and fled from him, he would +seek her out, find her hidden in some corner of the garden or +shrubberies, and, grieved and alarmed, put his arms around her, kiss her +and say: 'Look here, I'm awfully sorry. I can't bear to have you take +things like this. Please make up.' + +He could not bear to see her suffering, ludicrous though he thought her +suffering to be. And it was this sweetness, this comprehension and +tenderness, like sunlight flooding her gloomy and petrified young heart, +that filled Helen with astonished bliss. She was tamed at last to the +extent of laughing with Gerald at herself; and, though the force of her +nature led him, the sweetness of his nature controlled her. They became +the dearest of friends. + +Yes, so it had always been; so it had always looked--to all the rest of +the world, and to Gerald. Helen, lying on her divan, saw the pictures of +comradeship filling the years. It was her consciousness of what the real +meaning of the pictures was that supplied something else, something +hidden and desperate that pulsed in them all. How she remembered the +first time that she had drawn away when Gerald kissed her, putting up +between them the shield of a lightly yet decisively accepted +conventionality. They were 'growing up'; this was her justification. How +she remembered what it had cost her to keep up the lightness of her +smile so that he should not guess what lay beneath. Her nature was all +passion, and enclosing this passion, like a steady hand held round a +flame, was a fierce purity, a fierce pride. Gerald had never guessed. No +one had ever guessed. It seemed to Helen that the pain of it had broken +her heart in the very spring of her years; that it was only a maimed and +cautious creature that the world had ever known. + +She lay, and drew long quiet breaths in looking at it all. The day of +reawakened memories had been like a sword in her heart, and now she +seemed to draw it out slowly, and let the blood come with a sense of +peace. She could even, as often, lend to the contemplation of her +tragedy the bitter little grimace of mockery with which she met so much +of life. She could tell herself, as often, that she had never outgrown +love-sick girlhood, and that she was merely in love with Gerald's smile. +Yet Gerald was all in his smile; and Gerald, it seemed, was made to be +loved, all of him, helplessly and hopelessly, by unfortunate her. She +felt her love as a misfortune; it was too strong and too unsatisfied to +be felt in any sense as joy, though it strung her nature to a painful +appreciation of joy. She saw life with a cold, appraising eye; it was +like a landscape robbed of all sunlight, and, so robbed, so bleak, and +so bereft, it was easy to appraise it, to see, since one could have no +warmth or light, what were the next best things to have. She had missed +the next best things again and again, when the moment had come for +taking them; she had drawn back sick, blanched, shaken with the throes +of desperate hope. Only in these last years, when next best things were +no longer so plentiful, had hope really died. Her heart still beat, but +it seemed to beat thinly, among all the heaped-up ashes of dead hopes. +She was free to go forth into the sunless world and choose what place +should be hers. She did not care much for anything that world had to +give her. But she intended to choose carefully and calmly. She was aware +in herself of firm, well-knit faculty, of tastes, sharp and sensitive, +demanding only an opportunity to express themselves in significant and +finished forms of life; and though Helen did not think of it in these +terms, saying merely to herself that she wanted money and power, the +background of her intention was a consciousness of capacity for power. +Reflecting on this power, and on the paths to its realisation, she was +led far, indeed, from any thought of Althea; and Althea was not at all +in her mind as, sleepy at last, and very weary, she remembered Gerald's +last words. It was the thought of Gerald that brought the thought of +Althea, and of Althea's pages. Fair and empty they were, she felt sure, +adorned only here and there with careful and becoming maxims. She smiled +a little, not untenderly, as she thought of Althea. But, just before +sinking to deeper drowsiness, and deciding that she must rouse herself +and go upstairs to bed, a further consciousness came to her. The sunny +day at Merriston had not, in her thoughts, brought them near to one +another--Gerald, and Althea, and her; yet something significant ran +through her sudden memory of it. She had moments of her race's sense of +second-sight, and it never came without making her aware of a pause--a +strange, forced pause--where she had to look at something, touch +something, in the dark, as it were. It was there as she roused herself +from her half-somnolent state; it was there in the consciousness of a +turning-point in her life--in Gerald's, in Althea's. 'We may write +something on Althea's pages,' was the thought with which, smiling over +its inappropriateness, she went upstairs. And the fancy faded from her +memory, as if it had been a bird's wing that brushed her cheek in the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Althea went down to Merriston House in the middle of July. Helen +accompanied her to see her safely installed and to set the very torpid +social ball rolling. There were not many neighbours, but Helen assembled +them all. She herself could stay only a few days. She was bound, until +the middle of August, in a rush of engagements, and meanwhile Althea, +rather ruefully, was forced to fall back on Miss Buckston for +companionship. She had always, till now, found Miss Buckston's cheerful +dogmatism fortifying, and, even when it irritated her, instructive; but +she had now new standards of interest, and new sources of refreshment, +and, shut up with Miss Buckston for a rainy week, she felt as never +before the defects of this excellent person's many qualities. + +She had fires lighted, much to Miss Buckston's amusement, and sat a good +deal by the blaze in the drawing-room, controlling her displeasure when +Miss Buckston, dressed in muddy tweed and with a tweed cap pulled down +over her brows, came striding in from a ten-mile tramp and said, pulling +open all the windows, 'You are frightfully frusty in here.' + +It was not 'frusty.' Althea had a scientific regard for ventilation, and +a damp breeze from the garden blew in at the furthest window. She had +quite enough air. + +Miss Buckston was also very critical of Merriston House, and pointed out +the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said, +was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could +bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack +creature, Gerald Digby, I've heard.' + +Althea coldly explained that Mr. Digby was too poor to live at Merriston +and to keep it up. She did not herself in the least mind the shabbiness. + +'Oh, I don't mind it,' said Miss Buckston. 'I only think he's done +himself very well in getting you to take the place in this condition. +How much do you give for it?' + +Althea, more coldly, named the sum. It was moderate; Miss Buckston had +to grant that, though but half-satisfied that there was no intention to +'do' her friend. 'When once you get into the hands of hard-up +fashionable folk,' she said, 'it's as well to look sharp.' + +Althea did not quite know what to say to this. She had never in the past +opposed Miss Buckston, and it would be difficult to tell her now that +she took too much upon herself. At a hint of hesitancy, she knew, Miss +Buckston would pass to and fro over her like a steam-roller, nearly as +noisy, and to her own mind as composedly efficient. Hesitancy or +contradiction she flattened and left behind her. + +She had an air of owning Bach that became peculiarly vexatious to +Althea, who, in silence, but armed with new standards, was assembling +her own forces and observed, in casting an eye over them, that she had +heard five times as much music as Miss Buckston and might be granted the +right of an opinion on it. She took satisfaction in a memory of Miss +Buckston's face singing in the Bach choir--even at the time it had +struck her as funny--at a concert to which Althea had gone with her some +years ago in London. It was to see, for her own private delectation, a +weak point in Miss Buckston's iron-clad personality to remember how very +funny she could look. Among the serried ranks of singing heads hers had +stood out with its rubicund energy, its air of mastery, the shining of +its eye-glasses and of its large white teeth; and while she sang Miss +Buckston had jerked her head rhythmically to one side and beaten time +with her hand as if to encourage and direct her less competent +companions. Sometimes, now, she looked almost as funny, when she sat +down to the piano and gave forth a recitative. + +After Bach, Woman's Suffrage was Miss Buckston's special theme, and, +suspecting a new hint of uncertainty in Althea, whose conviction she had +always taken for granted, she attacked her frequently and mercilessly. + +'Pooh, my dear,' she would say, 'don't quote your frothy American women +to me. Americans have no social conscience. That's the trouble with you +all; rank individualists, every one of you. When the political attitude +of the average citizen is that of the ostrich keeping his head in the +sand so that he shan't see what the country's coming to, what can you +expect of the women? Your arguments don't affect the suffrage question, +they merely dismiss America. I shall lose my temper if you trot them +out to me.' Miss Buckston never lost her temper, however; other people's +opinions counted too little with her for that. + +At the end of the first week Althea felt distinctly that though the +country, even under these dismal climatic conditions, might be +delightful if shared with some people, it was not delightful shared with +Miss Buckston. She did not like walking in the rain; she was a creature +of houses, cabs and carriages. The sober beauty of blotted silhouettes, +and misty, rolling hills at evening when the clouds lifted over the +sunset, did not appeal to her. She wished that she had stayed in London; +she wished that Helen and Mr. Digby were with her; she was even glad +that Aunt Julia and the girls were coming. + +There was a welcome diversion afforded for her, when Aunt Julia came, by +the prompt hostility that declared itself between her and Miss Buckston. +Aunt Julia was not a person to allow a steam-roller to pass over her +without protest, and Althea felt that she herself had been cowardly when +she saw how Aunt Julia resented, for them both, Miss Buckston's methods. +Miss Buckston had a manner of saying rude things in sincere +unconsciousness that they could offend anybody. She herself did not take +offence easily; she was, as she would have said, 'tough.' But Mrs. +Pepperell had all the sensitiveness--for herself and for others--of her +race, the British race, highly strung with several centuries of +transplantation to an electric climate. If she was rude it was never +unconsciously so. After her first talk with Miss Buckston, in which the +latter, as was her wont, told her a number of unpleasant facts about +America and the Americans, Mrs. Pepperell said to her niece, 'What an +intolerable woman!' + +'She doesn't mean it,' said Althea feebly. + +'Perhaps not,' said Aunt Julia; 'but I intend that she shall see what I +mean.' + +Althea's feeling was of mingled discomfort and satisfaction. Her +sympathies were with Aunt Julia, yet she felt a little guilty towards +Miss Buckston, for whom her affection was indeed wavering. Inner loyalty +having failed she did not wish outer loyalty to be suspected, and in all +the combats that took place she kept in the background and only hoped to +see Aunt Julia worst Miss Buckston. But the trouble was that Aunt Julia +never did worst her. Even when, passing beyond the bounds of what she +considered decency, she became nearly as outspoken as Miss Buckston, +that lady maintained her air of cheerful yet impatient tolerance. She +continued to tell them that the American wife and mother was the most +narrow, the most selfish, the most complacent of all wives and mothers; +and, indeed, to Miss Buckston's vigorous virginity, all wives and +mothers, though sociologically necessary, belonged to a slightly +inferior, more rudimentary species. The American variety, she said, were +immersed in mere domesticity or social schemes and squabbles. 'Oh, they +talked. I never heard so much talk in all my life as when I was over +there,' said Miss Buckston; 'but I couldn't see that they got anything +done with it. They had debates about health, and yet one could hardly +for love or money get a window open in a train; and they had debates on +the ethics of citizenship, and yet you are governed by bosses. Voluble +and inefficient creatures, I call them.' + +Aunt Julia, conscious of her own honourable career, with its +achievements in enlightened philanthropy and its background of careful +study, heard this with inexpressible ire; but when she was dragged to +the execrable taste of a retaliation, and pointed to the British +countryside matron, as they saw her at Merriston--a creature, said Aunt +Julia, hardly credible in her complacency and narrowness, Miss Buckston +rejoined with an unruffled smile: 'Ah, we'll wake them up. They've good +stuff in them--good, staying stuff; and they do a lot of useful work in +keeping down Radicalism and keeping up the sentiment of our imperial +responsibilities and traditions. They are solid, at all events, not +hollow.' And to this poor Aunt Julia, whose traditions did not allow her +the retort of sheer brutality, could find no answer. + +The absurd outcome of the situation was that Althea and Aunt Julia came +to look for succour to the girls. The girls were able--astonishingly so, +to cope with Miss Buckston. In the first place, they found her +inexpressibly funny, and neither Althea nor Aunt Julia quite succeeded +at that; and in the second, they rather liked her; they did not argue +with her, they did not take her seriously for a moment; they only played +buoyantly about her. A few months before, Althea would have been gravely +disturbed by their lack of reverence; she saw it now with guilty +satisfaction. Miss Buckston, among the nets they spread for her, plunged +and floundered like a good-tempered bull--at first with guileless +acquiescence in the game, and then with growing bewilderment. They +flouted gay cloaks before her dizzy eyes, and planted ribboned darts in +her quivering shoulders. Even Althea could not accuse them of +aggressiveness or rudeness. They never put themselves forward; they were +there already. They never twisted the tail of the British lion; they +never squeezed the eagle; they were far too secure under his wings for +that. The bird, indeed, had grown since Althea's youth, and could no +longer be carried about as a hostile trophy. They took it for granted, +gaily and kindly, that America was 'God's country,' and that all others +were schools or playgrounds for her children. They were filled with a +confident faith in her future and in their own part in making that +future better. And something in the faith was infectious. Even Miss +Buckston felt it. Miss Buckston felt it, indeed, more than Althea, whose +attitude towards her own native land had always been one of affectionate +apology. + +'Nice creatures,' said Miss Buckston, 'undisciplined and mannerless as +they are; but that's a failing they share with our younger generation. I +see more hope for your country in that type than in anything else you +can show me. They are solid, and don't ape anything.' + +So by degrees a species of friendship grew up between Miss Buckston and +the girls, who said that she was a jolly old thing, and more fun than a +goat, especially when she sang Bach. Mildred and Dorothy sang +exceptionally well and were highly equipped musicians. + +Althea could not have said why it was, but this progress to friendliness +between her cousins and Miss Buckston made her feel, as she had felt in +the Paris hotel drawing-room over a month ago, jaded and unsuccessful. +So did the fact that the vicar's eldest son, a handsome young soldier +with a low forehead and a loud laugh, fell in love with Dorothy. That +young men should fall in love with them was another of the pleasant +things that Mildred and Dorothy took for granted. Their love affairs, +frank and rather infantile, were of a very different calibre from the +earnest passions that Althea had aroused--passions usually initiated by +intellectual sympathy and nourished on introspection and a constant +interchange of serious literature. + +It was soon evident that Dorothy, though she and Captain Merton became +the best of friends, had no intention of accepting him. Mrs. Merton, the +vicar's wife, had at first been afraid lest she should, not having then +ascertained what Mrs. Pepperell's fortune might be; but after satisfying +herself on this point by a direct cross-examination of Althea, she was +as much amazed as incensed when her boy told her ruefully that he had +been refused three times. Althea was very indignant when she realised +that Mrs. Merton, bland and determined in her latest London hat, was +trying to find out whether Dorothy was a good enough match for Captain +Merton, and it was pleasant to watch Mrs. Merton's subsequent +discomfiture. At the same time, she felt that to follow in Mildred and +Dorothy's triumphant wake was hardly what she had expected to do at +Merriston House. + +Other things, too, were discouraging. Helen had hardly written at all. +She had sent a postcard from Scotland to say that she would have to put +off coming till later in August. She had sent another, in answer to a +long letter of Althea's, in which Gerald had been asked to come with +her, to say that Gerald was yachting, and that she was sure he would +love to come some time in the autumn, if his plans allowed it; and +Althea, on reading this, felt certain that if she counted for little +with Helen, she counted for nothing with Mr. Digby. Whom did she count +with? That was the question that once more assailed her as she saw +herself sink into insignificance beside Mildred and Dorothy. If Mildred +and Dorothy counted for more than she, where was she to look for +response and sympathy? And now, once again, as if in answer to these +dismal questionings, came a steamer letter from Franklin Winslow Kane, +announcing his immediate arrival. Althea had thought very little about +Franklin in these last weeks; her mind had been filled with those +foreground figures that now seemed to have become uncertain and +vanishing. And it was not so much that Franklin came forward as that +there was nothing else to look at; not so much that he counted, as that +to count so much, in every way, for him might almost atone for counting +with no one else. Physically, mentally, morally, Franklin's +appreciations of her were deep; they were implied all through his +letter, which was at once sober and eager. He said that he would stay at +Merriston House for 'just as long as ever she would let him.' Merely to +be near her was to him, separated as he was from her for so much of his +life, an unspeakable boon. Franklin rarely dealt in demonstrative +speeches, but, in this letter, after a half-shy prelude to his own +daring, he went on to say: 'Perhaps, considering how long it's been +since I saw you, you'll let me kiss your beautiful hands when we meet.' + +Franklin had only once kissed her beautiful hands, years ago, on the +occasion of her first touched refusal of him. She had severe scruples as +to encouraging, by such graciousness, a person you didn't intend to +marry; but she really thought, thrilling a little as she read the +sentence, that this time, perhaps, Franklin might. Franklin himself +never thrilled her; but the words he wrote renewed in her suddenly a +happy self-confidence. Who, after all, was Franklin's superior in +insight? Wrapped in the garment of his affection, could she not see with +equanimity Helen's vagueness and Gerald's indifference? Why, when one +came to look at it from the point of view of the soul, wasn't Franklin +their superior in every way? It needed some moral effort to brace +herself to the inquiry. She couldn't deny that Franklin hadn't their +charm; but charm was a very superficial thing compared to moral beauty. + +Althea could not have faced the perturbing fact that charm, to her, +counted for more than goodness. She clung to her ethical valuations of +life, feeling, instinctively, that only in this category lay her own +significance. To abandon the obvious weights and measures was to find +herself buffeted and astray in a chaotic and menacing universe. Goodness +was her guide, and she could cling to it if the enchanting +will-o'-the-wisp did not float into sight to beckon and bewilder her. +She indignantly repudiated the conception of a social order founded on +charm rather than on solid worth; yet, like other frail mortals, she +found herself following what allured her nature rather than what +responded to the neatly tabulated theories of her mind. It was her +beliefs and her instincts that couldn't be made to tally, and in her +refusal to see that they did not tally lay her danger, as now, when with +an artificially simplified attitude she waited eagerly for the coming of +somebody who would restore to her her own sense of significance. + +Franklin Winslow Kane arrived late one afternoon, and Althea arranged +that she should greet him alone. Miss Buckston, Aunt Julia, the girls, +and Herbert Vaughan had driven over to a neighbouring garden-party, and +Althea alleged the arrival of her old friend as a very valid excuse. She +walked up and down the drawing-room, dressed in one of her prettiest +dresses; the soft warmth and light of the low sun filled the air, and +her heart expanded with it. She wondered if--ah, if only!--Franklin +would himself be able to thrill her, and her deep expectation almost +amounted to a thrill. Expectation culminated in a wave of excitement and +emotion as the door opened and her faithful lover stood before her. + +Franklin Winslow Kane (he signed himself more expeditiously as Franklin +W. Kane) was a small, lean man. He had an air of tension, constant, yet +under such perfect control, that it counted as placidity rather than as +strain. His face was sallow and clean-shaven, and the features seemed +neatly drawn on a flat surface rather than modelled, so discreet and so +meagre were the sallies and shadows. His lips were calm and firmly +closed, and had always the appearance of smiling; of his eyes one felt +the bright, benignant beam rather than the shape or colour. His straight +stiff hair was shorn in rather odd and rather ugly lines along his +forehead and temples, and of his clothes the kindest thing to say was +that they were unobtrusive. Franklin had once said of himself, with +comic dispassionateness, that he looked like a cheap cigar, and the +comparison was apt. He seemed to have been dried, pressed, and moulded, +neatly and expeditiously, by some mechanical process that turned out +thousands more just like him. A great many things, during this process, +had been done to him, but they were commonplace, though complicated +things, and they left him, while curiously finished, curiously +undifferentiated. The hurrying streets of any large town in his native +land would, one felt, be full of others like him: good-tempered, shrewd, +alert, yet with an air of placidity, too, as though it were a world that +required effort and vigilance of one, and yet, these conditions +fulfilled, would always justify one's expectations. If differences there +were in Franklin Kane, they were to be sought for, they did not present +themselves; and he himself would have been the last to be conscious of +them. He didn't think of himself as differentiated; he didn't desire +differentiation. + +He advanced now towards his beloved, after a slight hesitation, for the +sunlight in which she stood as well as her own radiant appearance seemed +to have dazzled him a little. Althea held out her hands, and the tears +came into her eyes; it was as if she hadn't known, until then, how +lonely she was. 'O Franklin, I'm so glad to see you,' she said. + +He held her hands, gazing at her with a gentle yet intent rapture, and +he forgot, in a daring greater than any he had ever known, to kiss them. +Franklin never took anything for granted, and Althea knew that it was +because he saw her tears and saw her emotion that he could ask her now, +hesitatingly, yet with sudden confidence: 'Althea, it's been so +long--you are so lovely--it will mean nothing to you, I know; so may I +kiss you?' + +Put like that, why shouldn't he? Conscience had not a qualm, and +Franklin had never seemed so dear to her. She smiled a sisterly benison +upon his request, and, still holding her hands, he leaned to her and +kissed her. Closing her eyes she wondered intently for a moment, able, +in the midst of her motion, to analyse it; for, yes, it had thrilled +her. She needed to be kissed, were it only Franklin who kissed her. + +They went, hand in hand, to a sofa, and there she was able to show him +only the sisterly benignity that he knew so well. She questioned him +sweetly about his voyage, his health, his relatives--his only near +relative was a sister who taught in a college--and about their mutual +friends and his work. To all he replied carefully and calmly, though +looking at her delightedly while he spoke. He had a very deliberate, +even way of speaking, and in certain words so broadened the a's that, +almost doubled in length by this treatment, they sounded like little +bleats. His 'yes' was on two notes and became a dissyllable. + +After he had answered all her questions he took up the thread himself. +He had tactfully relinquished her hand at a certain moment in her talk. +Althea well remembered his sensitiveness to any slightest mood in +herself; he was wonderfully imaginative when it came to any human +relation. He did not wait for her to feel consciously that it was not +quite fitting that her hand should be held for so long. + +'This is a nice old place you've got, Althea,' he said, looking about. +'Homelike and welcoming. I liked the look of it as I drove up. Have you +a lot of English people with you?' + +'Only one; Miss Buckston, you know. Aunt Julia and the girls are here, +and Herbert Vaughan, their friend. You know Herbert Vaughan; such a nice +young creature; his mother is a Bostonian.' + +'I know about him; I don't know him,' said Franklin, who indeed, as she +reflected, would not be likely to have met the fashionable Herbert. 'And +where is that attractive new friend of yours you wrote to me about--the +one you took care of in Paris--the Scotch lady?' + +'Helen Buchanan? She is coming; she is in Scotland now.' + +'Oh, she's coming. I am to see her, I hope.' + +'You are to see everybody, dear Franklin,' said Althea, smiling upon +him. 'You are to stay, you know, for as long as you will.' + +'That's sweet of you, Althea.' He looked at her. Her kindness still +buoyed him above his wonted level. He had never allowed himself to +become utterly hopeless, yet he had become almost resigned to hope +deferred; a pressing, present hope grew in him now. 'But it's ambiguous, +you know,' he went on, smiling back. 'If I'm to stay as long as I will, +I'm never to leave you, you know.' + +Hope was becoming to Franklin. Althea felt herself colouring a little +under his eyes. 'You still feel that?' she said rather feebly. + +'I'll always feel that.' + +'It's very wonderful of you, Franklin. It makes me, sometimes, feel +guilty, as though I kept you from fuller happiness.' + +'You can't do that. You are the only person who can give me fuller +happiness.' + +'And I give you happiness, like this--even like this?--really?' + +'Of course; but,' he smiled a little forcedly, 'I can't pretend it's +anything like what I want. I want a great deal.' + +Althea's eyes fell before the intent and gentle gaze. + +'Dear Franklin--I wish----' + +'You wish you could? I wonder--I wonder, Althea, if you feel a little +nearer to it just now. I seem to feel, myself, that you are.' + +Was she? How she wished she were. Yet the wish was mixed with fear. She +said, faltering, 'Don't ask me now. I'm so glad to see you--so glad; but +that's not the same thing, is it?' + +'It may be on the way to it.' + +'May it?' she sighed tremblingly. + +There was a silence; and then, taking her hand again, he again kissed +it, and holding it for an insistent moment said, 'Althea, won't you try +being engaged to me?' + +She said nothing, turning away her face. + +'You might make a habit of loving me, you know,' he went on half +whimsically. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our +secret, our little experiment. If only you'd try it. Dearest, I do love +you so deeply.' + +And then--how it was she did not know, but it was again Franklin's words +rather than Franklin that moved her, so that he must have seen the +yielding to his love, if not to him, in her face--she was in his arms, +and he was kissing her and saying, 'O Althea, won't you try?' + +Althea's mind whirled. She needed to be kissed; that alone was evident; +for she did not draw away; but the tears came, of perplexity and pathos, +and she said, 'Franklin, dear Franklin, I'll try--I mean, I'll try to be +in love with you--I can't be engaged, not really engaged--but I will +try.' + +'Darling--you are nearer it----' + +'Yes--I don't know, Franklin--I mustn't bind myself. I can't marry you +unless I am in love with you--can I, Franklin?' + +'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin, his voice a little +shaken. 'You can't expect me to give you an impartial answer to that +now--can you, dear? I feel as if I wanted you to marry me on the chance +you'd come to love me. And you do care for me enough for this, don't +you? That in itself is such an incredible gift.' + +Yes, she evidently cared for him enough for this; and 'this' meant his +arm about her, her hand in his, his eyes of devotion upon her, centre of +his universe as she was. And 'this' had, after years of formality, +incredibly indeed altered all their relation. But--to marry him--it +meant all sorts of other things; it meant definitely giving up; it meant +definitely taking on. What it meant taking on was Franklin's +raylessness, Franklin's obscurity, Franklin's dun-colour--could a wife +escape the infection? What it meant giving up was more vague, but it +floated before her as the rose-coloured dream of her youth--the hero, +the earnest, ardent hero, who was to light all life to rapture and +significance. And, absurdly, while the drift of glamour and regret +floated by, and while she sat with Franklin's arm about her, her hand in +his, it seemed to shape itself for a moment into the gay, irresponsible +face of Gerald Digby. Absurd, indeed; he was neither earnest nor ardent, +and if he were he would never feel earnestness or ardour on her account. +Franklin certainly responded, in that respect, to the requirements of +her dream. Yet--ah, yet--he responded in no other. It was not enough to +have eyes only for her. A hero should draw others' eyes upon him; should +have rays that others could recognise. Althea was troubled, and she was +also ashamed of herself, but whether because of that vision of Gerald +Digby, or whether because she was allowing Franklin privileges never +allowed before, she did not know. Only the profundity of reverence that +beamed upon her from Franklin's eyes enabled her to regain her +self-respect. + +Smiling a little constrainedly, she drew her hand from his and rose. 'I +mustn't bind myself,' she repeated, standing with downcast eyes before +him, 'but I'll try; indeed, I'll try.' + +'You want to be in love with me, if only you can manage it, don't you, +dear?' he questioned; and to this she could truthfully reply, 'Yes, dear +Franklin, I want to be in love with you.' + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Althea found, as she had hoped, that her whole situation was altered by +the arrival of her suitor. A woman boasting the possession of even the +most rayless of that species is in a very different category from the +woman as mere unsought unit. As unit she sinks easily into the +background, is merged with other unemphatic things, but as sought she is +always in the foreground, not only in her own, but in others' eyes. Be +she ever so unnoticeable, she then gains, at least, the compliment of +conjecture. The significance of her personal drama has a universal +interest; the issues of her situation are those that appeal forcibly to +all. + +Althea and her steady, sallow satellite, became the centre of a watchful +circle; watchful and kindly. Even to others her charms became more +apparent, as, indeed, they were more actual. To be loved and to live in +the presence of the adorer is the most beautifying of circumstances. +Althea bloomed under it. Her eyes became larger, sweeter, sadder; her +lips softer; the mild fever of her indecision and of her sense of power +burned dimly in her cheeks. As the centre of watchfulness she gained the +grace of self-confidence. + +Aunt Julia, observant and shrewd, smiled with half-ironic satisfaction. +She had felt sure that Althea must come to this, and 'this,' she +considered as on the whole fortunate for Althea. Anything, Aunt Julia +thought, was better than to become a wandering old maid, and she had, +moreover, the highest respect for Franklin Winslow Kane. As a suitor for +one of her own girls he would, of course, have been impossible; but her +girls she placed in a different category from Althea; they had the +rights of youth, charm, and beauty. + +The girls, for their part, though seeing Franklin as a fair object for +chaff, conceived of him as wholly suitable. Though they chaffed him, +they never did so to his disadvantage, and they were respectful +spectators of his enterprise. They had the nicest sense of loyalty for +serious situations. + +And Miss Buckston was of all the most satisfactory in her attitude. Her +contempt for the disillusions and impediments of marriage could not +prevent her from feeling an altogether new regard for a person to whom +marriage was so obviously open; moreover, she thought Mr. Kane highly +interesting. She at once informed Althea that she always found American +men vastly the superior in achievement and energy to the much-vaunted +American woman, and Althea was not displeased. She was amused but +gratified, when Miss Buckston told her what were Franklin's good +qualities, and said that though he had many foolish democratic notions, +he was more worth while talking to than any man she had met for a long +time. She took every opportunity for talking to him about sociology, +science, and international themes, and Althea even became a little irked +by the frequency of these colloquies and tempted sometimes to withdraw +Franklin from them; but the subtle flattery that Miss Buckston's +interest in Franklin offered to herself was too acceptable for her to +yield to such impulses. Yes, Franklin had a right to his air of careful +elation; she had never been so near it. She had not again allowed him to +kiss her--she was still rather ashamed when she remembered how often she +had, on that one occasion, allowed him to kiss her; yet, in spite of her +swift stepping back to discretion, she had never in all her life been so +near to saying 'yes' to Franklin as during the eight or ten days after +his arrival. And the fact that a third postcard from Helen expressed +even further vagueness as to the chance of Gerald's being able to be +with them that autumn at Merriston, added to the sense of inevitability. +Althea had been for this time so absorbed in Franklin, his effect on +others and on herself, that she had not felt, as she would otherwise +have done, Helen's unsatisfactory attitude. Helen was at last coming, +and she was fluttered at the thought of her coming, but she was far more +able to cope with Helen; there was more self to do it with; she was +stronger, more independent of Helen's opinion and of Helen's affection. +But dimly she felt also--hardly aware she felt it--that she was a more +effective self as the undecided recipient of Franklin's devotion than as +his affianced wife. A rayless person, it seemed, could crown one with +beams as long as one maintained one's distance from him; merged with him +one shared his insignificance. To accept Franklin might be to shear them +both of all the radiance they borrowed from each other. + +Helen arrived on a very hot evening in mid-August. She had lost the best +train, which brought one to Merriston at tea-time--Althea felt that +Helen was the sort of person who would always lose the best train--and +after a tedious journey, with waits and changes at hot stations, she +received her friend's kisses just as the dressing-bell for dinner +sounded. Helen, standing among her boxes, while Amélie hurriedly got out +her evening things, looked extremely tired, and felt, Althea was sure, +extremely ill-tempered. It was characteristic of Helen, she knew it +intuitively, to feel ill-temper, and yet to have it so perfectly under +control that it made her manner sweeter than usual. Her sense of social +duty never failed her, and it did not in the least fail her now as she +smiled at Althea, and, while she drank the cup of tea that had been +brought to her, gave an account of her misfortunes. She had arrived in +London from Scotland the night before, spent two hours of the morning in +frantic shopping--the shops like ovens and the London pavements exhaling +a torrid heat; had found, on getting back to Aunt Grizel's--Aunt Grizel +was away--that the silly maid had muddled all her packing; then, late +already, had hurled herself into a cab, and observed, half-way to the +station, that the horse was on the point of collapse; had changed cabs +and had arrived at the station to see her train just going out. 'So +there I paced up and down like a caged, suffocating lioness for over an +hour, had a loathsome lunch, and read half a dozen papers before my +train started, I came third class with a weary mother and two babies, +the sun beat in all the way, and I had three changes. I'm hardly fit to +be seen, and not fit to speak. But, yes, I'll have a bath and come down +in time for something to eat. I'd rather come down; please don't wait +for me.' + +They did, however, and she was very late. The windows in the +drawing-room were widely open to the evening air, and the lamps had not +yet been lit; and when Helen came she made Althea think a little of a +beautiful grey moth, hovering vaguely in the dusk. + +Captain Merton dined with them that evening, and young Harry Evans, son +of a neighbouring squire; and Herbert Vaughan was still at Merriston, +the masculine equivalent of Mildred and Dorothy, an exquisitely +appointed youth, frank and boisterous, with charming, candid eyes, and +the figure of an Adonis. These young men's eyes were fixed upon Helen as +they took their places at the dinner-table, though not altogether, +Althea perceived, with admiration. Helen, wherever she was, would always +be centre; things and people grouped themselves about her; she made the +picture, and she was the focus of interest. 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. One never could tell in the least +what she really thought of it. She smiled with pale lips and weary eyes +upon Franklin, listened to him gravely and with concentration, and, when +she did speak, it was, once or twice, with gaiety, as though he had +amused and surprised her. Yet Althea felt that her thoughts were far +from Franklin, far from everybody in the room. And meanwhile, of +everybody in the room, it was the lean, sallow young man beside her who +seemed at once the least impressed and the most interested. But that was +so like Franklin; no one could outdo him in interest, and no one could +outdo him in placidity. That he could examine Helen with his calm, +careful eye, as though she were an object for mental and moral +appraisement only; that he could see her so acutely, and yet remain so +unmoved by her rarity, at once pleased and displeased Althea. It showed +him as so safe, but it showed him as so narrow. She found herself +thinking almost impatiently that Franklin simply had no sense of charm +at all. Helen interested him, but she did not stir in him the least +wistfulness or wonder, as charm should do. Miss Buckston interested him, +too. And she was very sure that Franklin while liking Helen as a human +creature--so he liked Miss Buckston--disapproved of her as a type. Of +course, he must disapprove of her. Didn't she contradict all the things +he approved of--all the laboriousness, the earnestness, the tolerant +bias towards the views and feelings of the majority? And Althea felt, +with a rather sharp satisfaction, that it would give her some pleasure +to show Franklin that she differed from him; that she had other tastes +than his, other needs--needs which Helen more than satisfied. + +She had no opportunity that night for fathoming Helen's impressions of +Franklin, and indeed felt that the task was a delicate one to undertake. +If Helen didn't volunteer them she could hardly ask for them. Loyalty to +Franklin and to the old bond between them, to say nothing of the new, +made it unfit that Helen should know that her impressions of Franklin +were of any weight with her friend. But the next morning Helen did not +come down to breakfast, and there was no reason why, in a stroll round +the garden with Franklin afterwards, she should not be point blank; the +only unfairness here was that in his opinion of Helen it would not be +Helen he judged, but himself. + +'How do you like her, my new friend?' she asked. + +Franklin was very willing to talk and had already clear impressions. The +clearest was the one he put at once before her in the vernacular he had +never taken the least pains to modify. 'She looks sick; I'd be worried +about her if I were you. Can't you rouse her?' + +'Rouse her? She is always like that. Only she was particularly tired +last night.' + +'A healthy young woman oughtn't to get so tired. If she's always like +that she always needs rousing.' + +'Don't be ridiculous, Franklin. What do you mean?' + +'Why, I'm perfectly serious. I think she looks sick. She ought to take +tonics and a lot of outdoor exercise.' + +'Is that all that you can find to say about her?' Althea asked, half +amused and half indignant. + +'Why no,' Franklin replied. 'I think she's very attractive; she has a +great deal of poise. Only she's half alive. I'd like to see her doing +something.' + +'It's enough for her to be, I think.' + +'Enough for you, perhaps; but is it enough for her? She'd be a mighty +lot happier if she had some work.' + +'Really, Franklin, you are absurd,' said Althea laughing. 'There is room +in the world, thank goodness, for other people besides people who work.' + +'Oh no, there isn't; not really. The trouble with the world is that +they're here and have to be taken care of; there's not room for them. +It's lovely of you to care so much about her,' he went on, turning his +bright gaze upon her. 'I see how you care for her. It's because of +that--for her sake, you know--what it can mean to her--that I emphasise +the side that needs looking after. You look after her, Althea; that'll +be the best thing that can happen to her.' + +With all his acuteness, how guileless he was, the dear! She saw herself +'looking after' Helen! + +'You might have a great deal of influence on her,' Franklin added. + +Althea struggled for a moment with her pride. She liked Franklin to have +this high opinion of her ministering powers, and yet she liked even more +to have the comfort of confiding in him; and she was willing to add to +Helen's impressiveness at the expense of her own. 'I've no influence +with her,' she said. 'I never shall have. I don't believe that any one +could influence Helen.' + +Franklin looked fixedly at her for some time as though probing what +there must be of pain for her in this avowal. Then he said, 'That's too +bad. Too bad for her, I mean. You're all right, dear. She doesn't know +what she misses.' + +They sat out on the lawn that afternoon in the shade of the great trees. +Mildred and Dorothy, glittering in white, played lawn-tennis +indefatigably with Herbert Vaughan and Captain Merton. Aunt Julia +embroidered, and Miss Buckston read a review with a concentrated brow +and an occasional ejaculation of disapproval. Helen was lying prone in a +green linen chair; her garden hat was bent over her eyes and she seemed +to doze. Franklin sat on the grass in front of Althea, just outside the +radius of shadow, clasping his thin knees with his thin hands. He looked +at his worst out of doors, on a lawn and under trees. He was typically +civic. Even with his attempts to adapt his clothes to rural +requirements, he was out of place. His shoes seemed to demand a +pavement, and his thin grey coat and trousers an office stool. Althea +also eyed his tie with uncertainty. He wasn't right; he didn't in the +least look like Herbert Vaughan, who was elegant, or like Captain +Merton, who was easy. He sat out in the sunlight, undisturbed by it, +though he screwed up his features in a very unbecoming way while he +talked, the sun in his eyes. In her cool green shadow, Helen now and +then opened her eyes and looked at him, and Althea wished that he would +not remain in so resolutely disadvantageous a situation. + +'See here, Althea,' he was saying, 'if you've gone so much into this +matter'--the topic was that of sweated industries--'I don't see how you +can avoid feeling responsible--making some use of all you know. I don't +ask you to come home to do it, though we need you and your kind badly +there, but you ought to lend a hand here.' + +'I don't really think I could be of any use,' said Althea. + +'With all your knowledge of political economy? Why, Miss Buckston could +set you to something at once. Knowledge is always of use, isn't it, Miss +Buckston?' + +'Yes, if one cares enough about things to put them through,' said Miss +Buckston. 'I always tell Althea that she might make herself very useful +to me.' + +'Exactly,' said Franklin. 'And she does care. All you need do, Althea, +is to harness yourself. You mustn't drift.' + +'The number of drifting American women one sees over here!' Miss +Buckston ejaculated; to which Franklin cheerfully replied: 'Oh, we'll +work them all in; they are of use to us in their own way, though they +often don't know it. They are learning a lot; they are getting equipped. +The country will get the good of it some day. Look at Althea, for +instance. You might say she drifted, but she's been a hard scholar; I +know it; all she needs now is to get harnessed.' + +It was not lover-like talk; yet what talk, in its very impartiality, +could from a lover be more gratifying? Althea again glanced at Helen, +but Helen again seemed to slumber. Her face in repose had a look of +discontent and sorrow, and Franklin's eyes, following her own, no doubt +recognised what she did. He observed Helen for some moments before +returning to the theme of efficiency. + +It was a little later on that Althea's opportunity--and crisis--came. +Aunt Julia had gone in and Miss Buckston suggested to Franklin that he +should take a turn with her before tea. Franklin got up at once and +walked away beside her, and Althea knew that his alacrity was the +greater because he felt that by going with Miss Buckston he left her +alone with her cherished friend. As he and Miss Buckston disappeared in +the shrubberies, Helen opened her eyes and looked at them. + +'How do you like Miss Buckston now that you see her at closer quarters?' +Althea asked, hoping to approach the subject that preoccupied her by a +circuitous method. + +Helen smiled. 'One hardly likes her better at closer quarters, does one? +She is like a gun going off every few moments.' + +Althea smiled too; she no longer felt many qualms of loyalty on Miss +Buckston's behalf. + +Helen said no more, and the subject was still unapproached. 'And how do +you like Mr. Kane?' Althea now felt herself forced to add. + +She had not intended to use that casual tone, nearly the same tone that +she had used for Miss Buckston. But she had a dimly apprehended and +strongly felt wish not to forestall any verdict of Helen's; to make sure +that Helen should have an open field for pronouncing her verdict +candidly. Yet she was hardly prepared for the candour of Helen's reply, +though in the shock that attended it she knew in a moment that she had +brought it upon herself. One didn't question people about one's near +friends in that casual tone. + +'Funny little man,' said Helen. + +After the shock of it--her worst suspicions confirmed--it was a deep +qualm that Althea felt, a qualm in which she knew that something +definite and final had happened to her; something sharp yet vague, all +blurred by the balmy softness of the day, the sense of physical +well-being, the beauty of green branches and bays of deep blue sky +above. It was difficult to know, for a moment, just what had happened, +for it was not as if she had ever definitely told herself that she +intended to marry Franklin. The clearest contrast between the moment of +revelation and that which had gone before lay in the fact that not until +Helen spoke those idle, innocent words had she ever definitely told +herself that she could never marry him. And there was a pang in the +knowledge, and with it a drowsy lassitude, as of relief and certainty. +The reason now was there; it gazed at her. Not that she couldn't have +seen it for herself, but pity, loneliness, the craving for love had +blinded her. Franklin was a funny little man, and that was why she could +not marry him. And now, with the lassitude, the relief from long +tension, came a feeling of cold and sickness. + +Helen, baleful in her unconsciousness, had again closed her eyes. Althea +looked at her, and she was aware of being angry with Helen. She was +further aware that, since all was over for Franklin, she owed him +something. She owed it to him at least to make clear to Helen that she +didn't place him with Miss Buckston. + +'Yes,' she said, 'Franklin is funny in his way. He is very quaint and +original and simple; but he is a dear, too, you know.' + +Helen did not open her eyes. 'I'm sure he is,' she acquiesced. Her +placid acceptance of whatever interpretation of Mr. Kane Althea should +choose to set before her, made Althea still angrier--with herself and +with Helen. + +'He is quite a noted scientist,' she went on, keeping her voice smooth, +'and has a very interesting new theory about atoms that's exciting a +good deal of attention.' + +Her voice was too successful; Helen still suspected nothing. 'Yes,' she +said. 'Really.' + +'You mustn't judge him from his appearance,' said Althea, smiling, for +Helen had now opened her eyes and was looking dreamily at the +lawn-tennis players.' His clothes are odd, of course; he doesn't know +how to dress; but his eyes are fine; one sees the thinker in them.' She +hoped by sacrificing Franklin's clothes to elicit some appreciation of +his eyes. But Helen merely acquiesced again with: 'Yes; he doesn't know +how to dress.' + +'He isn't at all well off, you know,' said Althea. 'Indeed, he is quite +poor. He spends most of his money on research and philanthropy.' + +'Ah, well!' Helen commented, 'it's extraordinary how little difference +money makes if a man knows how to dress.' + +The thought of Gerald Digby went like a dart through Althea's mind. He +was poor. She remembered his socks and ties, his general rightness. She +wondered how much he spent on his clothes. She was silent for a moment, +struggling with her trivial and with her deep discomfitures, and she +saw the figures of Miss Buckston and of Franklin--both so funny, both so +earnest--appear at the farther edge of the lawn engaged in strenuous +converse. Helen looked at them too, kindly and indifferently. 'That +would be quite an appropriate attachment, wouldn't it?' she remarked. +'They seem very much interested in each other, those two.' + +Althea grew very red. Her mind knew a horrid wrench. She did not know +whether it was in pride of possessorship, or shame of it, or merely in +helpless loyalty that, after a pause, she said: 'Perhaps I ought to have +told you, Helen, that Franklin has wanted to marry me for fifteen years. +I've no intention of accepting him; but no one can judge as I can of how +big and dear a person he is--in spite of his funniness.' As she spoke +she remembered--it was with a gush of undiluted dismay--that to Helen +she had in Paris spoken of the 'delightful' suitor, the 'only one.' Did +Helen remember? And how could Helen connect that delightful 'one' with +Franklin, and with her own attitude towards Franklin? + +But Helen now had turned her eyes upon her, opening them--it always +seemed to be with difficulty that she did it--widely. 'My dear,' she +said, 'I do beg your pardon. You never gave me a hint.' + +How, indeed, could the Paris memory have been one? + +'There wasn't any hint to give, exactly,' said Althea, blushing more +deeply and trying to prevent the tears from rising. 'I'm not in the +least in love with Franklin. I never shall be.' + +'No, of course not,' Helen replied, full of solicitude. 'Only, as you +say, you must know him so well;--to have him talked over, quite idly and +ignorantly, as I've been talking.--Really, you ought to have stopped +me.' + +'There was no reason for stopping you. I can see Franklin with perfect +detachment. I see him just as you do, only I see so much more. His +devotion to me is a rare thing; it has always made me feel unworthy.' + +'Dear me, yes. Fifteen years, you say; it's quite extraordinary,' said +Helen. + +To Althea it seemed that Helen's candour was merciless, and revealed her +to herself as uncandid, crooked, and devious. It was with a stronger +wish than ever to atone to Franklin that she persisted: '_He_ is +extraordinary; that's what I mean about him. I am devoted to him. And my +consolation is that since I can't give him love he finds my friendship +the next best thing in life.' + +'Really?' Helen repeated. She was silent then, evidently not considering +herself privileged to ask questions; and the silence was fraught for +Althea with keenest discomfort. It was only after a long pause that at +last, tentatively and delicately, as though she guessed that Althea +perhaps was resenting something, and perhaps wanted her to ask +questions, Helen said: 'And--you don't think you can ever take him?' + +'My dear Helen! How can you ask me? He isn't a man to fall in love with, +is he?' + +'No, certainly not,' said Helen, smiling a little constrainedly, as +though her friend's vehemence struck her as slightly excessive. 'But he +might, from what you tell me, be a man to marry.' + +'I couldn't marry a man I was not in love with.' + +'Not if he were sufficiently in love with you? Such faithful and devoted +people are rare.' + +'You know, Helen, that, however faithful and devoted he were, you +couldn't fancy yourself marrying Franklin.' + +Helen, at this turning of the tables, looked slightly disconcerted. +'Well, as you say, I hardly know him,' she suggested. + +'However well you knew him, you do know that under no circumstances +could you marry him.' + +'No, I suppose not.' + +Her look of readjustment was inflicting further and subtler wounds. + +'Can't I feel in the same way?' said Althea. + +Helen, a little troubled by the feeling she could not interpret in her +friend's voice, hesitated before saying--as though in atonement to Mr. +Kane she felt bound to put his case as favourably as possible: 'It +doesn't quite follow, does it, that somebody who would suit you would +suit me? We are so different, aren't we?' + +'Different? How?' + +'Well, I could put up with a very inferior, frivolous sort of person. +You'd have higher ideas altogether.' + +Althea still tried to smile. 'You mean that Franklin is too high an idea +for you?' + +'Far, far too high,' said Helen, smiling back. + +Franklin and Miss Buckston were now approaching them, and Althea had to +accept this ambiguous result of the conversation. One result, however, +was not ambiguous. She seemed to see Franklin, as he came towards her +over the thick sward, in a new light, a light that diminished and +removed him; so that while her heart ached over him as it had never +ached, it yet, strangely, was hardened towards him, and almost hostile. +How had she not seen for herself, clearly and finally, that she and +Helen were alike, and that whether it was that Franklin was too high, or +whether it was that Franklin was merely funny--for either or for both +reasons, Franklin could never be for her. + +Her heart was hard and aching; but above everything else one hot feeling +pulsed: Helen should not have said that he was funny and then glided to +the point where she left him as too high for herself, yet not too high +for her friend. She should not have withdrawn from her friend and +stranded her with Franklin Winslow Kane. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +In the course of the next few days Miss Buckston went back to her Surrey +cottage, and two friends of Helen's arrived. Helen was fulfilling her +promise of giving Althea all the people she wanted. Lady Pickering was +widowed, young, coquettish, and pretty; Sir Charles Brewster a lively +young bachelor with high eyebrows, upturned tips to his moustache, and +an air of surprise and competence. They made great friends at once with +Mildred, Dorothy and Herbert Vaughan, who shared in all Sir Charles's +hunting and yachting interests. Lady Pickering, after a day of tennis +and flirtation, would drift at night into Dorothy and Mildred's rooms to +talk of dresses, and for some days wore her hair tied in a large black +bow behind, reverting, however, to her usual dishevelled +picturesqueness. 'One needs to look as innocent as a pony to have that +bow really suit one,' she said. + +Althea, in this accession of new life, again felt relegated to the +background. Helen did not join in the revels, but there was no air of +being relegated about her; she might have been the jaded and kindly +queen before whom they were enacted. 'Dear Helen,' said Lady Pickering +to Mildred and Althea, 'I can see that she's down on her luck and very +bored with life. But it's always nice having her about, isn't it? Always +nice to have her to look at.' + +Althea felt that her guests found no such decorative uses for herself, +and that they took it for granted that, with a suitor to engage her +attention, she would be quite satisfied to remain outside, even if +above, the gayer circle. She could not deny that her acceptance of +Franklin's devotion before Helen's arrival, their air of happy +withdrawal--a withdrawal that had then made them conspicuous, not +negligible--absolutely justified her guests in their over-tactfulness. +They still took it for granted that she and Franklin wanted to be alone +together; they still left them in an isolation almost bridal; but now +Althea did not want to be left alone with Franklin, and above all wished +to detach herself from any bridal association; and she tormented herself +with accusations concerning her former graciousness, responsible as it +was for her present discomfort. She knew that she was very fond of dear +Franklin, and that she always would be fond of him, but, with these +accusations crowding thickly upon her, she was ill at ease and unhappy +in his presence. What could she say to Franklin? 'I did, indeed, deceive +myself into thinking that I might be able to marry you, and I let you +see that I thought it; and then my friend's chance words showed me that +I never could. What am I to think of myself, Franklin? And what can you +think of me?' For though she could no longer feel pride in Franklin's +love; though it had ceased, since Helen's words, to have any decorative +value in her eyes, its practical value was still great; she could not +think of herself as not loved by Franklin. Her world would have rocked +without that foundation beneath it; and the fear that Franklin might, +reading her perplexed, unstable heart, feel her a person no longer to be +loved, was now an added complication. + +'O Franklin, dear Franklin!' she said to him suddenly one day, turning +upon him eyes enlarged by tears, 'I feel as if I were guilty towards +you.' + +She almost longed to put her head on his shoulder, to pour out all her +grief, and be understood and comforted. Franklin had not been slow to +recognise the change in his beloved's attitude towards him. He had shown +no sign of grievance or reproach; he seemed quite prepared for her +reaction from the moment of only dubious hope, and, though quite without +humility, to find it natural, however painful to himself, that Althea +should be rather bored after so much of him. But the gentle lighting of +his face now showed her, too, that her reticence and withdrawal had hurt +more than the new loss of hope. + +'You mean,' he said, trying to smile a little as he said it, 'you mean +that you've found out that you can't, dear?' + +She stood, stricken by the words and their finality, and she slowly +nodded, while two large tears rolled down her cheeks. + +Franklin Kane controlled the signs of his own emotion, which was deep. +'That's all right, dear,' he said. 'You're not guilty of anything. +You've been a little too kind--more than you can keep up, I mean. It's +been beautiful of you to be kind at all and to think you might be +kinder. Would you rather I went away? Perhaps it's painful to have me +about just now. I've got a good many places I can go to while I'm over +here, you know. You mustn't have me on your mind.' + +'O Franklin!' Althea almost sobbed; 'you are an angel. Of course I want +you to stay for as long as you will; of course I love to have you here.' +He was an angel, indeed, she felt, and another dart of hostility towards +Helen went through her--Helen, cynical, unspiritual, blind to angels. + +So Franklin stayed on, and the next day another guest arrived. It was at +breakfast that Althea found at her place a little note from Gerald Digby +asking her very prettily if she could take him in that evening. He was +in town and would start at once if she could wire that he might come. +Althea controlled, as best she could, her shock of delight. He had, +then, intended to come; he had not forgotten all about her. Even if she +counted only in his memory as tenant, it was good, she felt it +helplessly and blissfully, to count in any way with Gerald Digby. She +did not analyse and hardly recognised these sentiments, yet she strongly +felt the need for composure, and it was only with an air of soft +exhilaration that she made the announcement over the table to Helen. +'Isn't it nice, Helen? Mr. Digby is coming this evening.' The soft +exhilaration could not be noticeable, for everybody seemed in some +degree to share it. + +'Dear Gerald, how delightful!' said Lady Pickering, with, to Althea's +consciousness, too much an air of possessorship. 'Gerald is a splendid +actor, Miss Pepperell,' Sir Charles said to Dorothy. 'Miss Buchanan, you +and he must do some of your best parts together.' The girls were full of +expectancy. It was Helen herself who looked least illuminated by the +news; but then, as Althea realised, to Helen Gerald must be the most +matter-of-fact thing in life. + +They were all sitting under the trees on the lawn when Gerald arrived; +he had not lost the best train. Every one was in white, except Helen who +wore black, and Franklin who wore grey; every one was lolling on the +grass or extended on chairs, except Aunt Julia, erect and embroidering, +and Althea who was giving her attention to tea. It had just been poured +out when Gerald came strolling over the lawn towards them. + +He carried his Panama hat doubled in his hand; he looked exquisitely +cool, and he glanced about him as he came, well pleased, apparently, to +find himself again in his old home. Althea felt his manner of +approaching them to be characteristic; it was at once so desultory and +so pleasant. + +'You look like a flock of doves,' he said, as, smiling, he took Althea's +welcoming hand and surveyed the group. 'Hello, Helen, how are you? +Hello, Charlie; and how nice to find you, Frances.' + +He was introduced to the others, continuing to smile with marked +approbation, Althea felt, upon Mildred and Dorothy, who certainly looked +charming, and then he dropped on the grass beside Lady Pickering's +chair. + +Althea knew that if she looked like a dove, she felt like a very +fluttering one. She was much moved by this welcoming of Mr. Digby to his +home, and she wondered if the quickened beating of her heart manifested +itself in any change of glance or colour. She soon felt, however, as she +distributed teacups and looked about her circle, that if she were +visibly moved Mr. Digby would not be aware of the fact. The fact, +obviously, that he was most aware of was Lady Pickering's presence, and +he was talking to her with a lightness and gaiety that she could +presently only define, for her own discomfort, as flirtation. Althea had +had little experience of flirting, and the little had not been personal. +It had remained for her always a rather tasteless, rather ludicrous +spectacle; yet Mr. Digby's manner of flirting, if flirting it was, was +neither. It was graceful, unemphatic, composed of playful repartee and +merry glances. It was Lady Pickering who overdid her side of the +dialogue and brought to it a significance that Mr. Digby's eyes and +smile disowned even while they evoked it. One of the things of which Mr. +Digby had shown himself most completely unaware was Franklin Kane, who +sat, as usual, just outside the circle in the sun, balancing his tea-cup +on his raised knees and 'Fletcherising' a slice of cake. Gerald had +glanced at him as one might glance--Althea had felt it keenly--at some +nice little insect on one's path, a pleasant insect, but too small to +warrant any attention beyond a casual recognition of type. But Franklin, +who had a casual interest in nobody, was very much aware of the +newcomer, and he gazed attentively at Gerald Digby as he had gazed at +Helen on the first evening of their meeting, with less of interest +perhaps, but with much the same dispassionate intentness; and Althea +felt sure that he already did not approve of Gerald Digby. + +She asked Helen that evening, lightly, as Helen had asked an equivalent +question about Franklin and Miss Buckston, whether Mr. Digby and Lady +Pickering were in love; she felt sure that they were not in love, which +made the question easier. + +'Oh no; not at all, I fancy,' said Helen. + +'I only asked,' said Althea, 'because it seemed the obvious +explanation.' + +'You mean their way of flirting.' + +'Yes. I suppose I'm not used to flirtation, not to such extreme +flirtation. I don't like it, do you?' + +'I don't know that I do; but Gerald is only a flirt through sympathy and +good nature. It's Frances who leads him on; she is a flirt by +temperament.' + +'I'm glad of that,' said Althea. 'I'm sure he is too nice to be one by +temperament.' + +'After all, it's a very harmless diversion.' + +'Do you think it harmless? It pains me to see a sacred thing being +mimicked.' + +'I hardly think it's a sacred thing Frances and Gerald are mimicking,' +Helen smiled. + +'It's love, isn't it?' + +'Love of such a trivial order that I can't feel anything is being taken +in vain.' + +Helen was amused, yet touched by her friend's standards. Such distaste +was not unknown to her, and Gerald's sympathetic propensities had caused +her qualms with which she could not have imagined that Althea's had any +analogy. Yet it was not her own taste she was considering that evening +after dinner when, in walking up and down with Gerald on the gravelled +terrace outside the drawing-room, she told him of Althea's standards. +She felt responsible for Gerald, and that she owed it to Althea that he +should not be allowed to displease her. It had struck her more than +once, immersed in self-centred cogitations as she was, that Althea was +altogether too much relegated. + +'I wish you and Frances would not go on as you do, Gerald,' she said. +'It disturbs Althea, I am sure. She is not used to seeing people +behaving like that.' + +'Behaving?' asked the innocent Gerald. 'How have I been behaving?' + +'Very foolishly. You have been flirting, and rather flagrantly, with +Frances, ever since you came.' + +'But, my dear, you know perfectly well that one can't talk to Frances +without flirting with her. All conversation becomes flirtation. The most +guileless glance, in meeting her eye, is transmuted, like a straight +stick looking crooked when you put it into water, you know. Frances has +a charmingly deviating quality that I defy the straightest of intentions +to evade.' + +'Are yours so straight?' + +'Well--she is pretty and pleasant, and perfectly superficial, as you +know. I own that I do rather like to put the stick in the water and see +what happens to it.' + +'Well, don't put it in too often before Althea. After all, you are all +of you here because of her friendship with me, and it makes me feel +guilty if I see her having a bad time because of your misbehaviour.' + +'A bad time?' + +'Really. She takes things hard. She said it was mimicking a sacred +thing.' + +'Oh! but, I say, how awfully funny, Helen. You must own that it's +funny.' + +'Funny, but sweet, too.' + +'She is a sweet creature, of course, one can see that; and her moral +approvals and disapprovals are firmly fixed, however funny; one likes +that in her. I'll try to be good, if Frances will let me. She looked +quite pretty this evening, Miss Jakes; only she dresses too stiffly. +What's the matter? Couldn't you give her a hint? She is like a +satin-box, and a woman ought to be like a flower; ought to look as if +they'd bend if a breeze went over them. Now you can't imagine Miss Jakes +bending; she'd have to stoop.' + +Helen, in the darkness, smiled half bitterly, half affectionately. +Gerald's nonsense always pleased her, even when she was most exasperated +with him. She was not exasperated with Gerald in particular just now, +but with everything and everybody, herself included, and the fact that +he liked to flirt flagrantly with Lady Pickering did not move her more +than usual. It was not a particular but a general irritation that edged +her voice a little as she said, drawing her black scarf more closely +round her shoulders, 'Frances must satisfy you there. Your tastes, I +think, are becoming more and more dishevelled.' + +But innocent Gerald answered with a coal of fire: 'No, she is too +dishevelled. You satisfy my tastes there entirely; you flow, but you +don't flop. Now if Miss Jakes would only try to dress like you she'd be +immensely improved. You are perfect.' And he lightly touched her scarf +as he spoke with a fraternal and appreciative hand. + +Helen continued to smile in the darkness, but it was over an almost +irresistible impulse to sob. The impulse was so strong that it +frightened her, and it was with immense relief that she saw Althea's +figure--her 'box-like' figure--appear in the lighted window. She did +not want to talk to Althea, and she could not, just now, go on talking +to Gerald. From their corner of the terrace she indicated the vaguely +gazing Althea. 'There she is,' she said. 'Go and talk to her. Be nice to +her. I'm tired and am going to have a stroll in the shrubberies before +bed.' + +She left Gerald obediently, if not eagerly, moving towards the window, +and slipping into the obscurity of the shrubberies she threw back her +scarf and drew long breaths. She was becoming terribly overwrought. It +had been, since so long, a second nature to live two lives that any +danger of their merging affected her with a dreadful feeling of +disintegration. There was the life of comradeship, the secure little +compartment where Gerald was at home, so at home that he could tell her +she was perfect and touch her scarf with an approving hand, and from +this familiar shelter she had looked for so long, with the calmest eye, +upon his flirtations, and in it had heard, unmoved, his encomiums upon +herself. The other life, the real life, was all outdoors in comparison; +it was all her real self, passionate, untamed, desolate; it was like a +bleak, wild moorland, and the social, the comrade self only a strongly +built little lodge erected, through stress of wind and weather, in the +midst of it. Since girlhood it had been a second nature to her to keep +comradeship shut in and reality shut out. And to-night reality seemed to +shake and batter at the doors. + +She had come to Merriston House to rest, to drink _eau rougie_ and to +rest. She wanted to lapse into apathy and to recover, as far as might +be, from her recent unpleasant experiments and experiences. Had she +allowed herself any illusions about the experiment, the experience would +have been humiliating; but Helen was not humiliated, she had not +deceived herself for a moment. She had, open-eyed, been trying for the +'other things,' and she had only just missed them. She had intended to +marry a very important person who much admired her. She had been almost +sure that she could marry him if she wanted to, and she had found out +that she couldn't. It had not been, as in her youth, her own shrinking +and her own recoil at the last decisive moment. She had been resolved +and unwavering; her discomfiture had been sudden and its cause the quite +grotesque one of her admirer having fallen head over heels in love with +a child of eighteen--a foolish, affected little child, who giggled and +glanced and blushed opportunely, and who, beside these assets, had a +skilful and determined mother. Without the mother to waylay, pounce, and +fix, Helen did not believe that her sober, solid friend would have +yielded to the momentary beguilement, and Helen herself deigned not one +hint of contest; she had been resolved, but only to accept; she could +never have waylaid or pounced. And now, apathetic, yet irritated, +exhausted and sick at heart, she had been telling herself, as she lay in +the garden-chairs at Merriston House, that it was more than probable +that the time was over, even for the 'other things.' The prospect made +her weary. What--with Aunt Grizel's one hundred and fifty a year--was +she to do with herself in the future? What was to become of her? She +didn't feel that she much cared, and yet it was all that there was left +to care about, for Aunt Grizel's sake if not for her own, and she felt +only fit to rest from the pressure of the question. To-night, as she +turned and wandered among the trees, she said to herself that it hadn't +been a propitious time to come for rest to Merriston House. Gerald had +been the last person she desired to see just now. She had never been so +near to feeling danger as to-night. If Gerald were nice to her--he +always was--but nice in a certain way, the way that expressed so clearly +his tenderness and his dreadful, his merciful unawareness, she might +break down before him and sob. This would be too horrible, and when she +thought that it might happen she felt, rising with the longing for +tears, an old resentment against Gerald, fierce, absurd, and +unconquerable. After making the round of the lawns and looking up hard +and unseeingly at the stars, she came back to the terrace. Gerald and +Althea were gone, and she surmised that Gerald had not taken much +trouble to be nice. She was passing along an unillumined corner when she +came suddenly upon a figure seated there--so suddenly that she almost +fell against it. She murmured a hasty apology as Mr. Kane rose from a +chair where, with folded arms, he had been seated, apparently in +contemplation of the night. + +'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Helen. 'It's so dark here. I didn't see +you.' + +'And I didn't hear you coming,' said Mr. Kane. 'I beg your pardon. I'm +afraid you hurt your foot.' + +'Not at all,' Helen assured him. She had stepped into the light from the +windows and, Mr. Kane being beside her, she could see his face clearly +and see that he looked very tired. She had been aware, in these days of +somnolent retirement, that one other member of the party seemed, though +not in her sense retired from it, to wander rather aimlessly on its +outskirts. That his removal to this ambiguous limbo had been the result +of her own arrival Helen had no means of knowing, since she had never +seen Mr. Kane in his brief moment of hope when he and Althea had been +centre and everybody else outskirts. She had found him, during her few +conversations with him, so tamely funny as to be hardly odd, though his +manner of speaking and the way in which his hair was cut struck her as +expressing oddity to an unfortunate degree; but though only dimly aware +of him, and aware mainly in this sense of amusement, she had, since +Althea had informed her of his status, seen him with some +compassionateness. It didn't make him less funny to her that he should +have been in love with Althea for fifteen years, rather it made him more +so. Helen found it difficult to take either the devotion or its object +very seriously. She thought hopeless passions rather ridiculous, her own +included, but Gerald she did consider a possible object of passion; and +how Althea could be an object of passion for anybody, even for funny +little Mr. Kane, surpassed her comprehension, so that the only way to +understand the situation was to decide that Mr. Kane was incapable of +passion altogether. But to-night she received a new impression; looking +at Mr. Kane's face, thin, jaded, and kindly attentive to herself, it +suddenly became apparent to her that whatever his feeling might be it +was serious. He might not know passion, but his heart was aching, +perhaps quite as fiercely as her own. She felt sorry for Mr. Kane, and +her step lingered on her way to the house. + +'Isn't it a lovely night,' she said, in order to say something. 'Do you +like sitting in the dark? It's very restful, isn't it?' + +Franklin saw the alien Miss Buchanan's eyes bent kindly and observantly +upon him. + +'Yes, it's very restful,' he said. 'It smooths you out and straightens +you out when you get crumpled, you know, and impatient.' + +'I should not imagine you as ever very impatient,' smiled Helen. +'Perhaps you do sit a great deal in the dark.' + +He took her whimsical suggestion with careful humour. 'Why, no, it's not +a habit of mine; and it's not a recipe that it would be a good thing to +overdo, is it?' + +'Why not?' she asked. + +'There are worse things than impatience, aren't there?' said Franklin. +'Gloominess, for instance. You might get gloomy if you sat out in the +dark a great deal.' + +It amused her a little to wonder, as they went in together, whether Mr. +Kane disciplined his emotions and withdrew from restful influences +before they had time to become discouraging ones. She imagined that he +would have a recipe for everything. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +It was after this little nocturnal encounter that Helen found herself +watching Mr. Kane with a dim, speculative sympathy. There was nothing +else of much interest to watch, as far as she was aware, for Helen's +powers of observation were not sharpened by much imaginativeness. Her +sympathy must be aroused for her to care to see, and just now she felt +no sympathy for any one but Mr. Kane. + +Gerald, flirting far less flagrantly and sketching assiduously, was in +no need of sympathy; nor Althea, despite the fact that Helen felt her to +be a little reserved and melancholy. Althea, on the whole, seemed +placidly enough absorbed in her duties of hostess, and her state of +mind, at no time much preoccupying Helen, preoccupied her now less than +ever. The person who really interested her, now that she had come to +look at him and to realise that he was suffering, was Mr. Kane. He was +puzzling to her, not mystifying; there was no element of depth or shadow +about him; even his suffering--it was odd to think that a person with +such a small, flat nose should suffer--even his suffering was pellucid. +He puzzled her because he was different from anything she had ever +encountered, and he made her think of a page of trite phrases printed in +a half-comprehended dialect. If it was puzzling that any man should be +sufficiently in love with Althea to suffer over it, it was yet more +puzzling that, neglected as he so obviously was by his beloved, he +should show no dejection or consciousness of diminution. He seemed a +little aimless, it is true, but not in the least injured; and Helen, as +she watched him, found herself liking Mr. Kane. + +He had an air, pleasant to her, of finding no one beneath him, and at +the same time he seemed as unaware of superiority--unless it were +definitely moral or intellectual. A general indiscriminating goodwill +was expressed in his manner towards everybody, and when he did +discriminate--which was always on moral issues--his goodwill seemed +unperturbed by any amount of reprobation. He remained blandly humane +under the most disconcerting circumstances. She overtook him one day in +a lane holding a drunkard by the shoulder and endeavouring to steer him +homeward, while he expounded to him in scientific tones the ill effects +of alcohol on the system, and the remarkable results to be attained by +steady self-suggestion. Mr. Kane's collar was awry and his coat dusty, +almost as dusty as the drunkard's, with whom he had evidently had to +grapple in raising him from the highway; and Helen, as she paused at the +turning of the road which brought her upon them, heard Franklin's words: + +'I've tried it myself for insomnia. I'm a nervous man, and I was in a +bad way at the time; over-pressure, you know, and worry. I guess it's +like that with you, too, isn't it? You get on edge. Well, there's +nothing better than self-suggestion, and if you'll give it a try you'll +be surprised by the results, I'm sure of it.' + +Helen joined them and offered her assistance, for the bewildered +proselyte seemed unable to move forward now that he was upon his feet. + +'Well, if you would be so kind. Just your hand on his other shoulder, +you know,' said Franklin, turning a grateful glance upon her. 'Our +friend here is in trouble, you see. It's not far to the village, and +what he wants is to get to bed, have a good sleep and then a wash. He'll +feel a different man then.' + +Helen, her hand at 'our friend's' left shoulder, helped to propel him +forward, and ten minutes took them to his door, where, surrounded by a +staring crowd of women and children, they delivered him into the keeping +of his wife, a thin and weary person, who looked upon his benefactors +with almost as much resentment as upon him. + +'What he really needs, I'm afraid I think,' Helen said, as she and Mr. +Kane walked away, 'is a good whipping.' She said it in order to see the +effect of the ruthlessness upon her humanitarian companion. + +Mr. Kane did not look shocked or grieved; he turned a cogitating glance +upon her, and she saw that he diagnosed the state of mind that could +make such a suggestion and could not take it seriously. He smiled, +though a little gravely, in answering: 'Why, no, I don't think so; and I +don't believe you think so, Miss Buchanan. What you want to give him is +a hold on himself, hope, and self-respect; it wouldn't give you +self-respect to be whipped, would it?' + +'It might give me discretion,' said Helen, smiling back. + +'We don't want human beings to have the discretion of animals; we want +them to have the discretion of men,' said Franklin; 'that is, +self-mastery and wisdom.' + +Helen did not feel able to argue the point; indeed, it did not interest +her; but she asked Mr. Kane, some days later, how his roadside friend +was progressing towards the discretion of a man. + +'Oh, he'll be all right,' said Franklin. 'He'll pull round. +Self-suggestion will do it. It's not a bad case. He couldn't get hold of +the idea at first--he's not very bright; but I found out that he'd got +some very useful religious notions, and I work it in on these.' + +From the housekeeper, a friend of her youth, Helen learned that in the +village Mr. Kane's ministrations to Jim Betts were regarded with +surprise, yet not without admiration. He was supposed to be some strange +sort of foreign clergyman, not to be placed in any recognisable +category. 'He's a very kind gentleman, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Fielding. + +Mr. Kane was fond, Helen also observed, of entering into conversation +with the servants. The butler's political views--which were guarded--he +determinedly pursued, undeterred by Baines's cautious and deferential +retreats. He considered the footman as a potential friend, whatever the +footman might consider him. Their common manhood, in Franklin's eyes, +entirely outweighed the slight, extraneous accidents of fortune--nay, +these differences gave an additional interest. The footman had, no +doubt, a point of view novel and valuable, if one could get at it. +Franklin did not attempt to get at it by any method subversive of order +or interfering with Thomas's duties; he observed all the conventions +demanded by varying function. But Helen, strolling one morning before +breakfast outside the dining-room windows, heard within and paused to +listen to Mr. Kane's monotonous and slightly nasal tones as he shared +the morning news with Thomas, who, with an air of bewildered if obedient +attention, continued his avocations between the sideboard and the +breakfast-table. + +'Now I should say,' Franklin remarked, 'that something of that +sort--Germany's doing wonders with it--could be worked here in England +if you set yourselves to it.' + +'Yes, sir,' said Thomas. + +'Berlin has eliminated the slums, you know,' said Franklin, looking +thoughtfully at Thomas over the top of the paper. 'What do you feel +about it, all of you over here? It's a big question, you know, that of +the housing of the poor.' + +'Well, I can't say, sir,' said Thomas, compelled to a guarded opinion. +'Things do look black for the lower horders.' + +'You're right, Thomas; and things will go on looking black for helpless +people until they determine to help themselves, or until people who +aren't helpless--like you and me--determine they shan't be so black.' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'Talk it over, you know. Get your friends interested in it. It's a +mighty big subject, of course, that of the State and its poor, but it's +wonderful what can be done by personal initiative.' + +Helen entered at this point, and Thomas turned a furtive eye upon her, +perhaps in appeal for protection against these unprovoked and +inexplicable attacks. 'One might think the gentleman thought I had a +vote and was canvassing me,' he said to Baines, condescending in this +their common perplexity. And Baines replied: 'I'm sure I don't know what +he's up to.' + +Meanwhile Franklin, in the dining-room, folded his paper and said: 'You +know, Miss Buchanan, that Thomas, though a nice fellow, is remarkably +ignorant. I can't make out that there's anything of a civic or national +nature that he's interested in. He doesn't seem to read anything in the +papers except the racing and betting news. He doesn't seem to feel that +he has any stake in this great country of yours, or any responsibility +towards it. It makes me believe in manhood suffrage as I've never +believed before. Our people may be politically corrupt, but at least +they're interested; they're alive--alive enough to want to understand +how to get the best of things--as they see best. I've rarely met an +American that I couldn't get to talk; now it's almost impossible to get +Thomas to talk. Yet he's a nice young fellow; he has a nice, open, +intelligent face.' + +'Oh yes, has he?' said Helen, who was looking over the envelopes at her +place. 'I hadn't noticed his face; very pink, isn't it?' + +'Yes, he has a healthy colour,' said Franklin, still meditating on +Thomas's impenetrability. 'It's not that I don't perfectly understand +his being uncommunicative when he's engaged in his work--it was rather +tactless of me to talk to him just now, only the subject came up. I'd +been talking to Baines about the Old Age Pensions yesterday. That's one +of my objections to domestic service; it creates an artificial barrier +between man and man; but I know that the barrier is part of the +business, while the business is going on, and I've no quarrel with +social convention, as such. But even when they are alone with me--and +I'm referring to Baines now as much as to Thomas--they are very +uncommunicative. I met Thomas on the road to the village the other day +and could hardly get a word out of him till I began to talk about +cricket and ask him about it.' + +'He is probably a stupid boy,' said Helen, 'and you frighten him.' + +'If you say that, it's an indictment on the whole system, you know,' +said Franklin very gravely. + +'What system?' Helen asked, opening her letters, but looking at Mr. +Kane. + +'The system that makes some people afraid of others,' said Franklin. + +'It will always frighten inferior people to be talked to by their +superiors as if they were on a level. You probably talk to Thomas about +things he doesn't understand, and it bewilders him.' Helen, willing to +enlighten his idealism, smiled mildly at him, glancing down at her +letters as she spoke. + +Mr. Kane surveyed her with his bright, steady gaze. Her simple +elucidation evidently left him far from satisfied, either with her or +the system. 'In essentials, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'in the power of +effort, endurance, devotion, I've no doubt that Thomas and I are +equals, and that's all that ought to matter.' + +The others now were coming in, and Helen only shook her head, smiling on +and quite unconvinced as she said, taking her chair, and reaching out +her hand to shake Althea's, 'I'm afraid the inessentials matter most, +then, in human intercourse.' + +From these fortuitous encounters Helen gathered the impression by +degrees that though Mr. Kane might not find her satisfactory, he found +her, in her incommunicativeness, quite as interesting as Thomas the +footman. He spent as much time in endeavouring to probe her as he did in +endeavouring to probe Baines, even more time. He would sit beside her +garden-chair looking over scientific papers, making a remark now and +then on their contents--contents as remote from Helen's comprehension as +was the housing of the Berlin poor from Thomas's; and sometimes he would +ask her a searching question, over the often frivolous answer to which +he would carefully reflect. + +'I gather, Miss Buchanan,' he said to her one afternoon, when they were +thus together under the trees, 'I gather that the state of your health +isn't good. Would it be inadmissible on my part to ask you if there is +anything really serious the matter with you?' + +'My state of health?' said Helen, startled. 'My health is perfectly +good. Who told you it wasn't?' + +'Why, nobody. But since you've been here--that's a fortnight now--I've +observed that you've led an invalid's life.' + +'I am lazy, that's all; and I'm in rather a bad temper,' Helen smiled; +'and it's very warm weather.' + +'Well, when you're not lazy; when you're not in a bad temper; when it's +cold weather--what do you do with yourself, anyway?' Franklin, now that +he had fairly come to his point, folded his papers, clasped his hands +around his knees and looked expectantly at her. + +Helen returned his gaze for some moments in silence; then she found that +she was quite willing to give Mr. Kane all he asked for--a detached +sincerity. 'I can't say that I do anything,' she replied. + +'Haven't you any occupation?' + +'Not unless staying about with people is an occupation,' Helen +suggested. 'I'm rather good at that--when I'm not too lazy and not too +out of temper.' + +'You don't consider society an occupation. It's only justifiable as a +recreation when work's done. Every one ought to have an occupation. +You're not alive at all unless you've a purpose that's organising your +life in some way. Now, it strikes me,' said Franklin, eyeing her +steadily, 'that you're hardly half alive.' + +'Oh, dear!' Helen laughed. 'Why, pray?' + +'Don't laugh at it, Miss Buchanan. It's a serious matter; the most +serious matter there is. No, don't laugh; you distress me.' + +'I beg your pardon,' said Helen, and she turned her head aside a little, +for the laugh was not quite genuine, and she was suddenly afraid of +those idiotic tears. 'Only it amuses me that any one should think me a +serious matter.' + +'Don't be cynical, Miss Buchanan; that's what's the trouble with you; +you take refuge in cynicism rather than in thought. If you'd think about +it and not try to evade it, you'd know perfectly well that there is +nothing so serious to you in all the world as your own life.' + +'I don't know,' said Helen, after a little pause, sobered, though still +amused. 'I don't know that I feel anything very serious, except all the +unpleasant things that happen, or the pleasant things that don't.' + +'Well, what's more serious than suffering?' Mr. Kane inquired, and as +she could really find no answer to this he went on: 'And you ought to go +further; you ought to be able to take every human being seriously.' + +'Do you do that?' Helen asked. + +'Any one who thinks must do it; it's all a question of thinking things +out. Now I've thought a good deal about you, Miss Buchanan,' Franklin +continued, 'and I take you very seriously, very seriously indeed. I feel +that you are very much above the average in capacity. You have a great +deal in you; a great deal of power. I've been watching you very +carefully, and I've come to the conclusion that you are a woman of +power. That's why I take it upon myself to talk to you like this; that's +why it distresses me to see you going to waste--half alive.' + +Helen, her head still turned aside in her chair, looked up at the green +branches above her, no longer even pretending to smile. Mr. Kane at once +startled and steadied her. He made her feel vaguely ashamed of herself, +and he made her feel sorry for herself, too, so that, funny as he was, +his effect upon her was to soften and to calm her. Her temper felt less +bad and her nerves less on edge. + +'You are very kind,' she said, after a little while. 'It is very good of +you to have thought about me like that. And you do think, at all events, +that I am half alive. You think I have wants, even if I have no +purposes.' + +'Yes, that's it. Wants, not purposes; though what they are I can't find +out.' + +She was willing to satisfy his curiosity. 'What I want is money.' + +'Well, but what do you want to do with money?' Franklin inquired, +receiving the sordid avowal without a blink. + +'I really don't know,' said Helen; 'to use what you call my power, I +suppose.' + +'How would you use it? You haven't trained yourself for any use of +it--except enjoyment--as far as I can see.' + +'I think I could spend money well. I'd give the people I liked a good +time.' + +'You'd waste their time, and yours, you mean. Not that I object to the +spending of money--if it's in the right way.' + +'I think I could find the right way, if I had it.' She was speaking with +quite the seriousness she had disowned. 'I hate injustice, and I hate +ugliness. I think I could make things nicer if I had money.' + +Franklin now was silent for some time, considering her narrowly, and +since she had now looked down from the branches and back at him, their +eyes met in a long encounter. 'Yes,' he said at length, 'you'd be all +right--if only you weren't so wrong. If only you had a purpose--a +purpose directed towards the just and the beautiful; if only instead of +waiting for means to turn up, you'd created means yourself; if only +you'd kept yourself disciplined and steady of aim by some sort of hard +work, you'd be all right.' + +Helen, extended in her chair, an embodiment of lovely aimlessness, kept +her eyes fixed on him. 'But what work can I do?' she asked. She was well +aware that Mr. Kane could have no practical suggestions for her case, +yet she wanted to show him that she recognised it as a case, she wanted +to show him that she was grateful, and she was curious besides to hear +what he would suggest. 'What am I fit for? I couldn't earn a penny if I +tried. I was never taught anything.' + +But Mr. Kane was ready for her, as he had been ready for Jim Betts. +'It's not a question of earning that I mean,' he said, 'though it's a +mighty good thing to measure yourself up against the world and find out +just what your cash value is, but I'm not talking about that; it's the +question of getting your faculties into some sort of working order that +I'm up against. Why don't you study something systematically, something +you can grind at? Biology, if you like, or political economy, or charity +organisation. Begin at once. Master it.' + +'Would Dante do, for a beginning?' Helen inquired, smiling rather wanly. +'I brought him down, with an Italian dictionary. Shall I master Dante?' + +'I should feel more comfortable about you if it was political economy,' +said Franklin, now smiling back. 'But begin with Dante, by all means. +Personally I found his point of view depressing, but then I read him in +a translation and never got even as far as the Purgatory. Be sure you +get as far as the Paradise, Miss Buchanan, and with your dictionary.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Franklin had all his time free for sitting with Helen under the trees. +Althea's self-reproach, her self-doubt and melancholy, had been effaced +by the arrival of Gerald Digby, and, at that epoch of her life, did not +return at all. She had no time for self-doubt or self-reproach, no time +even for self-consciousness. Franklin had faded into the dimmest +possible distance; she was only just aware that he was there and that +Helen seemed, kindly, to let him talk a good deal to her. She could not +think of Franklin, she could not think of herself, she could think of +nobody but one person, for her whole being was absorbed in the thought +of Gerald Digby and in the consciousness of the situation that his +coming had created. From soft exhilaration she had passed to miserable +depression, yet a depression far different from the stagnant melancholy +of her former mood; this was a depression of frustrated feeling, not of +lack of feeling, and it was accompanied by the recognition of the fact +that she exceedingly disliked Lady Pickering and wished exceedingly that +she would go away. And with it went a brooding sense of delight in +Gerald's mere presence, a sense of delight in even the pain that his +indifference inflicted upon her. + +He charmed her unspeakably--his voice, his smile, his gestures--and she +knew that she did not charm him in any way, and that Lady Pickering, in +her very foolishness, did charm him, and the knowledge made her very +grave and careful when she was with him. Delight and pain were hidden +beneath this manner of careful gravity, but, as the excitement of +Franklin's presence had at first done--and in how much greater +degree--they subtly transformed her; made her look and speak and move +with a different languor and gentleness. + +Gerald himself was the first to feel a change, the first to become aware +of an aroma of mystery. He had been indifferent indeed, though he had +obeyed Helen and had tried not only to be very courteous but to be very +nice as well. Now, finding Althea's grave eyes upon him when he +sometimes yielded to Lady Pickering's allurements, finding them turned +away with that look of austere mildness, he ceased to be so indifferent, +he began to wonder how much the little Puritan disapproved and how much +she really minded; he began to make surmises about the state of mind +that could be so aloof, so gentle, and so inflexible. + +He met Althea one afternoon in the garden and walked up and down with +her while she filled her basket with roses. She was very gentle, and +immeasurably distant. The sense of her withdrawal roused his masculine +instinct of pursuit. How different she was from Frances Pickering! How +charmingly different. Yes, in her elaborate little dress of embroidered +lawn, with her elaborate garden hat pinned so neatly on her thick fair +hair, she pleased him by the sense of contrast. There was charm in her +lack of charm, attraction in her indifference. How impossible to +imagine those grave eyes smiling an alluring smile--he was getting tired +of alluring smiles--how impossible to imagine Miss Jakes flirting. + +'It's very nice to see you here,' he said. 'I have so many nice memories +about this old garden. You don't mind my cigarette?' + +Althea said that she liked it. + +'There is a beautiful spray, Miss Jakes. Let me reach it for you.' + +'Oh, thank you so much.' + +'You are fond of flowers?' + +'Very fond.' + +'Which are your favourites?' + +'Lilies of the valley.' Althea spoke kindly, as she might have spoken to +a rather importunate child; his questions, indeed, were not original. + +Gerald tried to mend the tameness of the effect that he was making. +'Yes, only the florists have rather spoiled them, haven't they? My +favourites are the wilder ones--honeysuckle, grass of Parnassus, +bell-heather. Helen always makes me think of grass of Parnassus and +bell-heather, she is so solitary and delicate and strong.' He wanted +Althea to realise that his real appreciation was for types very +different from Lady Pickering. She smiled kindly, as if pleased with his +simile, and he went on. 'You are like pansies, white and purple +pansies.' + +It was then that Althea blushed. Gerald noticed it at once. Experienced +flirt as he was he was quick to perceive such symptoms. And, suddenly, +it occurred to him that perhaps the reason she disapproved so much was +the wish--unknown to herself, poor little innocent--that some one would +flirt a little with her. He felt quite sure that no one had ever +flirted with Althea. Helen had told him of Mr. Kane's hopeless suit, and +they had wandered in rather helpless conjecture about the outside of a +case that didn't, from their experience of cases, seem to offer any +possibilities of an inside. Gerald had indeed loudly laughed at the idea +of Mr. Kane as a wooer and Helen had smiled, while assuring him that +wooing wasn't the only test of worth. Gerald was rather inclined to +think it was. He was quite sure, though, that however worthy Mr. Kane +might be he had never made any one blush. He was quite sure that Mr. +Kane was incapable of flirting, and it pleased him now to observe the +sign of susceptibility in Althea. It was good for women, he felt sure, +to be made to blush sometimes, and he promised himself that he would +renew the experiment with Althea. All the same it must be very +unemphatically done; there would be something singularly graceless in +venturing too far with this nice pansy, for though she might, all +unaware, want to be made to blush, she would never want it to be because +of his light motives. + +Meanwhile Althea was in dread lest he should see her discomposure and +her bliss. He did not see further than her discomposure. + +They rehearsed theatricals all the next day--he, Helen, Lady Pickering, +and the girls--and Lady Pickering was very naughty. Gerald, more than +once, had caught Althea's eye fixed, repudiating in its calm, upon her. +It had been especially repudiating when Frances, at tea, had thrown a +bun at him. + +'Do you know, Miss Jakes,' he said to her after dinner, when, to Lady +Pickering's discomfiture, as he saw, he joined Althea on her little +sofa, 'do you know, I suspect you of being dreadfully bored by all of +us. We behave like a lot of children, don't we?' He was thinking of the +bun. + +'Indeed! I think it charming to be able to behave like a child, if one +feels like one,' said Althea, coldly and mildly. + +'Don't you ever feel like one? Do you always behave like a gentle muse?' + +'Do I seem to behave like a muse? How tiresome I must be,' smiled +Althea. + +'Not tiresome, rather impressive. It's like looking up suddenly from +some nocturnal _fête_--all Japanese lanterns and fireworks--and seeing +the moon gazing down serenely and unseeingly upon one; it startles and +sobers one a little, you know.' + +'I suppose you are sober sometimes,' said Althea, continuing to smile. + +'Lord, yes!' Gerald laughed. 'Really and truly, Miss Jakes, I'm only +playing at being a child, you know. I'm quite a serious person. I like +to look at the moon.' + +And again Althea blushed. She looked down, sitting straightly in the +corner of their sofa and turning her fan slowly between her fingers, +and, feeling the sense of gracelessness in this too easy success, Gerald +went on in a graver tone. 'I wish you would let me be serious with you +sometimes, Miss Jakes; you'd see I'd quite redeem myself in your eyes.' + +'Redeem yourself? From what?' + +'Oh! from all your impression of my frivolity and folly. I can talk +about art and literature and the condition of the labouring classes as +wisely as anybody, I assure you.' + +He said it so prettily that Althea had to laugh. 'But what makes you +think I can?' she asked, and, delighted with the happy result of his +appeal, he said that Helen had told him all about her wisdoms. + +He sounded these wisdoms next day when he asked her to walk with him to +the village. He told her, as they walked, of the various projects for +using his life to some advantage that he had used to make--projects for +improved agricultural methods and the bettering of the conditions of +life in the country. Althea had read a great deal of political economy. +She had, indeed, ground at it and mastered it in the manner advised by +Franklin to Helen. Gerald found her quiet comments and criticisms very +illuminating, not only of his theme, but of his own comparative +ignorance. 'But, Miss Jakes, how did you come to understand all this?' +he ejaculated; and she said, laughing a little at the impression she had +made, that she had only read, gone to a few courses of lectures, and had +a master for one winter in Boston. Gerald looked at her with new +interest. It impressed him that an unprofessional woman should take +anything so seriously. 'Have you gone into other profound things like +this?' he asked; and, still laughing, Althea said that she supposed she +had. + +Her sympathy for those old plans of his, based on such understanding, +was really inspiring. 'Ah, if only I had the money,' he sighed. + +'But you wouldn't care to live in the country?' said Althea. + +'There's nowhere else I really care to live. Nothing would please me so +much as to spend the rest of my life at Merriston, dabbling at my +painting and going in seriously for farming.' + +'Why don't you do it?' + +'Why, money! I've got no money. It's expensive work to educate oneself +by experience, and I'm ignorant. You show me how ignorant. No; I'm +afraid I'm to go on drifting, and never lead the life I best like.' + +Althea was silent. She hardly knew what she was feeling, but it pressed +upon her so, that she was afraid lest a breath would stir some +consciousness in him. She had money, a good deal. What a pity that he +had none. + +'Now you,' Gerald went on, 'have all sorts of big, wise plans for life, +I've no doubt. It would interest me to hear about them.' + +'No; I drift too,' said Althea. + +'You can't call it drifting when you read and study such a lot.' + +'Oh yes, I can, when there is no real aim in the work. You should hear +Mr. Kane scold me about that.' + +Gerald was not interested in Mr. Kane. 'I should think, after all you've +done, you might rest on your oars for a bit,' he remarked. 'It's quite +enough, I should think, for a woman to know so much. If you liked to do +anything, you'd do it awfully well, I'm sure.' + +Ah, what would she not like to do! Help you to steer to any port you +wanted was the half-articulate cry of her heart. + +'She really is an interesting little person, your Althea,' Gerald said +to Helen. 'You were wrong not to find her interesting. She is so wise +and calm and she knows such a lot.' + +'I'm too ignorant to be interested in knowledge,' said Helen. + +'It's not mere knowledge, it's the gentle temperateness and independence +one feels in her.' + +Helen, somehow, did not feel them, or, at all events, felt other +things too much to feel them preeminently. It was part of her +unselfconsciousness not to guess why Althea's relation to her had +slightly changed. She could hardly have followed with comprehension the +suffering instability of her friend's character, nor dream that her own +power over her was so great, yet so resented; but something in their +talk about Mr. Kane had made Helen uncomfortable, and she said no more +now, not wishing to emphasise any negative aspect of her attitude to +Althea at a time when their relation seemed to have become a little +strained. And she was pleased that Gerald should talk about political +economy with Althea--it was so much better than flirting with Frances +Pickering. + +No one, indeed, unless it were Franklin Kane, gave much conjecture to +Gerald's talks with his hostess. Lady Pickering noticed; but she was +vexed, rather than jealous. She couldn't imagine that Gerald felt +anything but a purely intellectual interest in such talks. It was rather +as if a worshipper in some highly ritualistic shrine, filled with +appeals to sight and hearing, had unaccountably wandered off into a +wayside chapel. Lady Pickering felt convinced that this was mere vagrant +curiosity on Gerald's part. She felt convinced that he couldn't care for +chapels. She was so convinced that, moved to emphatic measures, she came +into the open as it were, marched processions and waved banners before +him, in order to remind him what the veritable church was for a person +of taste. Sometimes Gerald joined her, but sometimes he waved a friendly +greeting and went into the chapel again. + +So it was that Althea suddenly found herself involved in that mute and +sinister warfare--an unavowed contest with another woman for possession +of a man. How it could be a real contest she did not know; she felt sure +that Lady Pickering did not love Gerald Digby, that she herself loved +him she had not yet told herself, and that he loved neither of them was +obvious. It seemed a mere struggle for supremacy, in which Lady +Pickering's role was active and her own passive. For when she saw that +Lady Pickering looked upon Gerald as a prey between them, that she +seized, threatened and allured, she herself, full of a proud disdain, +drew away, relinquished any hold, any faintest claim she had, handed +Gerald over, as it were, to his pursuer; and as she did this, coldly, +gravely, proudly, she was not aware that no tactics could have been more +effective. For Gerald, when he found himself pursued, and then dropped +by Althea at the feet of the pursuer, became more and more averse to +being seized. And what had been a gracefully amorous dialogue with Lady +Pickering, became a slightly malicious discussion. 'Well, what _do_ you +want of me?' he seemed to demand of her, under all his grace. Lady +Pickering did not want anything except to keep him, and to show Althea +that she kept him. And she was willing to go to great lengths if this +might be effected. + +Gerald and Althea, walking one afternoon in the little wood that lay at +the foot of the lawn, came upon Lady Pickering seated romantically upon +a stone, her head in her hands. She said, looking up at them, with +pathetic eyes of suffering, that she had wrenched her ankle and was in +agony. 'I think it is sprained, perhaps broken,' she said. + +Now both Althea and Gerald felt convinced that she was not in agony, and +had perhaps not hurt her ankle at all. They were both a little +embarrassed and a little ashamed for her. + +'Take my arm, take Miss Jakes's,' said Gerald. 'We will help you back to +the house.' + +'Oh no. I must sit still for a little while,' said Lady Pickering.' I +couldn't bear to stir yet. It must be only a wrench; yes, there, I can +feel that it is a bad wrench. It's only that the pain has been so +horrible, and I feel a little faint. Please sit down here for a moment, +Gerald, beside me, and console me for my sufferings.' + +It was really very shameless. Without a word Althea walked away. + +'Miss Jakes--we'll--I'll follow in a moment,' Gerald called after her, +while, irritated and at a loss, he stood over Lady Pickering. 'Have you +really hurt it?' was his first inquiry, as Althea disappeared. + +'Why does she go?' Lady Pickering inquired. 'I didn't mean that she was +to go. Stiff, _guindée_ little person. One would really think that she +was jealous of me.' + +'No, I don't think that one would think that at all,' Gerald returned. + +Lady Pickering was pushed beyond the bounds of calculation, and when +quite sincere she was really charming. 'O Gerald,' she said, looking up +at him and full of roguish contrition, 'how unkind you are! And how +horribly clear sighted. It's I who am jealous! Yes, I really am. I can't +bear being neglected.' + +'I don't see why you should,' said Gerald laughing, 'and I certainly +shouldn't show such bad taste as to neglect you. So that it is jealousy, +pure and simple. Is your ankle in the least hurt?' + +'Really, I don't know. I did tumble a little, and then I saw you coming, +and felt that I wanted to be talked to, that it was my turn.' + +'What an absurd woman you are.' + +'But do say that you like absurd women better than solemn ones.' + +'I shall say nothing of the sort. Sometimes absurdity is delightful, and +sometimes solemnity--not that I find Miss Jakes in the least solemn. It +would do you a world of good to let her inform your mind a little.' + +'Oh, please, I don't want to be informed, it might make my back look +like that. My foot really is a little hurt, you know. Is it swollen?' + +Gerald looked down, laughing, but very unsympathetic, at the perilous +heel and pinched, distorted toe. 'Really, I can't say.' + +'Do sit down, there is plenty of room, and tell me you aren't cross with +me.' + +'I'm not at all cross with you, but I'm not going to sit down beside +you,' said Gerald. 'I'm going to take you and your ankle back to the +house and then find Miss Jakes and go on talking.' + +'You may make _me_ cross,' said Lady Pickering, rising and leaning her +arm on his. + +'I don't believe I shall. You really respect me for my strength of +character.' + +'Wily creature!' + +'Foolish child!' They were standing in the path, laughing at each other, +far from displeased with each other, and it was fortunate that neither +of them perceived among the trees Althea, passing again at a little +distance, and glancing round irrepressibly to see if Gerald had indeed +followed her; even Lady Pickering might have been slightly discomposed, +for when Gerald said 'Foolish child!' he completed the part expected of +him by lightly stooping his head and kissing her. + +He then took Lady Pickering back to the house, established her in a +hammock, and set off to find Althea. He knew that he had kept her +waiting--if she had indeed waited. And he knew that he really was a +little cross with Frances Pickering; he didn't care to carry flirtation +as far as kissing. + +Althea, however, was nowhere to be found. He looked in the house, heard +that she had been there but had gone out again; he looked in the garden; +he finally went back to the woods, an uncomfortable surmise rising; and +finding her nowhere there, he strolled on into the meadows. Then, +suddenly, he saw her, sitting on a rustic bench at a bend of the little +brook. Her eyes were bent upon the running water, and she did not look +up as he approached her. When he was beside her, her eyes met his, +reluctantly and resentfully, and he was startled to observe that she had +wept. His surmise returned. She must have seen him kiss Frances. Yet +even then Gerald did not know why it should make Miss Jakes weep that +he should behave like a donkey. + +'May I sit down here?' he asked, genuinely grieved and genuinely anxious +to find out what the matter was. + +'Certainly,' said Althea in chilly tones. + +He was a little confused. It had something to do with the kissing, he +felt sure. 'Miss Jakes, I'm afraid you'll never believe me a serious +person,' he said. + +'Why should you be serious?' said Althea. + +'You are angry with me,' Gerald remarked dismally. + +'Why should I be angry?' + +He raised his eyebrows, detached a bit of loosened wood from the seat, +and skipped it over the water. 'Well, to find me behaving like a child +again.' + +'I should reserve my anger for more important matters,' said Althea. She +was angry, or she hoped she was, for, far more than anger, it was misery +and a passion of shame that surged in her. She knew now, and she could +not hide from herself that she knew; and yet he cared so little that he +had not even kept his promise; so little that he had stayed behind to +kiss that most indecorous woman. If only she could make him think that +it was only anger. + +'Ah, but you are angry, and rather unjustly,' said Gerald. His eyes were +seeking hers, rallying, pleading, perhaps laughing a little at her. 'And +really, you know, you are a little unkind; I thought we were +friends--what?' + +She forced herself to meet those charming eyes, and then to smile back +at him. It would have been absurd not to smile, but the effort was +disastrous; her lips quivered; the tears ran down her cheeks. She rose, +trembling and aghast. 'I am very foolish. I have such a headache. Please +don't pay any attention to me--it's the heat, I think.' + +She turned blindly towards the house. + +The pretence of the headache was, he knew it in the flash of revelation +that came to him, on a par with Frances's ankle--but with what a +difference in motive! Grave, a little pale, Gerald walked silently +beside her to the woods. He did not know what to say. He was a little +frightened and a great deal touched. + +'Mr. Digby,' Althea said, when they were among the trees again--and it +hurt him to see the courage of her smile--'you must forgive me for being +so silly. It is the heat, you know; and this headache--it puts one so on +edge. I didn't mean to speak as I did. Of course I'm not angry.' + +He was ready to help her out with the most radiant tact. 'Of course I +knew it couldn't make any real difference to you--the way I behaved. +Only I don't like you to be even a little cross with me.' + +'I'm not--not even a little,' she said. + +'We are friends then, really friends?' + +His smile sustained and reassured her. Surely he had not seen--if he +could smile like that--ever so lightly, so merrily, and so gravely too. +Courage came back to her. She could find a smile as light as his in +replying: 'Really friends.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Gerald, after Althea had gone in, walked for some time in the garden, +taking counsel with himself. The expression of his face was still half +touched and half alarmed. He smoked two cigarettes and then came to the +conclusion that, until he could have a talk with Helen, there was no +conclusion to be come to. He never came to important conclusions +unaided. He would sleep on it and then have a talk with Helen. + +He sought her out next morning on the first opportunity. She was in the +library writing letters. She looked, as was usual with her at early +morning hours, odd to the verge of ugliness. It always took her some +time to recover from the drowsy influences of the night. She was dimmed, +as it were, with eyelids half awake, and small lips pouting, and she +seemed at once more childlike and more worn than later in the day. +Gerald looked at her with satisfaction. To his observant and +appreciative eye, Helen was often at her most charming when at her +ugliest. + +'I've something to talk over,' he said. 'Can you give me half an hour or +so?' + +She answered, 'Certainly,' laying down her pen, and leaning back in her +chair. + +'Your letters aren't important? I may keep you for a longish time. +Perhaps we might put it off till the afternoon?' + +'They aren't in the least important. You may keep me as long as you +like.' + +'Thanks. Have a cigarette?' He offered his case, and Helen took one and +lighted it at the match he held for her, and then Gerald, lighting his +own, proceeded to stroll up and down the room reflecting. + +'Helen,' he began, 'I've been thinking things over.' His tone was +serene, yet a little inquiring. He might have been thinking over some +rather uncertain investment, or the planning of a rather exacting trip +abroad. Yet Helen's intuition leaped at once to deeper significances. +Looking out of the window at the lawn, bleached with dew, the trees, the +distant autumnal uplands, while she quietly smoked her cigarette, it was +as if her sub-consciousness, aroused and vigilant, held its breath, +waiting. + +'You know,' said Gerald, 'what I've always really wanted to do more than +anything else. As I get older, I want it more and more, and get more and +more tired of my shambling sort of existence. I love this old place and +I love the country. I'd like nothing so much as to be able to live here, +try my hand at farming, paint a little, read a little, and get as much +hunting as I could.' + +Helen, blowing a ring of smoke and watching it softly hover, made no +comment on these prefatory remarks. + +'Well, as you know,' said Gerald, 'to do that needs money; and I've +none. And you know that the only solution we could ever find was that I +should marry money. And you know that I never found a woman with money +whom I liked well enough.' He was not looking at Helen as he said this; +his eyes were on the shabby old carpet that he was pacing. And in the +pause that followed Helen did not speak. She knew--it was all that she +had time to know--that her silence was expectant only, not ominous. +Consciousness, now, as well as sub-consciousness, seemed rushing to the +bolts and bars and windows of the little lodge of friendship, making it +secure--if still it might be made secure--against the storm that +gathered. She could not even wonder who Gerald had found. She had only +time for the dreadful task of defence, so that no blast of reality +should rush in upon them. + +'Well,' said Gerald, and it was now with a little more inquiry and with +less serenity, 'I think, perhaps, I've found her. I think, Helen, that +your nice Althea cares about me, you know, and would have me.' + +Helen sat still, and did not move her eyes from the sky and trees. There +was a long white cloud in the sky, an island floating in a sea of blue. +She noted its bays and peninsulas, the azure rivers that interlaced it, +its soft depressions and radiant uplands. She never forgot it. She could +have drawn the snowy island, from memory, for years. All her life long +she had waited for this moment; all her life long she had lived with the +sword of its acceptance in her heart. She had thought that she had +accepted; but now the sword turned--horribly turned--round and round in +her heart, and she did not know what she should do. + +'Well,' Gerald repeated, standing still, and, as she knew, looking at +the back of her head in a little perplexity. + +Helen looked cautiously down at the cigarette she held; it still smoked +languidly. She raised it to her lips and drew a whiff. Then, after that, +she dared a further effort. 'Well?' she repeated. + +Gerald laughed a trifle nervously. 'I asked you,' he reminded her. + +She was able, testing her strength, as a tight-rope walker slides a +careful foot along the rope, to go on. 'Oh, I see. And do you care about +her?' + +Gerald was silent for another moment, and she guessed that he had run +his hand through his hair and rumpled it on end. + +'She really is a little dear, isn't she?' he then said. 'You mayn't find +her interesting--though I really do; and she may be like _eau rougie_; +but, as you said, it's a pleasant draught to have beside one. She is +gentle and wise and good, and she seems to take her place here very +sweetly, doesn't she? She seems really to belong here, don't you think +so?' + +Helen could not answer that question. 'Do you want me to tell you +whether you care for her?' she asked. + +He laughed. 'I suppose I do.' + +'And, on the whole, you hope I'll tell you that you do.' + +'Well, yes,' he assented. + +The dreadful steeling of her will at the very verge of swooning abysses +gave an edge to her voice. She tried to dull it, to speak very quietly +and mildly, as she said: 'I must have all the facts of the case before +me, then. I confess I hadn't suspected it was a case.' + +'Which means that you'd never dreamed I could fall in love with Miss +Jakes.' Gerald's tone was a little rueful. + +'Oh--you have fallen in love with her?' + +'Why, that's just what I'm asking you!' he laughed again. 'Or, at least, +not that exactly, for of course it's not a question of being in love. +But I think her wise and good and gentle, and she cares for me--I think; +and it seems almost like the finger of destiny--finding her here. Have +you any idea how much money she has? It must be quite a lot,' said +Gerald. + +Helen was ready with her facts. 'A very safe three thousand a year, I +believe. Not much, of course, but quite enough for what you want to do. +But,' she added, after the pause in which he reflected on this sum--it +was a good deal less than he had taken for granted--'I don't think that +Althea would marry you on that basis. She is very proud and very +romantic. If you want her to marry you, you will have to make her feel +that you care for her in herself.' It was her own pride that now +steadied her pulses and steeled her nerves. She would be as fair to +Gerald's case as though he were her brother; she would be too fair, +perhaps. Here was the pitfall of her pride that she did not clearly see. +Perhaps it was with a grim touch of retribution that she promised +herself that since he could think of Althea Jakes, he most certainly +should have her. + +'Yes, she is proud,' said Gerald. 'That's one of the things one so likes +in her. She'd never hold out a finger, however much she cared.' + +'You will have to hold out both hands,' said Helen. + +'You think she won't have me unless I can pretend to be in love with +her? I'm afraid I can't take that on.' + +'I'm glad you can't. She is too good for such usage. No,' said Helen, +holding her scales steadily, 'perfect frankness is the only way. If she +knows that you really care for her--even if you are not romantic--if you +can make her feel that the money--though a necessity--is secondary, and +wouldn't have counted at all unless you had come to care, I should say +that your chances are good--since you have reason to believe that she +has fallen in love with you.' + +'It's not as if I denied her anything I had to give, is it?' Gerald +pondered on the point of conscience she put before him. + +'You mean that you're incapable of caring more for any woman than for +Althea?' + +'Of course not. I care a great deal more for you,' said Gerald, again +rather rueful under her probes. 'I only mean that I'm not likely to fall +in love again, or anything of that sort. She can be quite secure about +me. I'll be her devoted and faithful husband.' + +'I think you care,' said Helen. 'I think you can make her happy.' + +But Gerald now came and sat on the corner of the writing-table beside +her, facing her, his back to the window. 'It's a tremendous thing to +decide on, isn't it, Helen?' + +She turned her eyes on him, and he looked at her with a gaze troubled +and a little groping, as though he sought in her further elucidations; +as though, for the first time, she had disappointed him a little. + +'Is it?' she asked. 'Is marriage really a tremendous thing?' + +'Well, isn't it?' + +'I'm not sure. In one way, of course, it is. But people, perhaps, +exaggerate the influence of their own choice on the results. You can't +be sure of results, choose as carefully as you will; it's what comes +after that decides them, I imagine--the devotion, the fidelity you speak +of. And since you've found some one to whom you can promise those, some +one wise and good and gentle, isn't that all that you need be sure of?' + +Gerald continued to study her face. 'You're not pleased, Helen,' he now +said. It was a curious form of torture that Helen must smile under. + +'Well, it's not a case for enthusiasm, is it?' she said. 'I'm certainly +not displeased.' + +'You'd rather I married her than Frances Pickering?' + +'Would Frances have you, too, irresistible one?' + +'Oh, I don't think so; pretty sure not. She would want a lot of things I +can't give. I was only wondering which you'd prefer.' + +Helen heard the clamour of her own heart. Frances! Frances! She is +trivial; she will not take your place: she will not count in his life at +all. Althea will count; she will count more and more. She will be his +habit, his _haus-frau_, the mother of his children. He is not in love +with her; but he will come to love her, and there will be no place for +friendship in his life. Hearing that clamour she dragged herself +together, hating herself for having heard it, and answered: 'Althea, of +course; she is worth three of Frances.' + +Gerald gave a little sigh. 'Well, I'm glad we agree there,' he said. +'I'm glad you see that Althea is worth three of her. What I do wish is +that you cared more about Althea.' + +What he was telling her was that if she would care more about Althea, he +would too, and she wondered if this, also, were a part of pride; should +she help him to care more for Althea? A better pride sustained her; she +felt the danger in these subtleties of her torment. 'I like Althea,' she +said. 'I, too, think that she is wise and good and gentle. I think that +she will be the best of wives, the best of wives and mothers. But, as I +said, I don't feel enthusiasm; I don't feel it a case for enthusiasm.' + +'Of course it's not a case for enthusiasm,' said Gerald, who was +evidently eager to range himself completely with her. 'I'm fond, and +I'll grow fonder; and I believe you will too. Don't you, Helen?' + +'No doubt I shall,' said Helen. She got up now and tossed her cigarette +into the waste-paper basket, and stood for a moment looking past +Gerald's head at the snowy island, now half dissolved in blue, as though +its rivers had engulfed it. They were parting, he and she, she knew it, +and yet there was no word that she could say to him, no warning or +appeal that she could utter. If he could see that it was the end he +would, she knew, start back from his shallow project. But he did not +know that it was the end and he might never know. Did he not really +understand that an adoring wife could not be fitted into their +friendship? His innocent unconsciousness of inevitable change made +Helen's heart, in its deeper knowledge of human character, sink to a +bitterness that felt like a hatred of him, and she wondered, looking +forward, whether Gerald would ever miss anything, or ever know that +anything was gone. + +Gerald sat still looking up at her as though expecting some further +suggestion, and as her eyes came back to him, she smiled to him with +deliberate sweetness, showing him thus that her conclusions were all +friendly. And he rose, smiling back, reassured and fortified. 'Well,' he +said, 'since you approve, I suppose it's settled. I shan't ask her at +once, you know. She might think it was because of what I'd guessed. I'll +lead up to it for a day or two. And, Helen, you might, if you've a +chance, put in a good word for me.' + +'I will, if I've a chance,' said Helen. + +Gerald, as if aware that he had taken up really too much of her time, +now moved towards the door. But he went slowly, and at the door he +paused. He turned to her smiling. 'And you give me your blessing?' he +asked. + +He was most endearing when he smiled so. It was a smile like a child's, +that caressed and cajoled, and that saw through its own cajolery and +pleaded, with a little wistfulness, that there was more than could show +itself, behind. Helen knew what was behind--the sense of strangeness, +the affection and the touch of fear. She had never refused that smile +anything; she seemed to refuse it nothing now, as she answered with a +maternal acquiescence, 'I give you my blessing, dear Gerald.' + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +It was still early. When he had left her, Helen looked at her watch; +only half-past ten. She stood thinking. Should she go out, as usual, +take her place in a long chair under the limes, close her eyes and +pretend to sleep? No, she could not do that. Should she sit down in her +room with Dante and a dictionary? No, that she would not do. Should she +walk far away into the woods and lie upon the ground and weep? That +would be a singularly foolish plan, and at lunch everybody would see +that she had been crying. Yet it was impossible to remain here, to +remain still, and thinking. She must move quickly, and make her body +tired. She went to her room, pinned on her hat, drew on her gloves, and, +choosing a stick as she went through the hall, passed from the grounds +and through the meadow walk to a long road, climbing and winding, whose +walls, at either side, seemed to hold back the billows of the woodland. +The day was hot and dusty. The sky was like a blue stone, the green +monotonous, the road glared white. Helen, with the superficial +fretfulness of an agony controlled, said to herself that nothing more +like a bad water-colour landscape could be imagined; there were the +unskilful blots of heavy foliage, the sleekly painted sky, and the sunny +road was like the whiteness of the paper, picked out, for shadows, in +niggling cobalt. A stupid, bland, heartless day. + +She walked along this road for several miles and left it to cross a +crisp, grassy slope from where, standing still and turning to see, she +looked down over all the country and saw, far away, the roofs of +Merriston House. She stood for a long time looking down at it, the hot +wind ruffling her skirts and hair. It was a heartless day and she +herself felt heartless. She felt herself as something silent, swift, and +raging. For now she was to taste to the full the bitter difference +between the finality of personal decision and a finality imposed, +fatefully and irrevocably, from without. She had thought herself +prepared for this ending of hope. She had even, imagining herself +hardened and indifferent, gone in advance of it and had sought to put +the past under her feet and to build up a new life. But she had not been +prepared; that she now knew. The imagination of the fact was not its +realisation in her very blood and bones, nor the standing ready, armed +for the blow, this feel of the blade between her ribs. And looking down +at the only home she had ever had, in moments long, sharp, dream-like, +her strength was drained from her as if by a fever, and she felt that +she was changed all through and that each atom of her being was set, as +it were, a little differently, making of her a new personality, through +this shock of sudden hopelessness. + +She felt her knees weak beneath her and she moved on slowly, away from +the sun, to a lonely little wood that bordered the hill-top. In her +sudden weakness she climbed the paling that enclosed it with some +difficulty, wondering if she were most inconveniently going to faint, +and walking blindly along a narrow path, in the sudden cool and +darkness, she dropped down on the moss at the first turning of the way. + +Here, at last, was beauty. The light, among the fanlike branches, looked +like sea-water streaked with gold; the tall boles of the beeches were +like the pillars of a temple sunken in the sea. Helen lay back, folded +her arms behind her head, and stared up at the chinks of far brightness +in the green roof overhead. It was like being drowned, deep beneath the +surface of things. If only she could be at peace, like a drowned thing. +Lying there, she longed to die, to dissolve away into the moss, the +earth, the cool, green air. And feeling this, in the sudden beauty, +tears, for the first time, came to her eyes. She turned over on her +face, burying it in her arms and muttering in childish language, 'I'm +sick of it; sick to death of it.' + +As she spoke she was aware that some one was near her. A sudden +footfall, a sudden pause, followed her words. She lifted her head, then +she sat up. The tears had flowed and her cheeks were wet with them, but +of that she was not conscious, so great was her surprise at finding +Franklin Winslow Kane standing before her on the mossy path. + +Mr. Kane carried his straw hat in his hand. He was very warm, his hair +was untidy on his moist brow, his boots were white with dust, his +trousers were turned up from them and displayed an inch or so of thin +ankle encased in oatmeal-coloured socks. His tie--Helen noted the one +salient detail among the many dull ones that made up a whole so +incongruous with the magic scene--was of a peculiarly harsh and ugly +shade of blue. He had only just climbed over a low wall near by and +that was why he had come upon her so inaudibly and had, so +inadvertently, been a witness of her grief. + +He did not, however, show embarrassment, but looked at her with the +hesitant yet sympathetic attentiveness of a vagrant dog. + +Helen sat on the moss, her feet extended before her, and she returned +his look from her tearful eyes, making no attempt to soften the oddity +of the situation. She found, indeed, a gloomy amusement in it, and was +aware of wondering what Mr. Kane, who made so much of everything, would +make of their mutual predicament. + +'Have you been having a long walk, too?' she asked. + +He looked at her, smiling now a little, as if he wagged a responsive +tail; but he was not an ingratiating dog, only a friendly and a troubled +one. + +'Yes, I have,' he said. 'We have got rather a long way off, Miss +Buchanan.' + +'That's a comfort sometimes, isn't it,' said Helen. She took out her +handkerchief and dried her eyes, drawing herself, then, into a more +comfortable position against the trunk of a beech-tree. + +'You'd rather I went away, wouldn't you,' said Mr. Kane; 'but let me say +first that I'm very sorry to have intruded, and very sorry indeed to see +that you're unhappy.' + +She now felt that she did not want him to go, indeed she felt that she +would rather he stayed. After the loneliness of her despair, she liked +the presence of the friendly, wandering dog. It would be comforting to +have it sit down beside you and to have it thud its tail when you +chanced to look at it. Mr. Kane would not intrude, he would be a +consolation. + +'No, don't go,' she said. 'Do sit down and rest. It's frightfully hot, +isn't it.' + +He sat down in front of her, clasping his knees about, as was his wont, +and exposing thereby not only the entire oatmeal sock, but a section of +leg nearly matching it in tint. + +'Well, I am rather tired,' he said. 'I've lost my way, I guess.' And, +looking about him, he went on: 'Very peaceful things aren't they, the +woods. Trees are very peaceful things, pacifying things, I mean.' + +Helen looked up at them. 'Yes, they are peaceful. I don't know that I +find them pacifying.' + +His eyes came back to her and he considered her again for a moment +before he said, smiling gently, 'I've been crying too.' + +In the little pause that followed this announcement they continued to +look at each other, and it was not so much that their eyes sounded the +other's eyes as that they deepened for each other and, without effort or +surprise, granted to each other the quiet avowal of complete sincerity. + +'I'm very sorry that you are unhappy, too,' said Helen. She noticed now +that his eyes were jaded and that all his clear, terse little face was +softened and relaxed. + +'Yes, I'm unhappy,' said Franklin. 'It's queer, isn't it, that we should +find each other like this. I'm glad I've found you: two unhappy people +are better together, I think, than alone. It eases things a little, +don't you think so?' + +'Perhaps it does,' said Helen. 'That is, it does if one of them is so +kind and so pacifying as you are; you do remind me of the trees,' she +smiled. + +'Ah, well, that's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed,' said Franklin, +looking about him at the limpid green. 'It makes me feel I'm not +intruding, to have you say that to me. It didn't follow, of course, +because I'm glad to find you that you would be glad I'd come. You don't +show it much, Miss Buchanan'--he was looking at her again--'your +crying.' + +'I'm always afraid that I show it dreadfully. That's the worst of it, I +don't dare indulge in it often.' + +'No, you don't show it much. You sometimes look as though you had been +crying when I'm sure you haven't--early in the morning, for instance.' + +Helen could but smile again. 'You are very observant. You really noticed +that?' + +'I don't know that I'm so very observant, Miss Buchanan, but I'm +interested in everybody, and I'm particularly interested in you, so that +of course I notice things like that. Now you aren't particularly +interested in me--though you are so kind--are you?' and again Mr. Kane +smiled his weary, gentle smile. + +It seemed very natural to sit under peaceful trees and talk to Mr. Kane, +and it was easy to be perfectly frank with him. Helen answered his +smile. 'No, I'm not. I'm quite absorbed in my own affairs. I'm +interested in hardly anybody. I'm very selfish.' + +'Ah, you would find that you wouldn't suffer so--in just your way, I +mean--if you were less selfish,' Franklin Kane remarked. + +'What other way is there?' Helen asked. 'What is your way?' + +'Well, I don't know that I've found a much better one, our ways seem to +have brought us to pretty much the same place, haven't they,' he almost +mused. 'That's the worst of suffering, it's pretty much alike, at all +times and in all ways. I'm not unselfish either, you know, a mighty long +way from it. But I'm not sick of it, you know, not sick to death of it. +Forgive me if I offend in repeating your words.' + +'You are unselfish, I'm sure of that,' said Helen. 'And so you must have +other things to live for. My life is very narrow, and when things I care +about are ruined I see nothing further.' + +'Things are never ruined in life, Miss Buchanan. As long as there is +life there is hope and action and love. As long as you can love you +can't be sick to death of it.' Mr. Kane spoke in his deliberate, +monotonous tones. + +Helen was silent for a little while. She was wondering; not about Mr. +Kane, nor about his suffering, nor about the oddity of thus talking with +him about her own. It was no more odd to talk to him than if he had been +the warm-hearted dog, dowered for her benefit with speech; she was +wondering about what he said and about that love to which he alluded. +'Perhaps I don't know much about love,' she said, and more to herself +than to Mr. Kane. + +'I've inferred that since knowing you,' said Franklin. + +'I mean, of course,' Helen defined, 'the selfless love you are talking +of.' + +'Yes, I understand,' said Franklin. 'Now, you see, the other sort of +love, the sort that makes people go away and cry in the woods--for I've +been crying because I'm hopelessly in love, Miss Buchanan, and I presume +that you are too--well, that sort of love can't escape ruin sometimes. +That side of life may go to pieces and then there's nothing left for it +but to cry. But that side isn't all life, Miss Buchanan.' + +Helen did not repudiate his interpretation of her grief. She was quite +willing that Mr. Kane should know why she had been crying, but she did +not care to talk about that side to him. It had been always, and it +would always be, she feared, all life to her. She looked sombrely before +her into the green vistas. + +'Of course,' Franklin went on, 'I don't know anything about your +hopeless love affair. I'm only sure that your tragedy is a noble one and +that you are up to it, you know--as big as it is. If it's hopeless, it's +not, I'm sure, because of anything in you. It's because of fate, or +circumstance, or some unworthiness in the person you care for. Now with +me one of the hardest things to bear is the fact that I've nothing to +blame but myself. I'm not adequate, that's the trouble; no charm, you +see,' Mr. Kane again almost mused, 'no charm. Charm is the great thing, +and it means more than it seems to mean, all evolution, the survival of +the fittest--natural selection--is in it, when you come to think of it. +If I'd had charm, personality, or, well, greatness of some sort, I'd +have probably won Althea long ago. You know, of course, that it's Althea +I'm in love with, and have been for years and years. Well, there it is,' +Franklin was picking tall blades of grass that grew in a little tuft +near by and putting them neatly together as he spoke. 'There it is, but +even with the pain of just that sort of failure to bear, I don't intend +that my life shall be ruined. It can't be, by the loss of that hope. I'm +not good enough for Althea. I've got to accept that; natural selection +rejects me,' looking up from his grass blades he smiled gravely at his +companion; 'but I'm good enough for other beautiful things that need +serving. And I'm good enough to go on being Althea's friend, to be of +some value to her in that capacity. So my life isn't ruined, not by a +long way, and I wish you'd try to feel the same about yours.' + +Helen didn't feel in the least inclined to try, but she found herself +deeply interested in Mr. Kane's attitude; for the first time Mr. Kane +had roused her intent interest. She looked hard at him while he sat +there, demonstrating to her the justice of life's dealings with him and +laying one blade of grass so accurately against another, and she was +wondering now about him. It was not because she thought her own feelings +sacred that she preferred them to be concealed, but she saw that Mr. +Kane's were no less sacred to him for being thus unconcealed. She even +guessed that his revelation of feeling was less for his personal relief +than for her personal benefit; that he was carrying out, in all the +depths of his sincerity, a wish to comfort her, to take her out of +herself. Well, he had taken her out of herself, and after having heard +that morning what Althea's significance could be in the life of another +man, she was curious to find what her so different significance could be +in the life of this one, as alien from Gerald in type and temperament +as it was possible to imagine. Why did Althea mean anything at all to +Gerald, and why did she mean everything to Mr. Kane? And through what +intuition of the truth had Mr. Kane come to his present hopelessness? + +'Do you think women always fall in love with the adequate man, and _vice +versa_?' she asked, and her eyes were gentle as they mused on him. 'Why +should you say that it's because you're not adequate that Althea isn't +in love with you?' + +Franklin fixed his eye upon her and it had now a new light, it deepened +for other problems than Helen's and his own. 'Not adequate for her--not +what she wants--that's my point,' he said. 'But there are other sorts of +mistakes to make, of course. If Althea falls in love with a man equipped +as I'm not equipped, that does prove that I lack something that would +have won her; but it doesn't prove that she's found the right man. We've +got beyond natural selection when it comes to life as a whole. He may be +the man for her to fall in love with, but is he the man to make her +happy? That's just the question for me, Miss Buchanan, and I wish you'd +help me with it.' + +'Help you?' Helen rather faltered. + +'Yes, please try. You must see--I see it plainly enough--that Mr. Digby +is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' +Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald +had seen, and what she had not seen at all? + +'You think it's Gerald who is in love with her?' she asked. + +Again Franklin's eye was on her, and she now saw in it his deep +perplexity. She couldn't bear to add to it. 'I've guessed nothing,' she +said. 'You must enlighten me.' + +'I wasn't sure at first,' said Franklin, groping his way. 'He seemed so +devoted to Lady Pickering; but for some days it's been obvious, hasn't +it, that that wasn't in the least serious?' + +'Not in the least.' + +'I couldn't have reconciled myself,' said Franklin, 'to the idea of a +man, who could take Lady Pickering seriously, marrying Althea. I can't +quite reconcile myself to the idea of a man who could, well, be so +devoted to Lady Pickering, marrying Althea. He's your friend, I know, +Miss Buchanan, as well as your relative, but you know what I feel for +Althea, and you'll forgive my saying that if I'm not big enough for her +he isn't big enough either; no, upon my soul, he isn't.' + +Helen's eyes dwelt on him. She knew that, with all the forces of +concealment at her command, she wanted to keep from Mr. Kane the +blighting irony of her own inner comments; above everything, now, she +dreaded lest her irony should touch one of Mr. Kane's ideals. It was so +beautiful of him to think himself not big enough for Althea, that she +was well content that he should see Gerald in the same category of +unfitness. Perhaps Gerald was not big enough for Althea; Gerald's +bigness didn't interest Helen; the great point for her was that Mr. Kane +should not guess that she considered Althea not big enough for him. 'If +Gerald is the lucky man,' she said, after the pause in which she gazed +at him; 'if she cares enough for Gerald to marry him, then I think he +will make her happy; and that's the chief thing, isn't it?' + +Mr. Kane could not deny that it was, and yet, evidently, he was not +satisfied. 'I believe you'll forgive me if I go on,' he said. 'You see +it's so tremendously important to me, and what I'm going to say isn't +really at all offensive--I mean, people of your world and Mr. Digby's +world wouldn't find it so. I'll tell you the root of my trouble, Miss +Buchanan. Your friend is a poor man, isn't he, and Althea is a fairly +rich woman. Can you satisfy me on this point? I can give Althea up; I +must give her up; but I can hardly bear it if I'm to give her up to a +mere fortune-hunter, however happy he may be able to make her.' + +Helen's cheeks had coloured slightly. 'Gerald isn't a mere +fortune-hunter,' she said. 'People of my world do think fortune-hunting +offensive.' + +'Forgive me then,' said Franklin, gazing at her, contrite but +unperturbed. 'I'm very ignorant of your world. May I put it a little +differently. Would Mr. Digby be likely to fall in love with a woman if +she hadn't a penny?' + +She had quite forgiven him. She smiled a little in answering. 'He has +often fallen in love with women without a penny, but he could hardly +marry a woman who hadn't one.' + +'He wouldn't wish to marry Althea, then, if she had no money?' + +'However much he would wish it, I don't think he would be so foolish as +to do it,' said Helen. + +'Can't a man worth his salt work for the woman he loves?' + +'A man well worth his salt may not be trained for making money,' Helen +returned. She knew the question clamouring in his heart, the question he +must not ask, nor she answer: 'Is he in love with Althea?' Mr. Kane +could never accept nor understand what the qualified answer to such a +question would have to be, and she must leave him with his worst +perplexity unsolved. But one thing she could do for him, and she hoped +that it might soften a little the bitterness of his uncertainty. The +sunlight suddenly had failed, and a slight wind passed among the boughs +overhead. Helen got upon her feet, straightening her hat and putting +back her hair. It was time to be going homewards. They went down the +path and climbed over the palings, and it was on the hill-top that Helen +said, looking far ahead of her, far over the now visible roofs of +Merriston: + +'I've known Gerald Digby all my life, and I know Althea, now, quite +well. And if Gerald is to be the lucky man I'd like to say, for him, you +know--and I think it ought to set your mind at rest--that I think Althea +will be quite as lucky as he will be, and that I think that he is worthy +of her.' + +Franklin kept his eyes on her as she spoke, and though she did not meet +them, her far gaze, fixed ahead, seemed in its impersonal gravity to +commune with him, for his consolation, more than an answering glance +would have done. She was giving him her word for something, and the very +fact that she kept it impersonal, held it there before them both, made +it more weighty and more final. Franklin evidently found it so. He +presently heaved a sigh in which relief was mingled with +acceptance--acceptance of the fact that, from her, he must expect no +further relief. And presently, as they came out upon the winding road, +he said: 'Thanks, that's very helpful.' + +They walked on then in silence. The sun was gone and the wind blew +softly; the freshness of the coming rain was in the air. Helen lifted +her face to them as the first slow drops began to fall. In her heart, +too, the fierceness of her pain was overcast. Something infinitely sad, +yet infinitely peaceful, stilled her pulses. Infinitely sad, yet +infinitely funny too. How small, how insignificant, this tangle of the +whole-hearted and the half-hearted; what did it all come to, and how +feel suffering as tragic when farce grimaced so close beside it? Who +could take it seriously when, in life, the whole-hearted were so +deceived and based their loves on such illusion? To feel the irony was +to acquiesce, perhaps, and acquiescence, even if only momentary, like +the lull and softness in nature, was better than the beating fierceness +of rebellion. Everything was over. And here beside her went the dear +ungainly dog. She turned her head and smiled at him, the raindrops on +her lashes. + +'You don't mind the rain, Miss Buchanan?' said Franklin, who had looked +anxiously at the weather, and probably felt himself responsible for not +producing an umbrella for a lady's need. + +'I like it.' She continued to smile at him. + +'Miss Buchanan,' said Franklin, looking at her earnestly and not smiling +back, 'I want to say something. I've seemed egotistic and I've been +egotistic. I've talked only about my own troubles; but I don't believe +you wanted to talk about yours, did you?' Helen, smiling, slightly +shook her head. 'And at the same time you've not minded my knowing that +you have troubles to bear.' Again she shook her head. 'Well, that's what +I thought; that's all right, then. What I wanted to say was that if ever +I can help you in any way--if ever I can be of any use--will you please +remember that I'm your friend.' + +Helen, still looking at him, said nothing for some moments. And now, +once more, a slight colour rose in her cheeks. 'I can't imagine why you +should be my friend,' she said. 'I feel that I know a great deal about +you; but you know nothing about me, and please believe me when I say +that there's very little to know.' + +Already he knew her well enough to know that the slight colour, +lingering on her cheek, meant that she was moved. 'Ah, I can't believe +you there,' he said. 'And at all events, whatever there is to know, I'm +its friend. You don't know yourself, you see. You only know what you +feel, not at all what you are.' + +'Isn't that what I am?' She looked away, disquieted by this analysis of +her own personality. + +'By no means all,' said Franklin. 'You've hardly looked at the you that +can do things--the you that can think things.' + +She didn't want to look at them, poor, inert, imprisoned creatures. She +looked, instead, at the quaint, unexpected, and touching thing with +which she was presented--Mr. Kane's friendship. She would have liked to +have told him that she was grateful and that she, too, was his friend; +but such verbal definitions as these were difficult and alien to her, +as alien as discussion of her own character and its capacities. It +seemed to be claiming too much to claim a capacity for friendship. She +didn't know whether she was anybody's friend, really--as Mr. Kane would +have counted friendship. She thought him dear, she thought him good, and +yet she hardly wanted him, would hardly miss him if he were not there. +He touched her, more deeply than she perhaps quite knew, and yet she +seemed to have nothing for him. So she gave up any explicit declaration, +only turning her eyes on him and smiling at him again through her +rain-dimmed lashes, as they went down the winding road together. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +It was Althea who, during the next few days, while Gerald with the +greatest tact and composure made his approaches, was most unconscious of +what was approaching her. Everybody else now saw quite clearly what +Gerald's intentions were. Althea was dazed; she did not know what the +bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of +her. She had feared--sickeningly--with a stiffening of her whole nature +to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady +Pickering. Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was +going to be her friend, and then--this in the two or three days that +followed Gerald's talk with Helen--that he was going to be a dear one. +She had only adjusted her mind to this grave joy and wondered, with all +the perplexity of her own now recognised love, whether it could prove +more than a very tremulous joy, when the final revelation came upon her. +It came, and it was still unexpected, one afternoon when she and Gerald +sat in the drawing-room together. It was very warm, and they had come +into the cooler house after tea to look at a book that Gerald wanted to +show her. It had proved to be not much of a book after all, and even +while standing with him in the library, while he turned the musty +leaves for her and pointed out the funny old illustrations he had been +telling her of, Althea had felt that the book was only a pretext for +getting her away to himself. He had led her back to the drawing-room and +he had said, 'Don't let's go out again, it's much nicer here. Please sit +here and talk to me.' + +It was just the hour, just such an afternoon as that on which poor +Franklin had arrived; Althea thought of that as she and Gerald sat down +on the same little sofa where she and Franklin had sat. And, in a swift +flash of association, she remembered that Franklin had wanted to kiss +her, and had kissed her. They had left Franklin under the limes with +Helen; he had been reading something to Helen out of a pamphlet, and +Helen had looked, though rather sleepy, kindly acquiescent; but the +memory of the past could do no more than stir a faint pity for the +present Franklin; she was wishing--and it seemed the most irresistible +longing of all her life--that Gerald Digby wanted to kiss her too. The +memory and the wish threw her thoughts into confusion, but she was still +able to maintain her calm, to smile at him and say, 'Certainly, let us +talk.' + +'But not about politics and philanthropy to-day,' said Gerald, who +leaned his elbow on his knee and looked quietly yet intently at her; 'I +want to talk about ourselves, if I may.' + +'Do let us talk about ourselves,' said Althea. + +'Well, I don't believe that what I'm going to say will surprise you. I'm +sure you've seen how much I've come to care about you,' said Gerald. + +Althea kept her eyes fixed calmly upon him; her self-command was great, +even in the midst of an overpowering hope. + +'I know that we are real friends,' she returned, smiling. + +Her calm, her cool, sweet smile, like the light in the shaded room, were +very pleasing to Gerald. 'Ah, yes, but that was only a step, you see,' +he smiled back. He did not let her guess his full confidence, he took +all the steps one after the other in their proper order. He couldn't +give her romance, but he could give her every grace, and her calm made +him feel, happily and securely, that grace would quite content her. + +'You must see,' he went on, still with his eyes on hers, 'that it's more +than that. You must see that you are dearer than that.' And then he +brought out his simple question, 'Will you be my wife?' + +Althea sat still and her mind whirled. Until then she had been +unprepared. Her own feeling, the feeling that she had refused for days +to look at, had been so strong that she had only known its strength and +its danger to her pride; she had had no time to wonder about Gerald's +feeling. And now, in its freedom, her feeling was so joyous that she +could know only its joy. She was dear to him. He asked her to marry him. +It seemed enough, more than enough, to make joy a permanent thing in her +life. She had not imagined it possible to marry a man who did not woo +and urge, who did not make her feel the ardour of his love. But, now, +breathlessly, she found that reality was quite different from her +imagination and yet so blissful that she could feel nothing wanting in +it. And she could say nothing. She looked at him with her large eyes, +gravely, and touched, a little abashed by their gaze, he took her hand, +kissed it, and murmured, 'Please say you'll have me.' + +'Do you love me?' Althea breathed out; it was not that she questioned or +hesitated; the words came to her lips in answer to the situation rather +than in questioning of him. And it was hardly a shock; it was, in a +subtle way, a further realisation of exquisiteness, when the situation, +in his reply, defined itself as a reality still further removed from her +imagination of what such a situation should be. + +Holding her hand, his gay brown eyes upon her, he said, after only the +very slightest pause, 'Miss Jakes, I'm not a romantic person, you see +that; you see the sort of person I am. I can't make pretty speeches, not +when I'm serious, as I am now. When I make pretty speeches, I'm only +flirting. I like you. I respect you. I've watched you here in my old +home and I've thought, "If only she would make it home again." I've +thought that you'd help me to make a new life. I want to come and live +here, with you, and do the things I told you about--the things that +needed money.' + +His eyes were on hers, so quietly and so gravely, now, that they seemed +to hold from her all ugly little interpretations; he trusted her with +the true one, he trusted her not to see it as ugly. 'You see, I'm not +romantic,' he went on, 'and I can only tell you the truth. I couldn't +have thought of marrying you if you hadn't had money, but I needn't tell +you that, if you'd had millions, I wouldn't have thought of marrying +you unless I cared for you. So there it is, quite clear and simple. I +think I can make you happy; will you make me happy?' + +It was exquisite, the trust, the truth, the quiet gravity, and yet there +was pain in the exquisiteness. She could not look at it yet distinctly +for it seemed part of the beauty. It was rarer, more dignified, this +wooing, than commonplace protestations of devotion. It was a large and +beautiful life he opened to her and he needed her to make it real. They +needed each other. Yet--here the pain hovered--they needed each other so +differently. To her, he was the large and beautiful life; to him, she +was only a part of it, and a means to it. But she could not look at +pain. Pride was mounting in her, pride in him, her beloved and her +possession. Before all the world, henceforth, he would be hers. And the +greatness of that pride cast out lesser ones. He had discriminated, been +carefully sincere; her sincerity did not need to be careful, it was an +unqualified gift she had to make him. 'I love you,' she said. 'I will +make it your home.' + +And again Gerald was touched and a little confused. He kissed her hand +and then, her eyes of mute avowal drawing him, he leaned to her and +kissed her cheek. He felt it difficult to answer such a speech, and all +that he found to say at last was, 'You will make me romantic, dear +Althea.' + +That evening he sought Helen out again; but he need not have come with +his news, for it was none. Althea's blissful preoccupation and his +gaiety had all the evening proclaimed the happy event. But he had to +talk to Helen, and finding her on the terrace, he drew her hand through +his arm and paced to and fro with her. She was silent, and, suddenly and +oddly, he found it difficult to say anything. 'Well,' he ventured at +last. + +'Well,' Helen echoed in the darkness. + +'It's all settled,' said Gerald. + +'Yes,' said Helen. + +'And I'm very happy.' + +'I am so glad.' + +'And she is really a great dear. Anything more generously sweet I've +never encountered.' + +'I'm so glad,' Helen repeated. + +There seemed little more to say, but, before they went in, he squeezed +her hand and added: 'If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have met her. +Dear Helen, I have to thank you for my good fortune. I've always had to +thank you for the nice things that have happened to me.' + +But to this Helen demurred, though smiling apparently, as she answered, +going in, 'Oh no, I don't think you have this to thank me for.' + +After they had gone upstairs, Althea came to Helen's room, and putting +her arms around her she hid her face on her shoulder. She was too happy +to feel any sense of shyness. It was Helen who was shy. So shy that the +tears rose to her eyes as she stood there, embraced. And, strangely, she +felt, with all her disquiet at being so held by Althea, that the tears +were not only for shyness, but for her friend. Althea's happiness +touched her. It seemed greater than her situation warranted. Helen could +not see the situation as rapturous. It was not such a tempered, such a +reasonable joy that she could have accepted, had it been her part to +accept or to decline. And, held by Althea, hot, shrinking, sorry, she +was aware of another anger against Gerald. + +'My dear Althea, I know. I do so heartily congratulate you and Gerald,' +she said. + +'He told you, dear Helen?' + +'Yes, he told me, but of course I saw.' + +'I feel now as if you were my sister,' said Althea, tightening her arms. +'We will always be very near each other, Helen. It is so beautiful to +think that you brought us together, isn't it?' + +Helen was forced to put the distasteful cup to her lips. 'Yes indeed,' +she said. + +'He is so dear, so wonderful,' said Althea. 'There is so much more in +him than he knows himself. I want him to be a great man, Helen. I +believe he can be, don't you?' + +'I've never thought of Gerald as great,' Helen replied, trying to smile. + +'Ah, well, wait; you will see! I suppose it is only a woman in love with +a man who sees all his capacities. We will live here, and in London.' +Althea, while she spoke her guileless assurance, raised her head and +threw back her unbound hair, looking her full trust into Helen's eyes. +'I wouldn't care to live for more than half the year in the country, and +it wouldn't be good for Gerald. I want to do so much, Helen, to make so +many people happy, if I can. And, Helen dear,' she smiled now through +her tears, 'if only you could be one of them; if only this could mean in +some way a new opening in your life, too. One can never tell; happiness +is such an infectious thing; if you are a great deal with two very happy +people, you may catch the habit. I can't bear to think that you aren't +happy, rare and lovely person that you are. I told Gerald so to-day. I +said to him that I felt life hadn't given you any of the joy we all so +need. Helen, dear, you must find your fairy-prince. You must, you shall +fall in love, too.' + +Helen controlled her face and gulped on. 'That's not so easily managed,' +she remarked. 'I've seen a good many fairy-princes in my life, and +either I haven't melted their hearts, or they haven't melted mine. We +can't all draw lucky numbers, you know; there are not enough to go +round.' + +'As if anybody wouldn't fall in love with you, if you gave them the +chance,' said Althea. 'You _are_ the lucky number.' + +Althea felt next day a certain tameness in the public reception of her +news. She had not intended the news to be public yet for some time. +Franklin's presence seemed to make an announcement something of an +indelicacy, but, whether through her responsibility or whether through +Gerald's, or whether through the obviousness of the situation, she found +that everybody knew. It could not make commonplace to her her own inner +joy, but she saw that to Aunt Julia, to the girls, to Lady Pickering, +and Sir Charles, her position was commonplace. She was, to them, a nice +American who was being married as much because she had money as because +she was nice. + +Aunt Julia voiced this aspect to her on the first opportunity, drawing +her away after breakfast to walk with her along the terrace while she +said, very gravely, 'Althea, dear, do you really think you'll be happy +living in England?' + +'Happier than anywhere else in the world,' said Althea. + +'I didn't realise that you felt so completely expatriated.' + +'England has always seemed very homelike to me, and this already is more +of a home to me than any I have known for years,' said Althea, looking +up at Merriston House. + +'Poor child!' said Aunt Julia, 'what a comment on your rootless life. +You must forgive me, Althea,' she went on in a lower voice, 'but I feel +myself in a mother's place to you, and I do very much want to ask you to +consider more carefully before you make things final. Mr. Digby is a +charming man; but how little you have seen of him. I beg you to wait for +a year before you marry.' + +'I'm afraid I can't gratify you, Aunt Julia. I certainly can't ask +Gerald to wait for a year.' + +'My dear, why not!' Aunt Julia did not repress. + +Althea went on calmly. 'It is true, of course, that we are not in love +like two children, with no thought of responsibility or larger claims. +You see, one outgrows that rather naïve American idea about marriage. +Mine is, if you like, a _mariage de convenance_, in the sense that +Gerald is a poor man and cannot marry unless he marries money. And I am +proud to have the power to help him to build up a large and dignified +life, and we don't intend to postpone our marriage when we know, trust, +and love each other as we do.' + +'A large life, my dear,' said Aunt Julia. 'Don't deceive yourself into +thinking that. One needs a far larger fortune than your tiny one, +nowadays, if one is to build up a large life. What I fear more than +anything is that you don't in the least realise what English country +life is all the year round. Imagine, if you can, your winters here.' + +'I shan't spend many winters here,' said Althea smiling. She did not +divulge her vague, bright plans to Aunt Julia, but they filled the +future for her; she saw the London drawing-room where, when Gerald was +in Parliament, she would gather delightful people together. Among such +people, Lady Blair, Miss Buckston, her friends in Devonshire, and of +Grimshaw Rectory, seemed hardly more than onlookers; they did not fit +into the pictures of her new life. + +And if they did not fit, what of Franklin? Even in old unsophisticated +pictures of a _salon_ he had been a figure adjusted with some +difficulty. It had, in days that seemed immeasurably remote--days when +she had wondered whether she could marry Franklin--it had been difficult +to see herself introducing him with any sense of achievement to Lady +Blair or to the Collings, and she knew now, clearly, why: in Lady +Blair's drawing-room, as in Devonshire and at Grimshaw Rectory, Franklin +would have looked a funny little man. How much more funny in the new +setting. What would he do in it? What was it to mean to him? What would +any setting mean to Franklin in which he was to see her as no longer +needing him? For, and this was the worst of it, and in spite of +happiness Althea felt it as a pang indeed, she no longer needed +Franklin; and knowing this she longed at once to avoid and to atone to +him. + +She found him after her walk with Aunt Julia sitting behind a newspaper +in the library. Franklin always read the newspapers every morning, and +it struck Althea as particularly touching that this good habit should be +persevered in under his present circumstances. She was so much touched +by Franklin, the habit of old intimacy was so strong, that her own +essential change of heart seemed effaced by the uprising of feeling for +him. 'O Franklin!' she said. He had risen as she entered, and he stood +looking at her with a smile. It seemed to receive her, to forgive, to +understand. Almost weeping, she went to him with outstretched hands, +faltering, 'I am so happy, and I am so sorry, dear Franklin. Oh, forgive +me if I have hurt your life.' + +He looked at her, no longer smiling, very gravely, holding her hands, +and she knew that he was not thinking of his life, but of hers. And, +with a further pang, she remembered that the last time they had stood +so--she and Franklin--she had given him more hope for his life than ever +before in all their histories. He must remember, too, and he must feel +her unworthy in remembering, and even though she did not need Franklin, +she could not bear him to think her unworthy. 'Forgive me,' she +repeated. And the tears rose to her eyes. 'I've been so tossed, so +unstable. I haven't known. I only know now, you see, dear Franklin. I've +really fallen in love at last. Can you ever forgive me?' + +'For not having fallen in love with me?' he asked gently. + +'No, dear,' she answered, forced into complete sincerity. What was it in +Franklin that compelled sincerity, and made it so easy to be sincere? +There, at least, was a quality for which one would always need him. +'No, not for that, but for having thought that I might, perhaps, fall in +love with you. It is the hope I gave you that must make this seem so +sudden and so cruel.' + +He had not felt her cruel, but he had felt something that was now giving +his eyes their melancholy directness of gaze. He was looking at his +Althea; he was not judging her; but he was wishing that she had been +able to think of him a little more as mere friend, a little more as the +man who, after all, had loved her all these years; wishing that she had +not so completely forgotten him, so completely relegated and put him +away when her new life was coming to her. But he understood, he did not +judge, and he answered, 'I don't think you've been cruel, Althea dear, +though it's been rather cruel of fortune, if you like, to arrange it in +just this way. As for hurting my life, you've been the most beautiful +thing in it.' + +Something in his voice, final acceptance, final resignation, as though, +seeing her go for ever, he bowed his head in silence, filled her with +intolerable sadness. Was it that she wanted still to need him, or was it +that she could not bear the thought that he might, some day, no longer +need her? + +The sense of an end of things, chill and penetrating like an autumnal +wind, made all life seem bleak and grey for the moment. 'But, Franklin, +you will always be my friend. That is not changed,' she said. 'Please +tell me that nothing of that side of things is changed, dear Franklin.' + +And now that sincerity in him, that truth-seeing and truth-speaking +quality that was his power, became suddenly direful. For though he +looked at her ever so gently and ever so tenderly, his eyes pierced her. +And, helplessly, he placed the truth before them both, saying: 'I'll +always be your friend, of course, dear Althea. You'll always be the most +beautiful thing I've had in my life; but what can I be in yours? I don't +belong over here, you know. I'll not be in your life any longer. How can +it not be changed? How will you stay my friend, dear Althea?' + +The tears rolled down her cheeks. That he should see, and accept, and +still love her, made him seem dearer than ever before, while, in her +heart, she knew that he spoke the truth. 'Don't--don't, dear Franklin,' +she pleaded. 'You will be often with us. Don't talk as if it were at an +end. How could our friendship have an end? Don't let me think that you +are leaving me.' + +He smiled a little, but it was a valorous smile. 'I'll never leave you +in that way.' + +'Don't speak, then, as if I were leaving you.' + +But Franklin, though he smiled the valorous smile, couldn't give her a +consolation not his to give. Did he see clearly, and for the first time, +that he had always counted for her as a solace, a substitute for the +things he couldn't be, and that now, when these things had come to her, +he counted really for nothing at all? If he did see it, he didn't resent +it; he would understand that, too, even though it left him with no +foothold in her life. But he couldn't pretend--to give her comfort--that +she needed him any longer. 'I want to count for anything you'll let me +count for,' he said; 'but--it isn't your fault, dear--I don't think I +will ever count for much, now; I don't see how I can. If that's being +left, I guess I am left.' + +She gazed at him, and all that she had to offer was her longing that the +truth were not the truth, and for the moment of silent confrontation her +pain was so great that its pressure brought an involuntary cry--protest +or presage--it felt like both. 'You will--you will count--for much more, +dear Franklin.' + +She didn't know that it was the truth; his seemed to be the final truth; +but it came, and it had to be said, and he could accept it as her +confession and her atonement. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Franklin was gone and Sir Charles was gone, and Lady Pickering soon +followed, not in the least discomfited by the unexpected turn of events. +Lady Pickering could hardly have borne to suspect that Gerald preferred +to flirt with Miss Jakes rather than with herself; that he preferred to +marry her was nothing of an affront. Althea herself was very soon to +return to America for a month with Aunt Julia and the girls, settle +business matters and see old friends before turning her face, this time +for good, to the country that was now to be her home. + +Franklin was gone, and Gerald and Helen were left, and all that Gerald +more and more meant, all that was bright and alien too--the things of +joy and the things of adjustment and of wonder--effaced poor Franklin +while it emphasised those painful truths that he had seen and shown her +and that she had only been able to protest against. The thought of +Franklin came hardly at all, though the truths he had put before her +lingered in a haunting sense of disappointment with herself; she had +failed Franklin in deeper, more subtle ways than in the mere shattering +of his hopes. + +Althea had never been a good business woman; her affairs were taken care +of for her in Boston by wise and careful cousins; but she found that +Gerald, in spite of his air of irresponsibility, was a very good +business man, and it was he who pointed out to her, with cheerful and +affectionate frankness, that her fortune was not as large as she, with +her heretofore unexacting demands on it, had imagined. It was only when +Althea took for granted that it could suffice for much larger, new +demands, that Gerald pointed out the facts of limitation; to himself, he +made this clear and sweet, the facts were amply sufficient; there was +more than enough for his sober wants. But Althea, sitting over the +papers with him in the library, and looking rather vague and wistful, +realised that if Gerald's wants were to be the chief consideration many +of her own must, indeed, go unsatisfied. Gerald evidently took it +perfectly for granted that her wants would be his. Looking up at the +flat and faded portraits of bygone Digbys, while this last one, his +charming eyes lifted so brightly and so intelligently upon her, made +things clear, looking up, over his head, at these ancestors of her +affianced, Althea saw in their aspect of happy composure that they, too, +had always taken it for granted that their wives' wants were just +that--just their own wants. She couldn't--not at first--lucidly +articulate to herself any marked divergence between her wants and +Gerald's; she, too, wanted to see Merriston House restored and made +again into a home for Digbys; but Merriston House had been seen by her +as a means, not as an end. She had seen it as a centre to a larger life; +he saw it as a boundary beyond which they could not care to stray. After +the golden bliss of the first days of her new life there, as Gerald's +promised wife, there came for her a pause of rather perplexed reaction +in this sense of limits, this sense of being placed in a position that +she must keep, this strange sense of slow but sure metamorphosis into +one of a succession of Mrs. Digbys whose wants were their husbands'. + +'Yes, yes, I quite see, dear,' she said at intervals, while Gerald +explained to her what it cost to keep up even such a small place. 'What +a pity that those stocks of mine you were telling me about don't yield +more. It isn't much we have, is it?' + +'I think it's a great deal,' laughed Gerald. 'It's quite enough to be +very happy on. And, first and foremost, when it's a question of +happiness, and since you are so dear and generous, I shall be able to +hunt at last and keep my own horses. I'm sick of being dependent on my +friends for a mount now and then. Not that you'll have much sympathy +with that particular form of happiness, I know,' he added, smiling, as +he put his hand on her shoulder and scanned the next document. + +Althea was silent for a moment. She hardly knew what the odd shock that +went through her meant; then she recognised that it was fear. To see it +as that gave her courage; at all events, love Gerald as she did, she +would not be a coward for love of him. The effort was in her voice, +making it tremulous, as she said: 'But, Gerald, you know I don't like +hunting; you know I think it cruel.' + +He looked at her; he smiled. 'So do I, you nice dear.' + +'But you won't pain me by doing it--you will give it up?' + +It was now his turn to look really a little frightened. 'But it's in my +blood and bones, the joy of it, Althea. You wouldn't, seriously, ask me +to give it up for a whim?' + +'Oh, it isn't a whim.' + +'A theory, then.' + +'I think you ought to give it up for a theory like that one. Yes, I even +think that you ought to give it up to please me.' + +'But why shouldn't you give up your theory to please me?' He had turned +his eyes on his papers now, and was feigning to scan them. + +'It is a question of right and wrong to me.' + +Gerald was silent for a moment. He was not irritated, she saw that; not +angry. He quite recognised her point, and he didn't like her the less +for holding to it; but he recognised his own point just as clearly, and, +after the little pause, she found that he was resolute in holding to it. + +'I'm afraid I can't give it up--even to please you, dear,' he said. + +Althea sat looking down at the papers that lay on the table; she saw +them through tears of helpless pain. There was nothing to be done and +nothing to be said. She could not tell him that, since he did not love +her sufficiently to give up a pleasure for her sake, she must give him +up; nor could she tell him that he must not use her money for pleasures +that she considered wrong. But it was this second impossible retort--the +first, evidently, did not cross his mind--that was occupying Gerald. He +was not slow in seeing delicacies, though he was slow indeed in seeing +what might have been solemnities. The position couldn't strike him as +solemn; he couldn't conceive that a woman might break off her +engagement for such a cause; but he did see his own position of +beneficiary as delicate. + +His next words showed it: 'Of course I won't hunt here, if you really +say not. I could go away to hunt. The difficulty is that we want to keep +horses, don't we? and if I have a hunter it will be rather funny never +to use him at home.' + +Althea saw that it would be rather funny. 'If you have a hunter I would +far rather you hunted here than that you went away to hunt.' + +'Perhaps you'd rather I had a horse that couldn't hunt. The hunter would +be your gift, of course. I could just go on depending on my friends for +a mount, though that would look funny, too, wouldn't it?' + +'If you will hunt, I want to give you your hunter.' + +'In a sense it will be using your money to do something you disapprove +of.' Gerald was smiling at her as though he felt that he was bringing +her round to reasonableness. 'Perhaps that's ugly.' + +'Please don't speak of the money; mine is yours.' + +'That makes me seem all the dingier, I know,' said Gerald, half +ruefully, yet still smiling at her. 'I do wish I could give it up, just +to please you, but really I can't. You must just shut your eyes and +pretend I'm not a brute.' + +After this little encounter, which left its mark on Althea's heart, she +felt that Gerald ought to be the more willing to yield in other things +and to enter into her projects. 'Don't you think, dear,' she said to him +a day or two after, when they were walking together, 'don't you think +that you ought soon to be thinking of a seat in Parliament? That will +be such a large, worthy life for you.' + +Gerald, as they walked, was looking from right to left, happily, +possessively, over the fields and woods. He brought his attention to her +suggestion with a little effort, and then he laughed. 'Good gracious, +no! I've no political views.' + +'But oughtn't you to have them?' + +'You shall provide me with them, dear.' + +'Gladly; and will you use them?' + +'Not in Parliament,' laughed Gerald. + +'But seriously, dear, I hope you will think of it.' + +He turned gay, protesting, and now astonished eyes upon her. 'But I +can't think of it seriously. Old Battersby is a member for these parts, +and his seat is as firm as a rock.' + +'Can't you find another seat?' + +'But, my dear, even if I had any leaning that way, which I haven't, +where am I to find the time and money?' + +'Give less time and money to hunting,' she could not repress. + +But, over the sinking of her heart, she kept her voice light, and +Gerald, all unsuspecting, answered, as if it were a harmless jest they +were bandying, 'What a horrid score! But, yes, it's quite true; I want +my time for hunting and farming and studying a bit, and then you mustn't +forget that I enjoy dabbling at my painting in my spare moments and have +the company of my wise and charming Althea to cultivate. I've quite +enough to fill my time with.' + +She was baffled, perplexed, and hurt. Her thoughts fixed with some irony +on his painting. Dabble at it indeed. Gerald had shown her some of his +sketches and they had hardly seemed to Althea to merit more than that +description. Her own tastes had grown up securely framed by books and +lectures. Her speciality was early Italian art. She liked pictures of +Madonnas surrounded by exquisite accessories--all of which she +accurately remembered. She didn't at all care for Japanese prints, and +Gerald's sketches looked to her rather like Japanese prints. She really +didn't imagine that he intended her to take them seriously, and when he +had brought them out and shown them to her she had said, 'Pretty, very +pretty indeed, dear; really you have talent, I'm sure of it. With hard +work, under a good master, you might have become quite a painter.' She +had then seen the little look of discomfiture on Gerald's face, though +he laughed good-humouredly as he put away his sketches, saying to Helen, +who was present, 'I'm put in my place, you see.' + +Althea had hastened to add, 'But, dear, really I think them very pretty. +They show quite a direct, simple feeling for colour. Don't they, Helen? +Don't you feel with me that they are very pretty?' + +Helen had said that she knew nothing about pictures, but liked Gerald's +very much. + +It was hard now to be asked to accept this vagrant artistry instead of +the large, political life she had seen for him. And what of the London +drawing-room? + +'You must keep in touch with people, Gerald,' she said. 'You mustn't +sink into the country squire for ever.' + +'Oh, but that's just what I want to sink into,' said Gerald. 'Don't +bother about people, though, dear. We can have plenty of people to stay +with us, and go about a bit ourselves.' + +'But we must be in London for part of the year,' said Althea. + +'Oh, you will run up now and then for a week whenever you like,' said +Gerald. + +'A week! How can one keep in touch with what is going on in a week? +Can't we take a little house there? One of those nice little old houses +in Westminster, for example?' + +'A house, my dear! Why, you don't want to leave Merriston, do you? What +would become of Merriston if we had a house in London--and of all our +plans? We really couldn't manage that, dear--we really couldn't afford +it.' + +Yes, she saw the life very distinctly, now; that of the former Mrs. +Digbys--that of cheerful squiress and wise helpmate. And, charmed though +she was with her lover, Althea was not charmed with that prospect. She +promised herself that things should turn out rather differently. What +was uncomfortable already was to find that her promises were becoming +vague and tentative. There was a new sense of bondage. Bliss was in it, +but the bonds began to chafe. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +On a chill day in late October, Franklin Winslow Kane walked slowly down +a narrow street near Eaton Square examining the numbers on the doors as +he passed. He held his umbrella open over his shoulder, for propitiation +rather than for shelter, since the white fog had not yet formed into a +drizzle. His trousers were turned up, and his feet, wisely, for the +streets were wet and slimy, encased in neat galoshes. After a little +puzzling at the end of the street, where the numbers became confusing, +he found the house he sought on the other side--a narrow house, painted +grey, a shining knocker upon its bright green door, and rows of evenly +clipped box in each window. Franklin picked his way over the road and +rang the bell. This was his first stay in London since his departure +from Merriston in August. He had been in Oxford, in Cambridge, in +Birmingham, and Edinburgh. He had made friends and found many interests. +The sense of scientific links between his own country and England had +much enlarged his consciousness of world-citizenship. He had ceased +altogether to feel like a tourist, he had almost ceased to feel like an +alien; how could he feel so when he had come to know so many people who +had exactly his own interests? This wider scope of understanding +sympathy was the main enlargement that had come to him, at least it was +the main enlargement for his own consciousness. Another enlargement +there was, but it seemed purely personal and occupied his thoughts far +less. + +He waited now upon the doorstep of old Miss Buchanan's London house, and +he had come there to call upon young Miss Buchanan. The memory of +Helen's unobtrusive, wonderfully understanding kindness to him during +his last days at Merriston, remained for him as the only bright spot in +a desolate blankness. He had not seen her again. She had been paying +visits, but she had written in return to a note of inquiry from +Cambridge, to say that she was settled, now, in London for a long time +and that she would be delighted to see him on the day he suggested--that +of his arrival in town. + +He was ushered by the most staid, most crisp of parlour-maids, not into +Helen's own little sanctum downstairs, but into the drawing-room. It was +a narrow room, running to the back of the house where a long window +showed a ghostly tree in the fog outside, and it was very much crowded +with over-large furniture gathered together from Miss Buchanan's past. +There were chintz-covered chairs and sofas that one had to make one's +way around, and there were cabinets filled with china, and there were +tables with reviews and book-cutters laid out on them. And it was the +most cheerful of rooms; three canaries sang loudly in a spacious gilt +cage that stood in a window, the tea-table was laid before the fire, and +the leaping firelight played on the massive form of the black cat, +dozing in his basket, on the gilt of the canaries' cage, on the china +in the cabinets, the polished surface of the chintz, and the copper +kettle on the tea-table. + +Franklin stood and looked about him, highly interested. He liked to +think that Helen had such a comfortable refuge to fall back upon, though +by the time that old Miss Buchanan appeared he had reflected that so +much comfort might be just the impediment that had prevented her from +taking to her wings as he felt persuaded she could and should do. Old +Miss Buchanan interested him even more than her room. She was a firm, +ample woman of over sixty, with plentiful grey hair brushed back +uncompromisingly from her brow, tight lips, small, attentive eyes with +projecting eyebrows over them, and an expression at once of reticence +and cordiality. She wore a black dress of an old-fashioned cut, and +round her neck was a heavy gold chain and a large gold locket. + +Helen would be in directly, she said, and expected him. + +Franklin saw at once that she took him for granted, and that she was +probably in the habit of taking all Helen's acquaintances for granted, +and of making them comfortable until Helen came and took them off her +hands. She had, he inferred, many interests of her own, and did not +waste much conjecture on stray callers. Franklin was quite content to +count as a stray caller, and he had always conjecture enough for two in +any encounter. He talked away in his even, deliberate tones, while they +drank tea and ate the hottest of muffins that stood in a covered dish on +a brass tripod before the fire, and, while they talked, Miss Buchanan +shot rather sharper glances at him from under her eyebrows. + +'So you were at Merriston with Helen's Miss Jakes,' she said, placing +him. 'It made a match, that party, didn't it? Quite a good thing for +Gerald Digby, too, I hear. Miss Jakes is soon to be back, Helen tells +me.' + +'Next week,' said Franklin. + +'And the wedding for November.' + +'So I'm told.' + +'You've known Miss Jakes for some time?' + +'For almost all my life,' said Franklin, with his calm and candid smile. + +'Oh, old friends, then. You come from Boston, too, perhaps?' + +'Well, I come from the suburbs, in the first place, but I've been in the +hub itself for a long time now,' said Franklin. 'Yes, I'm a very old +friend of Miss Jakes's. I'm very much attached to her.' + +'Ah, and are you pleased with the match?' + +'It seems to please Althea, and that's the main thing. I think Mr. Digby +will make her happy; yes, I'm pleased.' + +'Yes,' said Miss Buchanan meditatively. 'Yes, I suppose Gerald Digby +will make a pleasant husband. He's a pleasant creature. I've always +considered him very selfish, I confess; but women seem to fall in love +with selfish men.' + +Franklin received this ambiguous assurance with a moment or so of +silence, and then remarked that marriage might make Mr. Digby less +selfish. + +'You mean,' said Miss Buchanan, 'that she's selfish too, and won't let +him have it all his own way?' + +Franklin did not mean that at all. 'Life with a high-minded, +true-hearted woman sometimes alters a man,' he commented. + +'Oh, she's that, is she?' said Miss Buchanan. 'I've not met her yet, you +see. Well, I don't know that I've much expectation of seeing Gerald +Digby alter. But he's a pleasant creature, as I said, and I don't think +he's a man to make any woman unhappy. In any case your friend is +probably better off married to a pleasant, selfish man than not married +at all,' and Miss Buchanan smiled a tight, kindly smile. 'I don't like +this modern plan of not getting married. I want all the nice young women +I know to get married, and the sooner the better; it gives them less +time to fuss over their feelings.' + +'Well, it's better to fuss before than after, isn't it?' Franklin +inquired. + +'Fussing after doesn't do much harm,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and there's +not so much time for fussing then. It's fussing before that leaves so +many of the nicest girls old maids. My niece Helen is the nicest girl I +know, and I sometimes think she'll never marry now. It vexes me very +much,' said Miss Buchanan. + +'She's a very nice girl,' said Franklin. 'And she's a very noble woman. +But she doesn't know it; she doesn't know her own capacities. I'm very +much attached to your niece, Miss Buchanan.' + +Miss Buchanan shot him another glance and then laughed. 'Well, we can +shake hands over that,' she remarked. 'So am I. And you are quite right; +she is a fine creature and she's never had a chance.' + +'Ah, that's just my point,' said Franklin gravely. 'She ought to have a +chance; it ought to be made for her, if she can't make it for herself. +And she's too big a person for that commonplace solution of yours, Miss +Buchanan. You're of the old ideas, I see; you don't think of women as +separate individuals, with their own worth and identity. You think of +them as borrowing worth and identity from some man. Now that may be good +enough for the nice girl who's only a nice girl, but it's not good +enough for your niece, not good enough for a noble woman. I'd ask a +happy marriage for her, of course, but I'd ask a great deal more. She +ought to put herself to some work, develop herself, find herself all +round.' + +Miss Buchanan, while Franklin delivered himself of these convictions, +leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed on her bosom, and observed +him with amused intentness. When he had done, she thus continued to +observe him for some moments of silence. 'No, I'm of the old ideas,' she +said at last. 'I don't want work for Helen, or development, or anything +of that sort. I want happiness and the normal life. I don't care about +women doing things, in that sense, unless they've nothing better to do. +If Helen were married to a man of position and ability she would have +quite enough to occupy her. Women like Helen are made to hold and +decorate great positions; it's the ugly, the insignificant women, who +can do the work of the world.' + +Franklin heard her with a cheerful, unmoved countenance, and after a +moment of reflection observed, 'Well, that seems to me mighty hard on +the women who aren't ugly and insignificant--mighty hard,' and as Miss +Buchanan looked mystified, he was going on to demonstrate to her that +to do the work of the world was every human creature's highest +privilege, when Helen entered. + +Franklin, as he rose and saw his friend again, had a new impression of +her and a rather perturbing one. Little versed as he was in the lore of +the world--the world in Miss Buchanan's sense--he felt that Helen, +perhaps, expressed what Miss Buchanan could not prove. It was true, her +lovely, recondite personality seemed to flash it before him, she didn't +fit easily into his theories of efficiency and self-development by +effort. Effort--other people's effort--seemed to have done long ago all +that was necessary for her. She was developed, she was finished, she +seemed to belong to quite another order of things from that which he +believed in, to an order framed for her production, as it were, and +justified, perhaps, by her mere existence. She was like a flower, and +ought a flower to be asked to do more than to show itself and bloom in +silence? + +Franklin hardly formulated these heresies; they hovered, only, as a sort +of atmosphere that had its charm and yet its sadness too, and that +seemed, in charm and sadness, to be part of Helen Buchanan's very being. + +She had taken his hand and was looking at him with those eyes of distant +kindness--so kind and yet so distant--and she said in the voice that was +so sincere and so decisive, a voice sweet and cold as a mountain brook, +that she was very glad to see him again. + +Yes, she was like a flower, a flower removed immeasurably from his +world; a flower in a crystal vase, set on a high and precious cabinet, +and to be approached only over stretches of shining floor. What had he +to do with, or to think of, such a young woman who, though +poverty-stricken, looked like a princess, and who, though smiling, had +at her heart, he knew, a despair of life? + +'I'm very glad indeed to see you,' he said gravely, despite himself, and +scanning her face; 'it seems a very long time.' + +'Does that mean that you have been doing a great deal?' + +'Yes; and I suppose it means that I've missed you a great deal, too,' +said Franklin. 'I got into the habit of you at Merriston; I feel it's +queer not to find you in a chair under a tree every day.' + +'I know,' said Helen; 'one gets so used to people at country houses; +it's seeing them at breakfast that does it, I think. It was nice under +that tree, wasn't it? and how lazy I was. I'm much more energetic now; +I've got to the Purgatory, with the dictionary. Am I to have a fresh pot +of tea to myself, kind Aunt Grizel? You see how I am spoiled, Mr. Kane.' + +She had drawn off her gloves and tossed aside her long, soft coat--that +looked like nobody else's coat--and, thin and black and idle, she sat in +a low chair by the fire, and put out her hand for her cup. 'I've been to +a musical,' she said. And she told them how she had been wedged into a +corner for an interminable sonata and hadn't been able to get away. 'I +tried to, once, but my hostess saw me and made a most ominous hiss at +me; every one's eye was turned on me, and I sank back again, covered +with shame and confusion.' + +Then she questioned him, and Franklin told her about his interesting +little tour, and the men he had met and the work they were doing. +'Splendid work, I can tell you,' said Franklin, 'and you have splendid +men. It's been a great time for me; it's done me a lot of good. I feel +as if I'd got hold of England; it's almost like being at home when you +find so many splendid people interested in the things that interest +you.' + +And presently, after a little pause, in which he contemplated the fire, +he added, lifting his eyes to Helen and smiling over the further idea: +'And see here, I'm forgetting another thing that's happened to me since +I saw you.' + +'Something nice, I hope.' + +'Well, that depends on how one looks at it,' said Franklin, considering. +'I can't say that it pleases me; it rather oppresses me, in fact. But +I'm going to get even with it, though that will take thought--thought +and training.' + +'It sounds as though you were going to be a jockey.' + +'No, I'm not going to be a jockey,' said Franklin. 'It's more solemn +than you think. What do you say to this? I'm a millionaire; I'm a +multi-millionaire. If that isn't solemn I don't know what is.' + +Miss Grizel Buchanan put down the long golf-stocking she was knitting, +and, over her spectacles, fixed her eyes on the strange young man who +had delayed till now the telling of this piece of news. She examined +him. In all her experience she had never come across anything like him. +Helen gave a little exclamation. + +'My dear Mr. Kane, I do congratulate you,' she said. + +'Why?' asked Franklin. + +'Why, it's glorious news,' said Helen. + +'I don't know about that,' said Franklin. 'I'm not a glorious person. +The mere fact of being a millionaire isn't glorious; it may be +lamentable.' + +'The mere fact of power is glorious. What shall you do?' asked Helen, +gazing thoughtfully at him as though to see in him all the far, new +possibilities. + +'Well, I shall do as much as I can for my own science of physics--that +is rather glorious, I own. I shall be able to help the first-rate men to +get at all sorts of problems, perhaps. Yes, that is rather glorious.' + +'And won't you build model villages and buy a castle and marry a +princess?' + +'I don't like castles and I don't know anything about princesses,' said +Franklin, smiling. 'As for philanthropy, I'll let people wiser than I am +at it think out plans for doing good with the money. I'll devote myself +to doing what I know something about. I do know something about physics, +and I believe I can do something in that direction.' + +'You take your good fortune very calmly, Mr. Kane,' Miss Grizel now +observed. 'How long have you known about it?' + +'Well, I heard a week ago, and news has been piling in ever since. I'm +fairly snowed up with cables,' said Franklin. 'It's an old uncle of +mine--my mother's brother--who's left it to me. He always liked me; we +were always great friends. He went out west and built railroads and made +a fortune--honestly, too; the money is clean--as clean as you can get +it nowadays, that is to say. I couldn't take it if it wasn't. The only +thing to do with money that isn't clean is to hand it over to the people +it's been wrongfully taken from--to the nation, you know. It's a pity +that isn't done; it would be a lot better than building universities and +hospitals with it--though it's a problem; yes, I know it's a problem.' +Franklin seemed to-day rather oppressed with a sense of problems. He +gave this one up after a thoughtful survey of the fire, and went on: 'He +was a fine old fellow, my uncle; I didn't see him often, but we +sometimes wrote, and he used to like to hear how I was getting on in my +work. He didn't know much about it; I don't think he ever got over +thinking that atoms were a sort of bug,' Franklin smiled, unaware of his +listeners' surprise; 'but he seemed to like to hear, so I always told +him everything I'd time to write about. It made me sad to hear he'd +gone; but it was a fine life, yes, it was a mighty big, fine, useful +life,' said Franklin Kane, looking thoughtfully into the fire. And while +he looked, musing over his memories, Miss Buchanan and her niece +exchanged glances. 'This is a very odd creature, and a very nice one,' +Miss Grizel's glance said; and Helen's replied, with playful eyebrows +and tender lips, 'Isn't he a funny dear?' + +'Now, see here,' said Franklin, looking up from his appreciative +retrospect and coming back to the present and its possibilities, 'now +that I've got all this money, you must let me spend a little of it on +having good times. You must let me take you to plays and +concerts--anything you've time for; and I hope, Miss Buchanan,' said +Franklin, turning his bright gaze upon the older lady, 'that I can +persuade you to come too.' + +Helen said that she would be delighted, and Miss Grizel avowed herself a +devoted playgoer, and Franklin, taking out his notebook, inscribed their +willingness to do a play on Wednesday night. 'Now,' he said, scanning +its pages, 'Althea lands on Friday and Mr. Digby goes to meet her, I +suppose. They must come in, too; we'll all have fun together.' + +'Gerald can't meet her,' said Helen; 'he has an engagement in the +country, and doesn't get back to London till Saturday. It's an old +standing engagement for a ball. I'm to welcome Althea back to London for +him.' + +Franklin paused, his notebook in his hand, and looked over it at Helen. +He seemed taken aback, though at once he mastered his surprise. 'Oh, is +that so?' was his only comment. Then he added, after a moment's +reflection: 'Well, I guess I'll run up and meet her myself, then. I've +always met and seen her off in America, and we'll keep up the old custom +on this side.' + +'That would be very nice of you,' said Helen. 'Of course she has that +invaluable Amélie to look after her, and, of course, Gerald knew that +she would be all right, or he would have managed it.' + +'Of course,' said Franklin. 'And we'll keep up the old custom.' + +That evening there arrived for Miss Buchanan and her niece two large +boxes--one for Miss Grizel, containing carnations and roses, and one for +Helen containing violets. Also, for the younger lady, was a smaller--yet +still a large box--of intricately packed and very sophisticated sweets. +Upon them Mr. Kane had laid a card which read: 'I don't approve of them, +but I'm sending them in the hope that you do.' Another box for Miss +Grizel contained fresh groundsel and chickweed for her canaries. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Althea was an excellent sailor and her voyage back to England was as +smooth and as swift as money could make it. She had been seen off by +many affectionate friends, and, since leaving America, the literature, +the flowers and the fruit with which they had provided her had helped to +pass the hours, tedious at best on ship-board. Two other friends, not so +near, but very pleasant--they were New York people--were also making the +voyage, but as they were all very sea-sick, intercourse with them +consisted mainly in looking in upon them as they lay, mute and enduring, +within their berths, and cheering them with the latest reports of +progress. Althea looked in upon them frequently, and she read all her +books, and much of her time, besides, had been spent in long, formless +meditations--her eyes fixed on the rippled, grey expanse of the Atlantic +while she lay encased in furs on her deck chair. These meditations were +not precisely melancholy, it was rather a brooding sense of vague +perplexity that filled the dream-like hours. She had left her native +land, and she was speeding towards her lover and towards her new life; +there might have been exhilaration as well as melancholy in these facts. +But though she was not melancholy, she was not exhilarated. It was a +confused regret that came over her in remembering Boston, and it was a +confused expectancy that filled her when she looked forward to Gerald. +Gerald had written to her punctually once a week while she had been in +America, short, but very vivid, very interesting and affectionate +letters. They told her about what he was doing, what he was reading, the +people he saw and his projects for their new life together. He took it +for granted that this was what she wanted, and of course it was what she +wanted, only--and it was here that the confused regrets arose in +remembering Boston--the letters received there, where she was so much of +a centre and so little of a satellite, had seemed, in some way, lacking +in certain elements that Boston supplied, but that Merriston House, she +more and more distinctly saw, would never offer. She was, for her own +little circle, quite important in Boston. At Merriston House she would +be important only as Gerald Digby's wife and as the mistress of his +home, and that indeed--this was another slightly confusing fact--would +not be great importance. Even in Boston, she had felt, her importance +was still entirely personal; she had gained none from her coming +marriage. Her friends were perfectly accustomed to the thought of +coronets and ancient estates in connection with foreign alliances, and +Althea was a little vexed in feeling that they really did not appreciate +at its full value the significance of a simple English gentleman with a +small country seat. 'I suppose you'll live quite quietly, Althea, dear,' +more than one old friend had said, with an approbation not altogether +grateful to her. 'Your aunt tells me that it's such a nice little place, +your future home. I'm so glad you are not making a great worldly +match.' Althea had no wish to make a great worldly match, but she did +not care that her friends should see her upon such an over-emphatically +sober background. + +The report of Gerald's charm had been the really luminous fact in her +new situation, and it had been most generously spread by Aunt Julia. +Althea had felt warmed by the compensatory brightness it cast about her. +Althea Jakes was not going to make a great match, but she was, and +everybody knew it, going to marry a 'perfectly charming' man. This, +after all, was to be crowned with beams. It was upon the thought of that +charm that she dwelt when the long meditations became oppressively +confused. She might be giving up certain things--symbolised by the +books, the fruit, the flowers, that testified to her importance in +Boston; she might be going to accept certain difficulties and certain +disappointments, but the firm ground on which she stood was the fact +that Gerald was charming. At moments she felt herself yearn towards that +charm; it was a reviving radiance in which she must steep her rather +numbed and rather weary being. To see his eyes, to see his smile, to +hear his voice that made her think of bells and breezes, would be enough +to banish wistfulness, or, at all events, to put it in its proper place +as merely temporary and negligible. + +Althea's heart beat fast as the shores of Ireland stole softly into +sight on a pearly horizon, and it really fluttered, like that of any +love-sick girl, when her packet of letters was brought to her at +Queenstown. In Gerald's she would feel the central rays coming out to +greet her. But when she had read Gerald's letter it was as if a blank +curtain had fallen before her, shutting out all rays. He was not coming +to meet her at Liverpool. The sharpness of her dismay was like a box on +the ear, and it brought tears to her eyes and anger to her heart. Yes, +actually, with no contrition, or consciousness of the need for it, he +said quite gaily and simply that he would see her in London on Saturday; +he had a ball in the country for Friday night. He offered not the least +apology. He was perfectly unaware of guilt. And it was this innocence +that, after the first anger, filled poor Althea with fear. What did it +bode for the future? Meanwhile there was the humiliating fact to face +that she, the cherished and appreciated Althea, who had never returned +to America without at least three devoted friends to welcome her, was to +land on the dismal Liverpool docks and find no lover to greet her there. +What would Mrs. Peel and Sally Arlington think when they saw her so +bereft? It was the realisation of what they would think, the memory of +the American wonder at the Englishman's traditional indifference to what +the American woman considered her due in careful chivalry, that roused +her pride to the necessity of self-preservation. Mrs. Peel and Sally, at +all events, should not imagine her to be either angry or surprised. She +would show them the untroubled matter-of-fact of the English wife. And +she succeeded admirably in this. When Miss Arlington, sitting up and +dressed at last, said, in Mrs. Peel's cabin, where, leaning on Althea's +arm, she had feebly crept to tea, 'And what fun, Althea, to think that +we shall see him to-morrow morning,' Althea opened candidly surprised +eyes: 'See him? Who, dear?' + +'Why, Mr. Digby, of course. Who else could be him?' said Miss Arlington. + +'But he isn't coming to Liverpool,' said Althea blandly. + +'Not coming to meet you?' Only tact controlled the amazement in Miss +Arlington's question. + +'Didn't you know? Gerald is a very busy man; he has had a long-standing +engagement for this week, and besides I shouldn't have liked him to +come. I'd far rather meet comfortably in London, where I shall see him +the first thing on Saturday. And then you'll see him too.' + +She only wished that she could really feel, what she showed them--such +calm, such reasonableness, and such detachment. + +It was with a gloomy eye that she surveyed the Liverpool docks in the +bleak dawn next morning, seated in her chair, Amélie beside her, a +competent Atlas, bearing a complicated assortment of bags, rugs, and +wraps. No, she had nothing to hope from these inhospitable shores; no +welcoming eyes were there to greet hers. It was difficult not to cry as +she watched the ugly docks draw near and saw the rows of ugly human +faces upturned upon it--peculiarly ugly in colour the human face at this +hour of the morning. Then, suddenly, Amélie made a little exclamation +and observed in dispassionate yet approving tones, 'Tiens; et voilà +Monsieur Frankline.' + +'Who? Where?' Althea rose in her chair. + +'Mais oui; c'est bien Monsieur Frankline,' Amélie pointed. 'Voilà ce qui +est gentil, par exemple,' and by this comment of Amélie's Althea knew +that Gerald's absence was observed and judged. She got out of her +chair, yet with a strange reluctance. It was not pleasure that she felt; +it was, rather, a fuller realisation of pain. Going to the railing she +looked down at the wharf. Yes, there was Franklin's pale buff-coloured +countenance raised to hers, serene and smiling. He waved his hat. Althea +was only able not to look dismayed and miserable in waving back. That +Franklin should care enough to come; that Gerald should care too little. +But she drew herself together to smile brightly down upon her faithful +lover. Franklin--Franklin above all--must not guess what she was +feeling. + +'Well,' were his first words, as she came down the gangway, 'I thought +we'd keep up our old American habits.' The words, she felt, were very +tactful; they made things easier for her; they even comforted her a +little. One mustn't be too hard on Gerald if it was an American habit. + +'It _is_ a nice one,' she said, grasping Franklin's hand. 'I must make +Gerald acquire it.' + +'Why don't you keep it for me?' smiled Franklin. She felt, as he piloted +her to the Customs, that either his tact or his ingenuousness was +sublime. She leaned on it, whichever it was. + +'Have you seen Gerald?' she asked, as they stood beside her marshalled +array of boxes. 'He seemed very fit and happy in the letters I had at +Queenstown.' + +'No, I've not seen him yet,' smiled Franklin, looking about to catch the +eye of an official. + +'Then'--was on the tip of Althea's tongue--'how did you know I was not +going to be met?' She checked the revealing question, and Franklin's +next remark--whether tactful or ingenuous in its appropriateness she +once more could not tell--answered it: 'I've been seeing a good deal of +Miss Buchanan; she told me Mr. Digby wouldn't be able to come up here.' + +'Oh--Helen!' Althea was thankful to be able to pass from the theme of +Gerald and his inabilities. 'So you have been seeing her. Have you been +long in London? Have you seen her often?' + +'I got to London last Monday, and I've seen her as often as she could +let me. We're very good friends, you know,' said Franklin. + +She didn't know at all, and she found the information rather +bewildering. At Merriston her own situation had far too deeply absorbed +her to leave her much attention for other people's. She had only noticed +that Helen had been kind to Franklin. She suspected that it was now his +ingenuousness that idealised Helen's tolerant kindness. But though her +superior sophistication made a little touch of irony unavoidable, it was +overwhelmed in the warm sense of gratitude. + +Everything was in readiness for her; her corner seat in the train, +facing the engine; a foot-warmer; the latest magazines, and a box of +fruit. How it all brought back Boston--dear Boston--and the reviving +consciousness of imaginative affection. And how it brought back +Franklin. Well, everybody ought to be his good friend, even if they +weren't so in reality. + +'You didn't suppose I'd forget you liked muscatels?' inquired Franklin, +with a mild and unreproachful gentleness when she exclaimed over the +nectarines and grapes. 'Now, please, sit back and let me put this rug +around you; it's chilly, and you look rather pale.' He then went off +and looked out for her friends and for Amélie. Mrs. Peel and Sally, when +they arrived with him, showed more than the general warmth of +compatriots in a foreign land. They knew Franklin but slightly, and he +could but have counted with them as one of Althea's former suitors; but +now, she saw it, he took his place in their eyes as the devoted friend, +and, as the journey went on, counted for more and more in his own right. +Sally and Mrs. Peel evidently thought Franklin a dear. Althea thought so +too, her eyes dwelling on him with wistful observation. There was no +charm; there never had been charm; but the thought of charm sickened her +a little just now. What she rested in was this affection, this kindness, +this constant devotion that had never failed her in the greatest or the +littlest things. And though it was not to see him change into a +different creature, not to see him move on into a different category--as +he had changed and moved in the eyes of the Miss Buchanans--he did gain +in significance when, after a little while, he informed them of the new +fact in his life--the fact of millions. They were Americans of an old +stock, and millions meant to them very external and slightly suspicious +things--things associated with rawness and low ideals; but they couldn't +associate Franklin with low ideals. They exclaimed with interest and +sympathy over his adventure, and they felt nothing funny in his projects +for benefiting physics. They all understood each other; they took light +things--like millions--lightly, and grave things--like ideals and +responsibilities--gravely. And, ah yes, there it was--Althea turning her +head to look at the speeding landscape of autumnal pearl and gold, +thought, over her sense of smothered tears--they knew what things were +really serious. They couldn't mistake the apparent for the real +triviality; they knew that some symbols of affection--trifling as they +might be--were almost necessary. But then they understood affection. It +was at this point that her sore heart sank to a leaden depression. +Affection--cherishing, forestalling, imaginative affection--there was no +lack of it, she was sure of that, in this beautiful England of pearl and +gold which, in its melancholy, its sweetness, its breathing out of +memories immemorial, so penetrated and possessed her; but was there not +a terrible lack of it in the England that was to be hers, and where she +was to make her home? + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +It was four days after Althea's arrival in London that Gerald stood in +Helen's sitting-room and confronted her--smoking her cigarette in her +low chair--as he had confronted her that summer on her return from +Paris. Gerald looked rather absent and he looked rather worried, and +Helen, who had observed these facts the moment he came in, was able to +observe them for some time while he stood there before her, not looking +at her, looking at nothing in particular, his eyes turning vaguely from +the mist-enveloped trees outside to the flowers on the writing-table, +and his eyebrows, always very expressive, knitting themselves a little +or lifting as if in the attempt to dispel recurrent and oppressive +preoccupations. It would have been natural in their free intercourse +that, after a certain lapse of time, Helen should ask him what the +matter was, helping him often, with the mere question, to recognise that +something was the matter. But to-day she said nothing, and it was her +silence instead of her questioning that made Gerald aware that he was +standing there expecting to have his state of mind probed and then +elucidated. It added a little to his sense of perplexity that Helen +should be silent, and it was with a slight irritation that he turned and +kicked a log before saying--'I'm rather bothered, Helen.' + +'What is it?' said Helen. 'Money?' This had often been a bother to them +both. + +Half turned from her, he shook his head. 'No, not money; that's all +right now, thanks to Althea.' + +'Well?' Helen questioned. + +He faced her again, a little quizzical, a little confused and at a loss. +'I suppose it's Althea herself.' + +'Oh!' said Helen. She said it with a perceptible, though very mild +change of tone; but Gerald, in his preoccupation, did not notice the +change. + +'You've seen her several times since she came back?' he asked. + +'Yes, twice; I lunched with her and these American friends of hers +yesterday,' said Helen. + +'Well, I've seen her three times,' said Gerald. 'I went to her, as you +know, directly I got back to London on Saturday; I cut my visit at the +Fanshawes two days shorter on purpose. I saw her on Sunday, and I'm just +come from her now. No one could say that I didn't show her every +attention, could they?' It hardly seemed a question, and Helen did not +answer it. 'I don't think she's quite pleased with me,' Gerald then +brought out. + +Still silent, Helen looked at him thoughtfully, but her gaze gave him no +clue. + +'Can you imagine why not?' he asked. + +She reflected, then she said that she couldn't. + +'Well,' said Gerald, 'I think it's because I didn't go to meet her at +Liverpool; from something she said, I think it's that. But I never +dreamed she'd mind, you know. And, really, I ask you, Helen, is it +reasonable to expect a man to give up a long-standing engagement and +take that dreary journey up to that dreary place--I've never seen the +Liverpool docks, but I can imagine them at six o'clock in the +morning--is it reasonable, I say, to expect that of any man? It wasn't +as if I wasn't to see her the next day.' + +Again Helen carefully considered. 'I suppose she found the docks very +dreary--at six o'clock,' she suggested. + +'But surely that's not a reason for wanting me to find them dreary too,' +Gerald laughed rather impatiently. 'I'd have had to go up to Liverpool +on Thursday and spend the night there; do you realise that?' + +Helen went on with the theme of the docks: 'I suppose she wouldn't have +found them so dreary if you'd been on them; and I suppose she expected +you not to find them dreary for the same reason.' + +Gerald contemplated this lucid statement of the case. 'Has she talked to +you about it?' he asked. + +'Not a word. Althea is very proud. If you have hurt her it is the last +thing that she would talk about.' + +'I know she's proud and romantic, and a perfect dear, of course; but do +you really think it a ground for complaint? I mean--would you have felt +hurt in a similar case?' + +'I? No, I don't suppose so; but Althea, I think, is used to a great deal +of consideration.' + +'But, by Jove, Helen, I'm not inconsiderate!' + +'Not considerate, in the way Althea is used to.' + +'Ah, that's just it,' said Gerald, as if, now, they had reached the +centre of his difficulty; 'and I can't pretend to be, either. I can't +pretend to be like Mr. Kane. Imagine that quaint little fellow going up +to meet her. You must own it's rather grotesque--rather tasteless, too, +I think, under the circumstances.' + +'They are very old friends.' + +'Well, but after all, he's Althea's rejected suitor.' + +'It wasn't as a suitor, it was as a friend he went. The fact that she +rejected him doesn't make him any less her friend, or any less +solicitous about her.' + +'It makes me look silly, her rejected suitor showing more solicitude +than I do--unless it makes him look silly; I rather feel it's that way. +But, apart from that, about Althea, I'm really bothered. It's all right, +of course; I've brought her round. I laughed at her a little and teased +her a little, and told her not to be a dear little goose, you know. But, +Helen, deuce take it! the trouble is----' Again Gerald turned and kicked +the log, and then, his hands on the mantelpiece, he gazed with frowning +intentness into the flames. 'She takes it all so much more seriously +than I do,' so he finally brought out his distress; 'so much more +seriously than I can, you know. It's all right, of course; only one +doesn't know quite how to get on.' And now, turning to Helen, he found +her eyes on his, and her silence became significant to him. There was no +response in her eyes; they were veiled, mute; they observed him; they +told him nothing. And he had a sense, new to him and quite inexpressibly +painful, of being shut out. 'I may go on talking to you--about +everything--as I have always done, Helen?' he said. It was hardly a +question; he couldn't really dream that there was anything not to be +talked out with Helen. But there was. Gerald received one of the ugliest +shocks of his life when Helen said to him in her careful voice: 'You +may not talk about Althea to me; not about her feeling for you--or yours +for her.' + +There was a pause after this, and then Gerald got out: 'I say--Helen!' +on a long breath, staring at her. 'You mean----' he stammered a little. + +'That you owe it to Althea--just because we had to talk her over once, +before you were sure that you wanted to make her your wife--not to +discuss her feelings or her relation to you with anybody, now that she +is to be your wife. I should think you would see that for yourself, +Gerald. I should think you would see that Althea would not marry you if +she thought that you were capable of talking her over with me.' + +Gerald had flushed deeply and vividly. 'But Helen--with _you_!' he +murmured. It was a helpless appeal, a helpless protest. His whole life +seemed to rise up and confront her with the contrast between their +reality--his relation and hers--and the relative triviality of this new +episode in his life. And there was his error, and there her inexorable +opposition; the episode was one no longer; he must not treat it as +trivial, a matter for mutual musings and conjectures. His 'With you!' +shook Helen's heart; but, looking past him and hard at the fire, she +only moved her head in slow, slight, and final negation. + +Gerald was silent for a long time, and she knew that he was gazing at +her as a dog gazes when some inexorable and inexplicable refusal turns +its world to emptiness. And with her pain for his pain came the rising +of old anger and old irony against him; for whose fault was it that even +the bitter joy of perfect freedom was cut off? Who had been so blind as +not to see that a wife must, in common loyalty, bring circumspection and +a careful drawing of limits? Who was it who, in his folly, had not known +that his impulsive acquiescence, his idle acceptance of the established +comfort and order held out to him, had cut away half of their +friendship? Absurd for Gerald, now, to feel reproach and injury. For +when he spoke again it was, though in careful tones, with uncontrollable +reproach. 'You know, Helen, I never expected this. I don't know that I'd +have been able to face this----' He checked himself; already he had +learned something of what was required of him. 'It's like poisoning part +of my life for me.' + +Helen did not allow the bitter smile to curl her lips; her inner +rejoinder answered him with: 'Whose fault is it that all my life is +poisoned?' + +'After all,' said Gerald, and now with a tremor in his voice, 'an old +friend--a friend like you--a more than sister--is nearer than any new +claims.' She had never heard Gerald's voice break before--for anything +to do with her, at least--and she felt that her cheek whitened in +hearing it; but she was able to answer in the same even tones: 'I don't +think so. No one can be near enough to talk about your wife with you.' + +He then turned his back and looked for a long time into the fire. She +guessed that there were tears in his eyes, and that he was fighting with +anger, pain, and amazement, and the knowledge filled her with cruel joy +and with a torturing pity. She longed to tell him that she hated him, +and she longed to put her arms around him and to comfort him--comfort +him because he was going to marry some one else, and must be loyal to +the woman preferred as wife. It was she, however, who first recovered +herself. She got up and pinched a withered flower from the fine azalea +that Franklin Kane had sent her the day before, and, dropping it into +the waste-paper basket, she said at last, very resolutely, 'Come, +Gerald, don't be silly.' + +He showed her now the face of a miserable, sulky boy, and Helen, smiling +at him, went on: 'We have a great many other subjects of conversation, +you will recollect. We can still talk about all the things we used to +talk about. Sit down, and don't look like that, or I shall be angry with +you.' + +She knew her power over him; it was able to deceive him as to their real +situation, and this was to have obeyed pity, not anger. Half unwillingly +he smiled a little, and, rubbing his hand through his hair and sinking +into a chair, he said: 'Laugh at me if you feel like it; I'm ill-used.' + +'Terribly ill-used, indeed,' said Helen. 'I shall go on laughing at you +while you are so ridiculous. Now tell me about the ball at the +Fanshawes, and who was there, and who was the prettiest woman in the +room.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Althea had intended to fix the time of her marriage for the end of +November; but, not knowing quite why, she felt on her return to England +that she would prefer a slightly more distant date. It might be foolish +to give oneself more time for uneasy meditation, yet it might be wise to +give oneself more time for feeling the charm. The charm certainly +worked. While Gerald opened his innocent, yet so intelligent eyes, +rallied her on her dejection, called her a dear little goose, and kissed +her in saying it, she had known that however much he might hurt her she +was helplessly in love with him. In telling him that she would marry him +just before Christmas--they were to have their Christmas in the +Riviera--she didn't intend that he should be given more opportunities +for hurting her, but more opportunities for charming her. Helplessly as +she might love, her heart was a tremulously careful one; it could not +rush recklessly to a goal nor see the goal clearly when pain intervened. +It was not now actual pain or doubt it had to meet, but it was that mist +of confusion, wonder, and wistfulness; it needed to be dispersed, and +Gerald, she felt sure, would disperse it. Gerald, after a questioning +lift of his eyebrows, acquiesced very cheerfully in the postponement. +After all, they really didn't know each other very well; they would +shake down into each other's ways all the more quickly, after marriage, +for the wisdom gained by a longer engagement. He expressed these +reasonable resignations to Althea, who smiled a little wanly over them. + +She was now involved in the rush of new impressions. They were very +crowded. She was to have but a fortnight of London and then, accompanied +by Mrs. Peel and Sally, to go to Merriston for another fortnight or so +before coming back to London for final preparations. Gerald was to be at +Merriston for part of the time, and Miss Harriet Robinson was coming +over from Paris to sustain and guide her through the last throes of her +trousseau. Already every post brought solemn letters from Miss Robinson +filled with detailed questionings as to the ordering of _lingerie_. So +it was really in this fortnight of London that she must gain her +clearest impression of what her new environment was to be; there would +be no time later on. + +There were two groups of impressions that she felt herself, rather +breathlessly, observing; one group was made by Helen and Franklin and +herself, and one by Gerald's friends and relatives, with Gerald himself +as a bright though uncertain centre to it. + +Gerald's friends and relations were all very nice to her and all very +charming people. She had never, she thought, met so many people at once +to whom the term might be applied. Their way of dressing, their way of +talking, their way of taking you, themselves, and everything so easily, +seemed as nearly perfect, as an example of human achievement, as could +well be. Life passed among them would assuredly be a life of gliding +along a sunny, unruffled stream. If there were dark things or troubled +things to deal with, they were kept well below the shining surface; on +the surface one always glided. It was charming, indeed, and yet Althea +looked a little dizzily from side to side, as if at familiar but +unattainable shores, and wondered if some solid foothold on solid earth +were not preferable. She wondered if she would not rather walk than +glide, and under the gliding she caught glimpses, now and then, of her +own dark wonders. They were all very nice to her; but it was as Gerald's +wife that they were nice to her; she herself counted for nothing with +them. They were frivolous people for the most part, though some among +them were serious, and often the most frivolous were those from whom she +would have expected gravity, and the serious those whom, on a first +meeting, she had thought perturbingly frivolous. Some of the political +friends--one who was in the Cabinet, for instance--seemed to think more +about hunting and bridge than about their functions in the State; while +an aunt of Gerald's, still young and very pretty, wrote articles on +philosophy and was ardently interested in ethical societies, in spite of +the fact that she rouged her cheeks, wore clothes so fashionable as to +look recondite, and had a reputation perfectly presentable for social +uses, but not exempt from private whispers. Althea caught such whispers +with particular perturbation. The question of morals was one that she +had imagined herself to face with a cosmopolitan tolerance; but she now +realised that to live among people whose code, in this respect, seemed +one of manners only, was a very different thing from reading about them +or seeing them from afar, as it were, in foreign countries. Gerald's +friends and relatives were anything rather than Bohemian, and most of +them were flawlessly respectable; but they were also anything but +unworldly; they were very worldly, and, from the implied point of view +of all of them, what didn't come out in the world it didn't concern +anybody to recognise--except in whispers. It all resolved itself, in the +case of people one disapproved of, into a faculty for being nice to them +without really having anything to do with them; and to poor Althea this +was a difficult task to undertake; social life, in her experience, was +more involved in the life of the affections and matched it more nearly. +She found, when the fortnight was over, that she was glad, very glad, to +get away to Merriston. The comparative solitude would do her good, she +felt, and in it, above all, the charm would perhaps work more +restoringly than in London. She had been, through everything, more aware +than of any new impression that the old one held firm; but, in that +breathless fortnight, she found that the charm, persistently, would not +be to her what she had hoped it might be. It did not revive her; it did +not lift and glorify her; rather it subjugated her and held her helpless +and in thrall. She was not crowned with beams; rather, it seemed to her +in moments of dizzy insight, dragged at chariot wheels. And more than +once her pride revolted as she was whirled along. + +It was at Merriston, installed, apparently, so happily with her friends, +that the second group of impressions became clearer for her than it had +been in London, when she had herself made part of it--the group that had +to do with Helen, Franklin, and herself. In London, among all the wider +confusions, this smaller but more intense one had not struck her as it +did seeing it from a distance. Perhaps it had been because Franklin, +among all that glided, had been the raft she stood upon, that, in his +company, she had not felt to the full how changed was their relation. +His devotion to her was unchanged; of that she was sure. Franklin had +not altered; it was she who had altered, and she had now to look at him +from the new angle where her own choice had placed her. Seen from this +angle it was clear that Franklin could no longer offer just the same +devotion, however truly he might feel it; she had barred that out; and +it was also clear that he would continue to offer the devotion that she +had left it open to him to offer; but here came the strange +confusion--this devotion, this remnant, this all that could still be +given, hardly differed in practice from the friendship now so frankly +bestowed upon Helen as well as upon herself; and, for a further +strangeness, Franklin, whom she had helplessly seen as passing from her +life, no longer counting in it, was not gone at all; he was there, +indeed, as never before, with the background of his sudden millions to +give him significance. Franklin was, indeed, as firmly ensconced in this +new life that she had entered as he chose to be, and did he not, as a +matter of fact, count in it for more than she did? If it was confusing +to look at Franklin from the angle of her own withdrawal, what was it to +see him altered, for the world, from drab to rose-colour and to see +that people were running after him? This fantastic result of wealth, +Althea, after a stare or two, was able to accept with other ironic +acceptations; it was not indeed London's vision of Franklin that altered +him for her, though it confused her; no, what had altered him more than +anything she could have thought possible, was Helen's new seeing of him. +Helen, she knew quite well, still saw Franklin, pleasantly and clearly, +as drab-colour, still, it was probable, saw him as funny; but it was +evident that Helen had come to feel fond of him, if anything so detached +could be called fondness. He could hardly count for anything with +her--after all, who did?--but she liked him, she liked him very much, +and it amused her to watch him adjust himself to his new conditions. She +took him about with her in London and showed him things and people, +ironically smiling, no doubt, and guarding even while she exposed. And +Helen wouldn't do this unless she had come to see something more than +drab-colour and oddity, and whatever the more might be it was not the +millions. No, sitting in the drawing-room at Merriston, with its +memories of the two emotional climaxes of her life, Althea, with a +sinking heart, felt sure that she had lost something, and that she only +knew it lost from seeing that Helen had found it. It had been through +Helen's blindness to the qualities in Franklin which, timidly, +tentatively, she had put before her, that his worth had grown dim to +herself; this was the cutting fact that Althea tried to edge away from, +but that her sincerity forced her again and again to examine. It was +through Helen's appreciation that she now saw more in Franklin than she +had ever seen before. If he was funny he was also original, full of his +own underivative flavour; if he was drab-colour, he was also beautiful. +Althea recalled the benignity of Helen's eyes as they dwelt upon him, +her smile, startled, almost touched, when some quaint, telling phrase +revealed him suddenly as an unconscious torch-bearer in a dusky, +self-deceiving world. Helen and Franklin were akin in that; they +elicited, they radiated truth, and Althea recalled, too, how their eyes +would sometimes meet in silence when they both saw the same truth +simultaneously. Not that Helen's truth was often Franklin's; they were +as alien as ever in their outlook, of this Althea was convinced; but +though the outlook was so different, the faculty of sight was the same +in both--clear, unperturbed, and profoundly independent. They were +neither of them dusky or self-deceived. And what was she? Sitting in the +drawing-room at Merriston and thinking it all over, Althea asked herself +the question while her heart sank to a deeper dejection. Not only had +she lost Franklin; she had lost herself. She embarked on the dangerous +and often demoralising search for a definite, recognisable +personality--something to lean on with security, a standard and a prop. +With growing dismay she could find only a sorry little group of +shivering hopes and shaken adages. What was she? Only a well-educated +nonentity with, for all coherence and purpose in life, a knowledge of +art and literature and a helpless feeling for charm. Poor Althea was +rapidly sinking to the nightmare stage of introspection; she saw, +fitfully, not restoringly, that it was nightmare, and dragging herself +away from these miserable dissections, fixed her eyes on something not +herself, on the thing that, after all, gave her, even to the nightmare +vision, purpose and meaning. If it were only that, let her, at all +events, cling to it; the helpless feeling for charm must then shape her +path. Gerald was coming, and to be subjugated was, after all, better +than to disintegrate. + +She drove down to meet him in the little brougham that was now +established in the stables. It was a wet, chilly day. Althea, wrapped in +furs, leaned in a corner and looked with an unseeing gaze at the +dripping hedgerows and grey sky. She fastened herself in anticipation on +the approaching brightness. Ah, to warm herself at the light of his +untroubled, unquestioning, unexacting being, to find herself in him. If +he would love her and charm her, that, after all, was enough to give her +a self. + +He was a little late, and Althea did not feel willing to face a public +meeting on the platform. She remained sitting in her corner, listening +for the sound of the approaching train. When it had arrived, she heard +Gerald's voice before she saw him, and the sound thrilled through her +deliciously. He was talking to a neighbour, and he paused for some +moments to chat with him. Then his head appeared at the window, little +drops of rain on his crisp hair, his eyes smiling, yet, as she saw in a +moment, less at her in particular than at the home-coming of which she +was a part. 'Yes,' he turned to the porter to say, 'the portmanteau +outside, the dressing-case in here.' The door was opened and he stepped +in beside her. 'Hello, Althea!' He smiled at her again, while he drew a +handful of silver from his pocket and picked out a sixpence for the +porter. 'Here; all right.' The brougham rolled briskly out of the +station yard. They were in the long up-hill lanes. 'Well, how are you, +dear?' he asked. + +Althea was trembling, but she was controlling herself; she had all the +pain and none of the advantage of the impulsive, emotional woman; +consciousness of longing made instinctive appeal impossible. 'Very well, +thank you,' she smiled, as quietly as he. + +'What a beastly day!' said Gerald, looking out. 'You can't imagine +London. It's like breathing in a wet blanket. The clean air is a +comfort, at all events.' + +'Yes,' smiled Althea. + +'Old Morty Finch is coming down in time for dinner,' Gerald went on. 'I +met him on my way to the station and asked him. Such a good fellow--you +remember him? He won't be too many, will he?' + +'Indeed no.' + +Gerald leaned back, drew the rug up about his knees, and folded his +arms, looking at her, still with his generally contented smile. 'And +your guests are happy? You're enjoying yourself? Miss Arlington plays +the violin, you said. I'm looking forward to hearing her--and seeing her +again, too; she is such a very pretty girl.' + +'Isn't she?' said Althea. And now, as they rolled on between the +dripping hedges, she knew that the trembling of hope and fear was gone, +and that a sudden misery, like that of the earth and sky, had settled +upon her. He had not kissed her. He did not even take her hand. Oh, why +did he not kiss her? why did he not know that she wanted love and +comfort? Only her pride controlled the cry. + +Gerald looked out of the window and seemed to find everything very +pleasant. 'I went to the play last night,' he said. 'Kane took a party +of us--Helen, Miss Buchanan, Lord Compton, and Molly Fanshawe. What a +good sort he is, Kane; a real character.' + +'You didn't get at him at all in the summer, did you?' said Althea, in +her deadened voice. + +'No,' said Gerald reflectively, 'not at all; and I don't think that I +get much more at him now, you know; but I see more what's in him; he is +so extraordinarily kind and he takes his money so nicely. And, O Lord! +how he is being run after! He really has millions, you know; the mothers +are all at his traces trying to track him down, and he is as cheerful +and as unconcerned as you please.' Gerald suddenly smiled round at her +again. 'I say, Althea, don't you regret him sometimes? It would have +been a glorious match, you know.' + +Althea felt herself growing pale. 'Regret him!' she said, and, for her, +almost violently, the opportunity was an outlet for her wretchedness; 'I +can't conceive how a man's money can make any difference. I couldn't +have married Franklin if he'd been a king!' + +'Oh, my dear!' said Gerald, startled; 'I didn't mean it seriously, of +course.' + +'It seems to me,' said Althea, trying to control her labouring breath, +'that over here you take nothing quite so seriously as that--great +matches, I mean, and money.' + +Gerald was silent for a moment; then, in a very courteous voice he said: +'Have I offended you in any way, Althea?' + +Tears stood in her eyes; she turned away her head to hide them. 'Yes, +you have,' she said, and the sound of her voice shocked her, it so +contradicted the crying out of her disappointed heart. + +But though Gerald was blind on occasions that did not seem to him to +warrant any close attention, he was clear-sighted on those that did. He +understood that something was amiss; and though her exclamation had, +indeed, made him angry for a moment, he was now sorry; he felt that she +was unhappy, and he couldn't bear people to be unhappy. 'I've done +something that displeases you,' he said, taking her hand and leaning +forward to look into her eyes, half pleading and half rallying her in +the way she knew so well. 'Do forgive me.' + +She longed to put her head on his shoulder and sob: 'I wanted you to +love me'; but that would have been to abase herself too much; yet the +tears fell as she answered, trying to smile: 'It was only that you hurt +me; even in jest I cannot bear to have you say that I could have been so +sordid.' + +He pressed her hand. 'I was only in fun, of course. Please forgive me.' + +She knew, with all his gay solicitude, his gentle self-reproach, that +she had angered and perplexed him, that she made him feel a little at a +loss with her talk of sordidness, that, perhaps, she wearied him. And, +seeing this, she was frightened--frightened, and angry that she should +be afraid. But fear predominated, and she forced herself to smile at him +and to talk with him during the long drive, as though nothing had +happened. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Some days after Gerald had gone to Merriston, Franklin Kane received a +little note from old Miss Buchanan. Helen, too, had gone to the country +until Monday, as she had told Franklin when he had asked her to see some +pictures with him on Saturday. Franklin had felt a little bereft, +especially since, hoping for her on Saturday, he had himself refused an +invitation. But he did not miss that; the invitations that poured in +upon him, like a swelling river, were sources of cheerful amusement to +him. He, too, was acquiring his little ironies and knew why they poured +in. It was not the big house-party where he would have been a fish out +of water--even though in no sense a fish landed--that he missed; he +missed Helen; and he wouldn't think of going to see pictures without +her. It was, therefore, pleasant to read Miss Buchanan's hospitable +suggestion that he should drop in that afternoon for a cup of tea and to +keep an old woman company. He was very glad indeed to keep Miss Buchanan +company. She interested him greatly; he had not yet in the least made +out what was her object in life, whether she had gained or missed it, +and whether, indeed, she had ever had one to gain or miss. People who +went thus unpiloted through life filled him with wonder and conjecture. + +He found Miss Buchanan as he had found her on the occasion of his first +visit to the little house in Belgravia. Her acute and rugged face showed +not much greater softening for this now wonted guest--showed, rather, a +greater acuteness; but any one who knew Miss Buchanan would know from +its expression that she liked Franklin Kane. 'Well,' she said, as he +drew his chair to the opposite side of the tea-table--very cosy +it was, the fire shining upon them, and the canaries trilling +intermittently--'Well, here we are, abandoned. We'll make the best of +it, won't we?' + +Franklin said that under the circumstances he couldn't feel at all +abandoned. 'Nor do I,' said Miss Buchanan, filling the tea-pot. 'You and +I get on very well together, I consider.' Franklin thought so too. + +'I hope we may go on with it,' said Miss Buchanan, leaning back in her +chair while the tea drew. 'I hope we are going to keep you over here. +You've given up any definite idea of going back, I suppose.' + +Franklin was startled by this confident assurance. His definite idea in +coming over had been, of course, to go back at the end of the autumn, +unless, indeed, a certain cherished hope were fulfilled, in which case +Althea should have decided on any movements. He had hardly, till this +moment, contemplated his own intentions, and now that he did so he found +that he had been guided by none that were definable. It was not because +he had suddenly grown rich and, in his funny way, the fashion, that he +thus stayed on in London, working hard, it is true, and allowing no new +developments to interfere with his work, yet making no plans and setting +no goal before himself. To live as he had been living for the past +weeks was, indeed, in a sense, to drift. There was nothing Franklin +disapproved of more than of drifting; therefore he was startled when +Miss Buchanan's remarks brought him to this realisation. 'Well, upon my +word, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'I hadn't thought about it. No--of course +not--of course, I've not given up the idea of going back. I shall go +back before very long. But things have turned up, you see. There is +Althea's wedding--I must be at that--and there's Miss Helen. I want to +see as much of her as I can before I go home, get my friendship firmly +established, you know.' + +Miss Buchanan now poured out the tea and handed Franklin his cup. 'I +shouldn't think about going yet, then,' she observed. 'London is an +admirable place for the sort of work you are interested in, and I +entirely sympathise with your wish to see as much as you can of Helen.' +She added, after a little pause in which Franklin, still further +startled to self-contemplation, wondered whether it was work, Althea's +wedding, or Helen who had most kept him in London,--'I'm troubled about +Helen; she's not looking at all well; hasn't been feeling well all the +summer. I trace it to that attack of influenza she had in Paris when she +met Miss Jakes.' + +Franklin's thoughts were turned from himself. He looked grave. 'I'm +afraid she's delicate,' he said. + +'There is nothing sickly about her, but she is fragile,' said Miss +Buchanan. 'She can't stand wear and tear. It might kill her.' + +Franklin looked even graver. The thought of his friend killed by wear +and tear was inexpressibly painful to him. He remembered--he would +never forget--the day in the woods, Helen's 'I'm sick to death of it.' +That Helen had a secret sorrow, and that it was preying upon her, he +felt sure, and there was pride for him in the thought that he could help +her there; he could help her to hide it; even her aunt didn't know that +she was sick to death of it. 'What do you suggest might be done?' he now +inquired. 'Do you think she goes out too much? Perhaps a rest-cure.' + +'No; I don't think she over-tires herself; she doesn't go out nearly as +much as she used to. There is nothing to cure and nothing to rest from. +It isn't so much now; I'm here now to make things possible for her. It's +after I'm gone. I'm an old woman; I'm devoted to my niece, and I don't +see what's to become of her when I'm dead.' + +If Franklin had been startled before, he was shocked now. He had never +given much thought to the economic basis of Helen's life, taking it for +granted that though she would like more money, she had, and always would +have, quite enough to live on happily. The idea of an insecure future +for her had never entered his head. He now knew that, for all his +theories of the independence of women, it was quite intolerable to +contemplate an insecure future for Helen. Some women might have it in +them to secure themselves--she was not one of them. She was a flower in +a vase; if the vase were taken away the flower would simply lie where it +fell and wither. He had put down his tea-cup while Miss Buchanan spoke, +and he sat gazing at her. 'Isn't Miss Helen provided for?' he asked. + +'Yes, in a sense she is,' said Miss Buchanan, who, after drinking her +tea, did not go on to her muffin, but still leaned back with folded +arms, her deep-set, small grey eyes fixed on Franklin's face. 'I've seen +to that as best I could; but one can't save much out of a small annuity. +Helen, after my death, will have an income of £150 a year. It isn't +enough. You have only to look at Helen to see that it isn't enough. +She's not fit to scrape and manage on that.' + +Franklin repeated the sum thoughtfully. 'Well, no, perhaps not,' he half +thought, only half agreed; 'not leading the kind of life she does now. +If she could only work at something as well; bring in a little more like +that.' But Miss Buchanan interrupted him. + +'Nonsense, my dear man; what work is there--work that will bring in +money--for a decorative, untrained idler like Helen? And what time would +she have left to live the only life she's fit to lead if she had to make +money? I'm not worried about bare life for Helen; I'm worried about what +kind of life it's to be. Helen was brought up to be an idler and to make +a good marriage--like most girls of her class--and she hasn't made it, +and she's not likely to make it now.' + +'One hundred and fifty pounds isn't enough,' said Franklin, still +thoughtfully, 'for a decorative idler.' + +'That's just it,' Miss Buchanan acquiesced; and she went on after a +moment, 'I'm willing to call Helen a decorative idler if we are talking +of purely economic weights and measures; thank goodness there are other +standards, and we are not likely to see them eliminated from civilised +society for many a generation. For many a generation, I trust, there'll +be people in the world who don't earn their keep, as one may say, and +yet who are more worth while keeping than most of the people who do. To +my mind Helen is such a person. I'd like to tell you a little about her +life, Mr. Kane.' + +'I should be very much obliged if you would,' Franklin murmured, his +thin little face taking on an expression of most intense concentration. +'It would be a great privilege. You know what I feel about Miss Helen.' + +'Yes; it's because I know what you feel about her that I want to tell +you,' said Miss Grizel. 'Not that it's anything startling, or anything +you wouldn't have supposed for yourself; but it illustrates my point, I +think, very well, my point that Helen is the type of person we can't +afford to let go under. Has Helen ever spoken to you about her mother?' + +'Never,' said Franklin, his intent face expressing an almost ritualistic +receptivity. + +'Well, she's a poor creature,' said Miss Buchanan, 'a poor, rubbishy +creature; the most selfish and reckless woman I know. I warned my +brother how it would turn out from the first; but he was infatuated and +had his way, and a wretched way it turned out. She made him miserable, +and she made the children miserable, and she nearly ruined him with her +extravagance; he and I together managed to put things straight, and see +to it that Nigel should come into a property not too much encumbered and +that Helen should inherit a little sum, enough to keep her going--a +little more it was, as a matter of fact, than what I'll be able to leave +her. Well, when my brother died, she was of age and she came into her +modest fortune; for a young girl, with me to back her up, it wasn't +bad. She had hardly seen her mother for three years--they'd always been +at daggers drawn--when one day, up in Scotland, when she was with her +brother--it was before Nigel married--who should appear but Daisy. She +had travelled up there in desperate haste to throw herself on her +children's mercy. She was in terrible straits. She had got into +debt--cards and racing--and she was frightfully involved with some +horror of a man. Her honour was wrecked unless she could pay her debts +and extricate herself. Well, she found no mercy in Nigel; he refused to +give her a farthing. It was Helen who stripped herself of every penny +she possessed and saved her. I don't know whether she touched Helen's +pity, or whether it was mere family pride; the thought of the horror of +a man was probably a strong motive too. All Helen ever said about it to +me was, "How could I bear to see her like that?" So, she ruined herself. +Of course after that it was more than ever necessary that she should +marry. I hadn't begun to save for her, and there was nothing else for +her to look to. Of course I expected her to marry at once; she was +altogether the most charming girl of her day. But there is the trouble; +she never did. She refused two most brilliant offers, one after the +other, and hosts of minor ones. There was some streak of girlish romance +in her, I suppose. I wish I could have been more on the spot and put on +pressure. But it was difficult to be on the spot. Helen never told me +about her offers until long after; and pressure with her wouldn't come +to much. Of course I didn't respect her the less for her foolishness. +But, dear me, dear me,' said Miss Buchanan, turning her eyes on the +fire, 'what a pity it has all been, what a pity it is, to see her +wasted.' + +Franklin listened to this strange tale, dealing with matters to him +particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of +men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all +sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside +fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him +was the thought of Helen in it all. This oppressed him very much. + +Miss Buchanan continued to look into the fire for a little while after +she had finished her story, and then, bringing her eyes back to +Franklin's countenance, she looked at him keenly and steadily. 'And now, +Mr. Kane,' she said, 'you are perhaps asking yourself why I tell you all +this?' + +Franklin was not asking it at all, and he answered with earnest +sincerity: 'Why, no; I think I ought to be told. I want to be told +everything about my friends that I may hear. I'm glad to know this, +because it makes me feel more than ever what a fine woman Miss Helen is, +and I'm sorry, because she's wasted, as you say. I only wish,' said +Franklin, and the intensity of cogitation deepened on his face, 'I only +wish that one could think out some plan to give her a chance.' + +'I wish one could,' said Miss Buchanan. And without any change of voice +she added: 'I want you to marry her, Mr. Kane.' + +Franklin sat perfectly still and turned his eyes on her with no apparent +altering of expression, unless the arrested stillness of his look was +alteration. His eyes and Miss Buchanan's plunged deep into each +other's, held each other's for a long time. Then, slowly, deeply, +Franklin flushed. + +'But, Miss Buchanan,' he said, pausing between his sentences, for he did +not see his way, 'I'm in love with another woman--that is----' and for a +longer pause his way became quite invisible--'I've been in love with +another woman for years.' + +'You mean Miss Jakes,' said Miss Buchanan. 'Helen told me about it. But +does that interfere? Helen isn't likely to be in love with you or to +expect you to be in love with her. And the woman you've loved for years +is going to marry some one else. It's not as if you had any hope.' + +There was pain for Franklin in this reasonable speech, but he could not +see clearly where it lay; curiously, it did not seem to centre on that +hopelessness as regarded Althea. He could see nothing clearly, and there +was no time for self-examination. 'No,' he agreed. 'No, that's true. +It's not as if I had any hope.' + +'I think Helen worthy of any man alive,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and yet, +under the strange circumstances, I know that what I'm asking of you is +an act of chivalry. I want to see Helen safe, and I think she would be +safe with you.' + +Franklin flushed still more deeply. 'Yes, I think she would,' he said. +He paused then, again, trying to think, and what he found first was a +discomfort in the way she had put it. 'It wouldn't be an act of +chivalry,' he said. 'Don't think that. I care for Miss Helen too much +for that. It's all the other way round, you know. I mean'--he brought +out--'I don't believe she'd think of taking me.' + +Miss Grizel's eyes were on him, and it may have been their gaze that +made him feel the discomfort. She seemed to be seeing something that +evaded him. 'I don't look like a husband for a decorative idler, do I, +Miss Buchanan?' he tried to smile. + +Her eyes, with their probing keenness, smiled back. 'You mayn't look +like one, but you are one, with your millions,' she said. 'And I believe +Helen might think of taking you. She has had plenty of time to outgrow +youthful dreams. She's tired. She wants ease and security. She needs a +husband, and she doesn't need a lover at all. She would get power, and +you would get a charming wife--a woman, moreover, whom you care for and +respect--as she does you; and you would get a home and children. I +imagine that you care for children. Decorative idler though she is, +Helen would make an excellent mother.' + +'Yes, I care very much for children,' Franklin murmured, not +confused--pained, rather, by this unveiling of his inner sanctities. + +'Of course,' Miss Buchanan went on, 'you wouldn't want Helen to live out +of England. Of course you would make generous settlements and give her +her proper establishments here. I want Helen to be safe; but I don't +want safety for her at the price of extinction.' + +Obviously, Franklin could see that very clearly, whatever else was dim, +he was the vase for the lovely flower. That was his use and his supreme +significance in Miss Buchanan's eyes. And the lovely flower was to be +left on its high stand where all the world could see it; what other use +was there for it? He quite saw Miss Buchanan's point, and the strange +thing was, in spite of all the struggling of confused pain and +perplexity in him, that here he, too, was clear; with no sense of inner +protest he could make it his point too. He wanted Helen to stay in her +vase; he didn't want to take her off the high stand. He had not time now +to seek for consistency with his principles, his principles must +stretch, that was all; they must stretch far enough to take in Helen and +her stand; once they had done that he felt that there might be more to +say and that he should be able to say it; he felt sure that he should +say nothing that Helen would not like; even if she disagreed, she would +always smile at him. + +'No,' he said, 'it wouldn't do for her to live anywhere but in England.' + +'Well, then, what do you say to it?' asked Miss Buchanan. She had rather +the manner of a powerful chancellor negotiating for the marriage of a +princess. + +'Why,' Franklin replied, smiling very gravely, 'I say yes. But I can't +think that Miss Helen will.' + +'Try your chances,' said Miss Buchanan. She reached across the table and +shook his hand. 'I like you, Mr. Kane,' she said. 'I think you are a +good man; and, don't forget, in spite of my worldliness, that if I +weren't sure of that, all your millions wouldn't have made me think of +you for Helen.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Helen returned to town on Monday afternoon, and, on going to her room, +found two notes there. One from Gerald said that he was staying on for +another week at Merriston, the other from Franklin said that he would +take his chances of finding her in at 5.30 that afternoon. Helen only +glanced at Franklin's note and then dropped it into the fire; at +Gerald's she looked long and attentively. She always, familiar as they +were, studied any letter of Gerald's that she received; they seemed, the +slightest of them, to have something of himself; the small crisp writing +was charming to her, and the very way he had of affixing his stamps in +not quite the same way that most people affixed theirs, ridiculously +endeared even his envelopes. She turned the note over in her fingers as +she stood before the fire, seeing all that it meant to him--how +little!--and all that it meant to her, and she laid it for a moment +against her cheek before tearing it across and putting it, too, into the +fire. Aunt Grizel was gone out and had left word that she would not be +in till dinner-time. Helen looked idly at the clock and decided that she +would take a lazy afternoon, have tea at home, and await Franklin. + +When he arrived he found her reading before the fire in the little room +where she did not often receive him; it was usually in the drawing-room +that they met. Helen wore a black tea-gown, transparent and flowing, the +same gown, indeed, remodelled to more domestic uses, in which Althea had +first seen her. She looked pale and very thin. + +Franklin, too, was aware of feeling pale; he thought that he had felt +pale ever since his talk with Miss Buchanan on Saturday. He had not yet +come to any decision about the motives that had made him acquiesce in +her proposal; he only knew that, whatever they were, they were not those +merely reasonable ones that she had put before him. A charming wife, a +home and children; these were not enough, and Franklin knew it, to have +brought him here to-day on his strange errand; nor was it an act of +chivalry; nor was it pity and sympathy for his friend. All these, no +doubt, made some small part of it; but they far from covered the case; +they would have left him as calm and as rational as, he knew, he looked; +but since he did not feel calm and rational he knew that the case was +covered by very different motives. What they were he could not clearly +see; but he felt that something was happening to him and that it was +taking him far out of his normal course. Even his love for Althea had +not taken him out of his course; it had never been incalculable; it had +been the ground he walked on, the goal he worked towards; what was +happening now was like a current, swift and unfathomable, that was +bearing him he knew not where. + +Helen smiled at him and, turning in her chair to look up at him, gave +him her hand. 'You look tired,' she said. 'You'll have some tea?' + +'I've been looking up some things at the British Museum,' said Franklin, +'and I had a glass of milk and a bun; the bun was very satisfying, +though I can't say that it was very satisfactory; I guess I shan't want +anything else for some hours yet.' + +'A bun? What made you have a bun?' said Helen, laughing. + +'Well, it seemed to go with the place, somehow,' said Franklin. + +'I can imagine that it might; I've only been there once; very large and +very indigestible I found it, and most depressing. Yes, I see that it +might make a bun seem suitable.' + +'Ah, but it's a very wonderful place, you know,' Franklin said. 'I +should have expected you to go oftener; you care about beauty.' + +'Not beauty in a museum. I don't like museums. The mummies were what +impressed me most, after the Elgin marbles, and everything there seemed +like a mummy--dead and desecrated. Well, what have you been doing +besides eating buns at the British Museum? Has London been working you +very hard?' + +'I've not seen much of London while you've been away,' said Franklin, +who had drawn a chair to the other side of the fire. 'I think that you +are London to me, and when you are out of it it doesn't seem to mean +much--beyond museums and work.' + +'Come, what of all your scientific friends?' + +'They don't mean London; they mean science,' said Franklin, smiling back +at her. She always made him feel happy for himself, and at ease, even +when he was feeling unhappy for her; and just now he was feeling +strangely, deeply unhappy for her. It wasn't humility, in the usual +sense, that showed his coming offer to him as so inadequate; he did not +think of himself as unworthy; but he did think of himself as +incongruous; and that this fine, sad, subtle creature should be brought, +from merely reasonable motives, to taking the incongruous intimately +into her life made him more unhappy for her than usual. He wished he +wasn't so incongruous; he wished he had something besides friendship and +millions; he wished, almost, that his case was hopeless and that +friendship and millions would not gain her. Yet, under these wishes, +which made his face look tired and jaded, was another feeling; it was +too selfless to be called a wish; rather it was a wonder, deep and +melancholy, as to what was being done to him, and what would be done, as +an end of it all. That something had been done he knew; it was because +of Helen--that was one thing at last seen clearly--that he had not, long +ago, left London. + +'Science is perfectly impersonal, perfectly cosmopolitan, you know,' he +went on. 'Now you are intensely personal and intensely local.' + +'I don't think of myself as London, then, if I'm local,' said Helen, her +eyes on the fire. 'I think of myself as Scotland, in the moorlands, on a +bleak, grey day, when the heather is over and there's a touch of winter +in the wind. You don't know the real me.' + +'I'd like to,' said Franklin, quietly and unemphatically. + +They sat for a little while in silence, and Helen, so unconscious of +what was approaching her, seemed in no haste to break it. She was +capable of sitting thus in silent musing, her cheek on her hand, her +eyes on the fire, for half an hour with Mr. Kane beside her. + +Franklin was reflecting. It wouldn't do to put it to her as her need; it +must be put to her as his; as his reasonable need for the castle, the +princess, the charming wife, the home, and children. And it must be that +need only, the need of the dry, matter-of-fact friend who could give her +a little and to whom she could give much. To hint at other needs--if +other needs there were--would not be in keeping with the spirit of the +transaction, and would, no doubt, endanger it. He well remembered old +Miss Buchanan's hint; it was as a husband that Helen might contemplate +him, not as a lover. 'Miss Buchanan,' he said at last, 'you don't +consider that love, romantic love, is necessary in marriage, do you? +I've gathered more than once from remarks of yours that that point of +view is rather childish to you.' + +Helen turned her eyes on him with the look of kindly scrutiny to which +he was accustomed. She had felt, in these last weeks, that London might +be having some unforeseen effect on Franklin Kane; she thought of him as +very clear and very fixed, yet of such a guilelessly open nature as +well, that new experience might impress too sharply the candid tablets +of his mind. She did not like to think of any alteration in Franklin. +She wanted him to remain a changeless type, tolerant of alteration, but +in itself inalterable. 'To tell you the truth, I used to think so,' she +said, 'for myself, I mean. And I hope that you will always think so.' + +'Why?' asked Franklin. + +'I want you to go on believing always in the things that other people +give up--the nice, beautiful things.' + +'Well, that's just my point; can't marriage without romantic love be +nice and beautiful?' + +'Well, can it?' Helen smiled. + +Franklin appeared conscientiously to ponder. 'I've a high ideal of +marriage,' he said. 'I think it's the happiest state for men and women; +celibacy is abnormal, isn't it?' + +'Yes, I suppose it is,' Helen acquiesced, smiling on. + +'A mercenary or a worldly marriage is a poor thing; it can't bring the +right sort of growth,' Franklin went on. 'I'm not thinking of anything +sordid or self-seeking, except in the sense that self-development is +self-seeking. I'm thinking of conditions when a man and woman, without +romantic love, might find the best chances of development. Even without +romantic love, marriage may mean fine and noble things, mayn't it? a +home, you know, and shared, widened interests, and children,' said poor +Franklin, 'and the mutual help of two natures that understand and +respect each other.' + +'Yes, of course,' said Helen, as he paused, fixing his eyes upon her; +'it may certainly mean all that, the more surely, perhaps, for having +begun without romance.' + +'You agree?' + +She smiled now at his insistence. 'Of course I agree.' + +'You think it might mean happiness?' + +'Of course; if they are both sensible people and if neither expects +romance of the other; that's a very important point.' + +Franklin again paused, his eyes on hers. With a little effort he now +pursued. 'You know of my romance, Miss Buchanan, and you know that it's +over, except as a beautiful and sacred memory. You know that I don't +intend to let a memory warp my life. It may seem sudden to you, and I +ask your pardon if it's too sudden; but I want to marry; I want a home, +and children, and the companionship of some one I care for and respect, +very deeply. Therefore, Miss Buchanan,' he spoke on, turning a little +paler, but with the same deliberate steadiness, 'I ask you if you will +marry me.' + +While Franklin spoke, it had crossed Helen's mind that perhaps he had +determined to follow her suggestion--buy a castle and find a princess to +put in it; it had crossed her mind that he might be going to ask her +advice on this momentous step--she was used to giving advice on such +momentous steps; but when he brought out his final sentence she was so +astonished that she rose from her chair and stood before him. She became +very white, and, with the strained look that then came to them, her eyes +opened widely. And she gazed down at Franklin Winslow Kane while, in +three flashes, searing and swift, like running leaps of lightning, three +thoughts traversed her mind: Gerald--All that money--A child. It was in +this last thought that she seemed, then, to fall crumblingly, like a +burnt-out thing reduced to powder. A child. What would it look like, a +child of hers and Franklin Kane's? How spare and poor and insignificant +were his face and form. Could she love a child who had a nose like +that--a neat, flat, sallow little nose? A spasm, half of laughter, half +of sobbing, caught her breath. + +'I've startled you,' said Franklin, who still sat in his chair looking +up at her. 'Please forgive me.' + +A further thought came to her now, one that she could utter, was able to +utter. 'I couldn't live in America. Yes, you did startle me. But I am +much honoured.' + +'Thank you,' said Franklin. 'I needn't say how much I should consider +myself honoured if you would accept my proposal.' He rose now, but it +was to move a little further away from her, and, taking up an ornament +from the mantelpiece, he examined it while he said: 'As for America, I +quite see that; that's what I was really thinking of in what I was +saying about London. You are London, and it wouldn't do to take you away +from it. I shouldn't think of taking you away. What I would ask you to +do would be to take me in. Since being over here, this time, and seeing +some of the real life of the country--what it's working towards, what it +needs and means--and, moreover, taking into consideration the character +of my own work, I should feel perfectly justified in making a compromise +between my patriotism and my--my affection for you. Some day you might +perhaps find that you'd like to pay us a visit, over there; I think +you'd find it interesting, and it wouldn't, of course, be my America +that you'd see, not the serious and unfashionable America; it would be a +very different America from that that you'd find waiting to welcome you. +So that what I should suggest--and feel justified in suggesting--would +be that I spent three months alternately in England and America; I +should in that way get half a year of home life and half a year of my +own country, and be able, perhaps, to be something of a link between +the English and American scientific worlds. As for our life +here'--Franklin remembered old Miss Buchanan's words--'you should have +your own establishments and,' he lifted his eyes to hers, now, and +smiled a little, 'pursue the just and the beautiful under the most +favourable conditions.' + +Helen, when he smiled so at her, turned from him and sank again into her +chair. She leaned her elbow on the arm and put her hand over her eyes. A +languor of great weariness went over her, the languor of the burnt-out +thing floating in the air like a drift of ashes. + +Here, at last, in her hand, however strange the conditions, was the +power she had determined to live for. She could, with Franklin's +millions, mould circumstances to her will, and Franklin would be no more +of an odd impediment than the husbands of many women who married for +money--less of an impediment, indeed, than most, for--though it could +only be for his money--she liked him, she was very fond of him, dear, +good, and exquisite little man. Impossible little man she, no doubt, +would once have thought him--impossible as husband, not as friend; but +so many millions made all the difference in possibility. Franklin was +now as possible as any prince, though, she wondered with the cold +languor, could a prince have a nose like that? + +Franklin was possible, and it was in her hand, the power, the high +security; yet she felt that it would be in weariness rather than in +strength that the hand would close. It must close, must it not? If she +refused Franklin what, after all, was left to her, what was left in +herself or in her life that could say no to him? Nothing; nothing at +all, no hope, no desire, no faith in herself or in life. If it came to +that, the clearest embodiment of faith and life she knew sat opposite to +her waiting for an answer. He was good; she was fond of him; he had +millions; what could it be but yes? Yet, while her mind sank, like a +feather floating downwards in still air, to final, inevitable +acquiescence, while the little clock ticked with a fine, insect-like +note, and the flames made a soft flutter like the noise of shaken silk, +a blackness of chaotic suffering rose suddenly in her, and her thoughts +were whirled far away. In flashes, dear and terrible, she saw it--her +ruined youth. It rose in dim symbolic pictures, the moorland where +melancholy birds cried and circled, where the rain fell and the wind +called with a passionate cadence among the hills. To marry Franklin +Kane--would it not be to abandon the past; would it not be to desecrate +it and make it hers no longer? Was not the solitary moorland better, the +anguish and despair better than the smug, warm, sane life of purpose and +endeavour? If she was too tired, too indifferent, if she acquiesced, if +she married Franklin Kane, would she forget that the reallest thing in +her life had not been its sanity, and its purpose, but its wild, its +secret, its broken-hearted love? Surely the hateful wisdom of the daily +fact would not efface the memory so that, with years, she would come to +smile over it as one smiles at distant childish griefs? Surely not. Yet +the presage of it passed bleakly over her soul. Life was so reasonable. +And there it sat in the person of Franklin Winslow Kane; life, wise, +kind, commonplace, and inexorably given to the fact, to the present, to +the future that the present built, inexorably oblivious of the past. Her +tragic, rebel heart cried out against it, but her mind whispered with a +hateful calm that life conquered tragedy. + +Let it be so, then. She faced it. In the very fact of submission to life +her tragedy would live on; the tragedy--and this she would never +forget--would be to feel it no longer. She would be life's captive, not +its soldier, and she would keep to the end the captive's bitter heart. +She knew, as she put down her hand at last and looked at Franklin Kane, +that it was to be acquiescence, unless he could not accept her terms. +She was ready, ironically, wearily ready for life; but it must be on her +own terms. There must be no loophole for misunderstanding between her +and her friend--if she were to marry him. Only by the clearest +recognition of what she owed him could her pride be kept intact; and she +owed him cold, cruel candour. 'Do you understand, I wonder,' she said to +him, and in a voice that he had never heard from her before, the voice, +he knew, of the real self, 'how different I am from what you think a +human being should be? Do you realise that, if I marry you, it will be +because you have money--because you have a great deal of money--and only +for that? I like you, I respect you; I would be a loyal wife to you, but +if you weren't rich--and very rich--I should not think of marrying you.' + +Franklin received this information with an unmoved visage, and after a +pause in which they contemplated each other deeply, he replied: 'All +right.' + +'That isn't all,' said Helen. 'You are very good--an idealist. You think +me--even in this frankness of mine--far nicer than I am. I have no +ideals--none at all. I want to be independent and to have power to do +what I please. As for justice and beauty--it's too kind of you to +remember so accurately some careless words of mine.' + +Franklin remained unperturbed, unless the quality of intent and +thoughtful pity in his face were perturbation. 'You don't know how nice +you are,' he remarked, 'and that's the nicest thing about you. You are +the honestest woman I've met, and you seem to me about the most unhappy. +I guessed that. Well, we won't talk about unhappiness, will we? I don't +believe that talking about it does much good. If you'll marry me, we'll +see if we can't live it down somehow. As for ideals, I'll trust you in +doing what you like with your money; it will be yours, you know. I shall +make half my property over to you for good; then if I disapprove of what +you do with it, you'll at all events be free to go on pleasing yourself +and displeasing me. I won't be able to prevent you by force from doing +what I think wrong any more than you will me. You'll take your own +responsibility, and I'll take mine. And I don't believe we shall quarrel +much about it,' said Franklin, smiling at her. + +Tears rose to Helen's eyes. Franklin Kane, since she had become his +friend, often touched her; something in him now smote upon her heart; it +was so gentle, so beautiful, and so sad. + +'My dear friend,' she said, 'you will be marrying a hard, a selfish, and +a broken-hearted woman who will bring you nothing.' + +'All right,' said Franklin again. + +'I won't do you any good.' + +'You won't do me any harm.' + +'You want me to marry you, even if I'm not to do you any good?' + +He nodded, looking brightly and intently at her. + +She rose now and stood beside him. With all the strange new sense of +unity between them there was a stronger sense of formality, and that +seemed best expressed by their clasp of hands over what, apparently, was +an agreement. 'You understand, you are sure you understand,' said Helen. + +'What I want to understand is that you are going to marry me,' said +Franklin. + +'I will marry you,' Helen said. + +And now, rather breathlessly, as if after a race hardly won, Franklin +answered: 'Well, I guess you can leave the rest to me.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Gerald had decided to stay on for another week at Merriston and to come +up to town with Althea, and she fancied that the reason for his decision +was that he found Sally Arlington such very good company. Sally played +the violin exceedingly well and looked like an exceedingly lovely muse +while she played, and Gerald, who was very fond of music, also expressed +more than once to Althea his admiration of Miss Arlington's appearance. +There was nothing in Gerald's demeanour towards Sally to arouse a hint +of jealousy; at least there would not have been had Althea been his +wife. But she was not yet his wife, and he treated her--this was the +fact that the week was driving home--as though she were, and as though +with wifely tolerance she perfectly understood his admiring pretty young +women who looked like muses and played the violin. She was not yet his +wife; this was the fact, she repeated it over her hidden misery, that +Gerald did not enough realise. She was not his wife, and she did not +like to see him admiring other young women and behaving towards herself +as though she were a comprehending and devoted spouse, who found +pleasure in providing them for his delectation. She knew that she could +trust Gerald, that not for a moment would he permit himself a +flirtation, and not for a moment fail to discriminate between admiration +of the newcomer and devotion to herself; yet that the admiration had +been sufficient to keep him on at Merriston, while the devotion took for +granted the right to all sorts of marital neglects, was the fact that +rankled. It did more than rankle; it burned with all the other burnings. +Althea had, at all events, been dragged from her mood of introspection. +She had lost the sense of nonentity. She was conscious of a passionate, +protesting self that cried out for justice. Who was Gerald, after all, +to take things so for granted? Why should he be so sure of her? He was +not her husband. She was his betrothed, not his wife, and more, much +more was due to a betrothed than he seemed to imagine. It was not so +that another man would have treated her; it was not so that Franklin +would have handled his good fortune. Her heart, bereft and starving, +cried out for Franklin and for the love that had never failed, even +while, under and above everything, was her love for Gerald, and the cold +fear lest he should guess what was in her heart, should be angry with +her and turn away. It was this fear that gave her self-mastery. She +acted the part that Gerald took for granted; she was the tolerant, +devoted wife. Yet even so she guessed that Gerald had still his instinct +of something amiss. He, too, with all his grace, all his deference and +sweetness, was guarded. And once or twice when they were alone together +an embarrassed silence had fallen between them. + +Mrs. Peel and Sally left on Saturday, and on Saturday afternoon Miss +Harriet Robinson was to arrive from Paris, to spend the Sunday, to +travel up to town with Althea and Gerald on Monday, and to remain there +with Althea until her marriage. Saturday morning, therefore, after the +departure of Mrs. Peel and Sally, would be empty, and when she and +Gerald met, just before the rather bustled breakfast, Althea suggested +to him that a walk together when her guests were gone would be nice, and +Gerald had genially acquiesced. A little packet of letters lay beside +Gerald's plate and a larger one by Althea's, hers mainly from America as +she saw, fat, friendly letters, bearing the Boston postmark; a thin note +from Franklin in London also, fixing some festivity for the coming week +no doubt; but Sally and Mrs. Peel engaged her attention, and she +postponed the reading until after they were gone. She observed, however, +in Gerald's demeanour during the meal, a curious irritability and +preoccupation. He ate next to nothing, drank his cup of coffee with an +air of unconsciousness, and got up and strolled away at the first +opportunity, not reappearing until Mrs. Peel and Sally were making their +farewells in the hall. He and Althea stood to see them drive off, and +then, since she was ready for the walk, they went out together. + +It was a damp day, but without rain. A white fog hung closely and +thickly over the country, and lay like a clogging, woollen substance +among the scattered gold and russets of the now almost leafless trees. + +Gerald walked beside Althea in silence, his hands in his pockets. +Althea, too, was silent, and in her breast was an oppression like that +of the day--a dense, dull, clogging fear. They had walked for quite ten +minutes, and had left the avenue and were upon the high road when +Gerald said suddenly, 'I've had some news this morning.' + +It was a relief to hear that there was some cause for his silence +unconnected with her own inadequacy. But anger rose with the relief; it +must be some serious cause to excuse him. + +'Have you? It's not bad, I hope,' she said, hoping that it was. + +'Bad? No; I don't suppose it's bad. It's very odd, though,' said Gerald. +He then put his hand in his breast-pocket and drew out a letter. Althea +saw that the writing on the envelope was Helen's. 'You may read it,' +said Gerald. + +The relief was now merged in something else. Althea's heart seemed +standing still. It began to thump heavily as she opened the letter and +read what Helen wrote: + + + 'DEAR GERALD,--I have some surprising news for you; but I hardly + think that you will be more surprised than I was. I am going to + marry Mr. Kane. I accepted him some days ago, but have been getting + used to the idea since then, and you are the first person, after + Aunt Grizel, who knows. It will be announced next week and we shall + probably be married very soon after you and Althea. I hope that both + our ventures will bring us much happiness. The more I see of Mr. + Kane, the more I realise how fortunate I am.--Yours affectionately, + + 'HELEN.' + + +Althea gazed at these words. Then she turned her eyes and gazed at +Gerald, who was not looking at her but straight before him. Her first +clear thought was that if he had received a shock it could not be +comparable to that which she now felt. It could not be that the letter +had fallen on his heart like a sword, severing it. Althea's heart seemed +cleft in twain. Gerald--Franklin--it seemed to pulse, horribly divided +and horribly bleeding. Looking still at Gerald's face, pallid, absorbed, +far from any thought of her, anger surged up in her, and not now against +Gerald only, but against Franklin, who had failed her, against Helen, +who, it seemed, did not win love, yet won something that took people to +her and bound them to her. Then she remembered her unread letters, and +remembered that Franklin could not have let this news come to her from +another than himself. She drew out his letter and read it. It, too, was +short. + + + 'DEAREST ALTHEA,--I know how glad you'll be to hear that happiness, + though of a different sort, has come to me. Any sort of happiness + was, for so many years, connected with you, dear Althea, that it's + very strange to me to realise that there can be another happiness; + though this one is connected with you, too, and that makes me + gladder. Helen, your dear friend, has consented to marry me, and the + fact of her being your dear friend makes her even dearer to me. So + that I must thank you for your part in this wonderful new opening in + my life, as well as for all the other lovely things you've always + meant to me.--Your friend, + 'FRANKLIN.' + + +Althea's hand dropped. She stared before her. She did not offer the +letter to Gerald. 'It's incredible,' she said, while, in the heavy +mist, they walked along the road. + +Gerald still said nothing. He held his head high, and gazed before him +too, as if intent on difficult and evasive thoughts. + +'I could not have believed it of Helen,' said Althea after a little +pause. + +At this he started and looked round at her. 'Believed? What? What is +that you say?' His voice was sharp, as though she had struck him on the +raw. + +Althea steadied her own voice; she wished to strike him on the raw, and +accurately; she could only do that by hiding from him her own great +dismay. 'I could not have believed that Helen would marry a man merely +for his money.' She did not believe that Helen was to marry Franklin +merely for his money. If only she could have believed it; but the +bleeding heart throbbed: 'Lost--lost--lost.' It was not money that Helen +had seen and accepted; it was something that she herself had been too +blind and weak to see. In Helen's discovery she helplessly partook. He +_was_ of value, then. He, whom she had not found good enough for her, +was good enough for Helen. And this man--this affianced husband of +hers--ah, his value she well knew; she was not blind to it--that was the +sickening knowledge; she knew his value and it was not hers, not her +possession, as Franklin's love and all that Franklin was had been. +Gerald possessed her; she seemed to have no part in him; how little, his +next words showed. + +'What right have you to say she's taking him merely for his money?' +Gerald demanded in his tense, vibrant voice. + +Ah, how he made her suffer with his hateful unconsciousness of her +pain--the male unconsciousness that rouses woman's conscious cruelty. + +'I know Helen. She has always been quite frank about her mercenary +ideas. She always told me she would marry a man for his money.' + +'Then why do you say it's incredible that she is going to?' + +Why, indeed? but Althea held her lash. 'I did not believe, even of her, +that she would marry a man she considered so completely insignificant, +so completely negligible--a man she described to me as a funny little +man. There are limits, even to Helen's insensitiveness, I should have +imagined.' + +She had discovered the raw. Gerald was breathing hard. + +'That must have been at first--when she didn't know him. They became +great friends; everybody saw that Helen had become very fond of him; I +never knew her to be so fond of anybody. You are merely angry because a +man who used to be in love with you has fallen in love with another +woman.' + +So he, too, could lash. 'How dare you, Gerald!' she said. + +At her voice he paused, and there, in the wet road, they stood and +looked at each other. + +What Althea then saw in his face plunged her into the nightmare abyss of +nothingness. What had she left? He did not love her--he did not even +care for her. She had lost the real love, and this brightness that she +clung to darkened for her. He looked at her, steadily, gloomily, +ashamed of what she had made him say, yet too sunken in his own pain, +too indifferent to hers, to unsay it. And in her dispossession she did +not dare make manifest the severance that she saw. He did not care for +her, but she could not tell him so; she could not tell him to go. With +horrid sickness of heart she made a feint that hid her knowledge. + +'What you say is not true. Franklin does not love her. I know him +through and through. I am the great love of his life; even in his letter +to me, here, he tells me that I am.' + +'Well, since you've thrown him over, he can console himself, I hope.' + +'You do not understand, Gerald. I am disappointed--in both my friends. +It is an ugly thing that has happened. You feel it so; and so do I.' + +He turned and began to walk on again. And still it lay with her to speak +the words that would make truth manifest. She could not utter them; she +could not, now, think. All that she knew was the dense, suffocating +fear. + +Suddenly she stopped, put her hands on her heart, then covered her eyes. +'I am ill; I feel very ill,' she said. It was true. She did feel very +ill. She went to the bank at the side of the road and sank down on it. +Gerald had supported her; she had dimly been aware of the bitter joy of +feeling his arm around her, and the joy of it slid away like a snake, +leaving poison behind. He stood above her, alarmed and pitying. + +'Althea--shall I go and get some one? I am so awfully sorry--so +frightfully sorry,' he repeated. + +She shook her head, sitting there, her face in her hands and her elbows +on her knees. And in her great weakness an unbelievable thing happened +to her. She began to cry piteously, and she sobbed: 'O Gerald--don't be +unkind to me! don't be cruel! don't hurt me! O Gerald--love me--please +love me!' The barriers of her pride, of her thought, were down, and, +like the flowing of blood from an open wound, the truth gushed forth. + +For a moment Gerald was absolutely silent. It was a tense, a stricken +silence, and she felt in it something of the horror that the showing of +a fatal wound might give. Then he knelt beside her; he took her hand; he +put his arm around her. 'Althea, what a brute--what a brute I've been. +Forgive me.' It was for something else than his harsh words that he was +asking her forgiveness. He passed hurriedly from that further, that +inevitable hurt. 'I can't tell you how---- I mean I'm so completely +sorry. You see, I was so taken aback--so cut up, you know. I could think +of nothing else. She is such an old friend--my nearest friend. I never +imagined her marrying, somehow; it was like hearing that she was going +away for ever. And what you said made me angry.' Even he, with all his +compunction, could but come back to the truth. + +And, helpless, she could but lean on his pity, his sheer human pity. + +'I know. He was my nearest friend too. For all my life I've been first +with him. I was cut up too. I am sorry--I spoke so.' + +'Poor girl--poor dear. Here, take my arm. Here. Now, you do feel +better.' + +She was on her feet, her hand drawn through his arm, her face turned +from him and still bathed in tears. + +They walked back slowly along the road. They were silent. From time to +time she knew that he looked at her with solicitude; but she could not +return his look. The memory of her own words was with her, a strange, +new, menacing fact in life. She had said them, and they had altered +everything. Henceforth she depended on his pity, on his loyalty, on his +sense of duty to a task undertaken. Their bond was recognised as an +unequal one. Once or twice, in the dull chaos of her mind, a flicker of +pride rose up. Could she not emulate Helen? Helen was to marry a man who +did not love her. Helen was to marry rationally, with open eyes, a man +who was her friend. But Helen did not love the man who did not love her. +She was not his thrall. She gained, she did not lose, her freedom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +A week was gone since Helen had given her consent to Franklin, and again +she was in her little sitting-room and again waiting, though not for +Franklin. Franklin had been with her all the morning; and he had been +constantly with her through the week, and she had found the closer +companionship, until to-day, strangely easy. Franklin's very lacks +endeared him to her. It was wonderful to see any one so devoid of any +glamour, of any adventitious aid from nature, who yet so beamed. This +beaming quality was, for Helen, his chief characteristic. There was +certainly no brilliancy in Franklin's light; it was hardly a ray and it +emitted never a sparkle; but it was a mild, diffused effulgence, and she +always felt more peaceful and restored for coming within its radius. + +It had wrapped her around all the week, and it had remained so unchanged +that their relation, too, had seemed unchanged and her friend only a +little nearer, a little more solicitous. They had gone about together; +they had taken walks in the parks; they had made plans while strolling +beside the banks of the Serpentine or leaning on the bridge in St. +James's Park, to watch the ducks being fed. Already she and Franklin and +the deeply triumphant Aunt Grizel had gone on a journey down to the +country to look at a beautiful old house in order to see if it would do +as one of Helen's 'establishments.' Already Franklin had brought her a +milky string of perfect pearls, saying mildly, as he had said of the box +of sweets, 'I don't approve of them, but I hope you do.' And on her +finger was Franklin's ring, a noble emerald that they had selected +together. + +Helen had been pleased to feel in herself a capacity for satisfaction in +these possessions, actual and potential. She liked to look at the great +blot of green on her hand and to see the string of pearls sliding to her +waist. She liked to ponder on the Jacobean house with its splendid rise +of park and fall of sward. She didn't at all dislike it, either, when +Franklin, as calmly possessed as ever with a clear sense of his duties, +discussed with her the larger and more impersonal uses of their fortune. +She found that she had ideas for him there; that the thinking and active +self, so long inert, could be roused to very good purpose; that it was +interesting, and very interesting, to plan, with millions at one's +disposal, for the furtherance of the just and the beautiful. And she +found, too, in spite of her warnings to Franklin, that though she might +be a hard, a selfish, and a broken-hearted woman, she was a woman with a +very definite idea of her own responsibilities. It did not suit her at +all to be the mere passive receiver; it did not suit her to be greedy. +She turned her mind at once, carefully and consistently, to Franklin's +interests. She found atoms and kinetics rather confusing at first, but +Franklin's delighted and deliberate elucidations made a light for her +that promised by degrees to illuminate these dark subjects. Yes; +already life had taken hold of her and, ironically, yet not unwillingly, +she followed it along the appointed path. Yesterday, however, and +to-day, especially, a complication, subtle yet emphatic, had stolen upon +her consciousness. + +All the week long, in spite of something mastered and controlled in his +bearing, she had seen that he was happy, and though not imaginative as +to Franklin's past, she had guessed that he had never in all his life +been so happy, and that never had life so taken hold of him. He enjoyed +the pearls, he enjoyed the emerald, he enjoyed the Jacobean house and +going over it with her and Aunt Grizel; above all he enjoyed herself as +a thinking and acting being, the turning of her attention to atoms, her +grave, steady penetration of his life. And in this happiness the +something controlled and mastered had melted more and more; she had +intended that it should melt. She had guessed at the pain, the anxiety +for her that had underlain the dear little man's imperturbability, and +she had determined that as far as in her lay Franklin should think her +happy, should think that, at all events, she was serene and without +qualms or misgivings. And she had accomplished this. It was as if she +saw him breathing more deeply, more easily; as if, with a long sigh of +relief, he smiled at her and said, with a new accent of confidence: 'All +right.' And then, after the sigh of relief, she saw that he became too +happy. It was only yesterday that she began to see it; it was to-day +that she had clearly seen that Franklin had fallen in love with her. + +It wasn't that, in any blindness to what she meant, he came nearer and +made mistakes. He did not come a step nearer, and, in his happiness, his +unconscious happiness, he was further from the possibility of mistakes +than before. He did not draw near. He stood and gazed. Men had loved +Helen before, yet, she felt it, no man had loved her as Franklin did. +She could not have analysed the difference between his love and that of +other men, yet she felt it dimly. Franklin stood and gazed; but it was +not at charm or beauty that he gazed; whether he was really deeply aware +of them she could not tell; the only words she could find with which to +express her predicament and its cause sounded silly to her, but she +could find no others. Franklin was gazing at her soul. She couldn't +imagine what he found to fix him in it; he had certainly said that she +was the honestest woman he had known; she gloomily made out that she +was, she supposed, 'straight'; she liked clear, firm things, and she +liked to keep a bargain. It didn't seem to her a very arresting array of +virtues; but then--no, she couldn't settle Franklin's case so glibly as +that; if it wasn't what she might have of charm that he had fallen in +love with, it wasn't what she might have of virtue either. Perhaps one's +soul hadn't much to do with either charm or virtue. And, after all, +whatever it was, he was gazing at it, rapt, smiling, grave, in the +lover's trance. He saw her, and only her. And she saw him, and a great +many other things besides. + +The immediate hope that came to her was that Franklin, perhaps, might +really never know just what had happened to him. If he never recognised +it, it might never become explicit; it might be managed; it could of +course be managed in any case; but how she should hate having him made +conscious of pain. If he never said to himself, and far less to her, +that he had fallen in love with her, he might not really suffer in the +strange, ill-adjusted union before them. She did not think that he had +yet said it to himself; but she feared that he was hovering on the verge +of self-recognition. His very guilelessness in the realm of the emotions +exposed him to her, and with her perplexity went a yearning of pity as +she witnessed the soft, the hesitant, the delicate unfolding. + +For more had come than the tranced gaze. That morning, writing notes, +with Franklin beside her, her hand had inadvertently touched his once or +twice in taking the papers from him, and Helen then had seen that +Franklin blushed. Twice, also, looking up, she had found his eyes fixed +on her with the lover's dwelling tenderness, and both times he had +quickly averted his glance in a manner very new in him. + +Helen had pondered deeply in the moments before his departure. Franklin +had never kissed her; the time would come when he must kiss her. The +time would come when a kiss of farewell or greeting must, however rare, +be a facile, marital custom. How would Franklin--trembling on that verge +of a self-recognition that might make a chaos of his life--how and when +would he initiate that custom? How could it be initiated by him at all +unless with an emotion that would not only reveal him to himself, but +make it known to him that he was revealed to her. The revelation, if it +came, must come gradually; they must both have time to get used to it, +she to having a husband she did not love in love with her; he to loving +a wife who would never love him back. She shrank from the thought of +emotional revelations. It was her part to initiate and to make a kiss an +easy thing. Yet she found, sitting there, writing the last notes, with +Franklin beside her, that it was not an easy thing to contemplate. The +thought of her own cowardice spurred her on. When Franklin rose at last, +gave her his hand, said that he'd come back that evening, Helen rose +too, resolved. 'Good-bye,' she said. 'Don't forget the tickets for that +concert.' + +'No, indeed,' said Franklin. + +'And I think, don't you? that we might put the announcement in the +papers to-morrow. Aunt Grizel wants, I am sure, to see me safely Morning +Posted.' + +'So do I,' smiled Franklin. + +Helen was summoning her courage. 'Good-bye,' she repeated, and now she +smiled with a new sweetness. 'I think we ought to kiss each other +good-bye, don't you? We are such an old engaged couple.' + +Resolved, and firm in her resolve, though knowing commotion of soul, she +leaned to him and kissed his forehead and turned her cheek to him. +Franklin had kept her hand, and in the pause, where she did not see his +face, she felt his tighten on it; but he did not kiss her. Smiling a +little nervously, she raised her head and looked at him. He was gazing +at her with a shaken, stricken look. + +'You must kiss me good-bye,' said Helen, speaking as she would have +spoken to a departing child. 'Why, we have no right to be put in the +_Morning Post_ unless we've given each other a kiss.' + +And, really like the child, Franklin said: 'Must I?' + +He kissed her then, gently, and spoke no further word. But she knew, +when he had gone, and when thinking over the meaning of his face as it +only came to her when the daze of her own daring faded and left her able +to think, that she had hardly helped Franklin over a difficulty; she had +made him aware of it rather; she had shown him what his task must be. +And it could not reassure her, for Franklin, that his face, after that +stricken moment, and with a wonderful swiftness of delicacy, had +promised her that it should be accomplished. It promised her that there +should be no emotions, or, if there were, that they should be mastered +ones; it promised her that she should see nothing in him to make her +feel that she was refusing anything, nothing to make her feel that she +was giving pain by a refusal. It seemed to say that he knew, now, at +last, what the burden was that he laid upon her and that it should be as +light as he could make it. It did not show her that he saw his own +burden; but Helen saw it for him. She, too, made herself promises as she +stood after his departure, taking a long breath over her discovery; she +was not afraid in looking forward. All that she was afraid of--and it +was of this that she was thinking as she now stood leaning her arm upon +the mantelshelf and looking into the fire,--all that she was afraid of +was of looking back. It was for Gerald that she was waiting and it was +Gerald's note that hung from her hand against her knee, and since that +note had come, not long after Franklin had left her, her thoughts had +been centred on the coming interview. Gerald had not written to her +from the country; she had expected to have an answer to her announcement +that morning, but none had come. This note had been brought by hand, and +it said that if he could not find her at four would she kindly name some +other hour when he might do so. She had answered that he would find her, +and it was now five minutes to the hour. + +Gerald's note had not said much more, and yet, in the little it did say, +it had contrived to be tense and cool. It seemed to intimate that he +reserved a great deal to say to her, and that, perhaps more, he reserved +a great deal to think and not to say. It was a note that had startled +her and that then had filled her with a bitterness of heart greater than +any she had ever known. For that she would not accept, not that tone +from Gerald. That it should be Gerald--Gerald of all the people in the +world--to adopt that tone to her! The exceeding irony of it brought a +laugh to her lips. She was on edge. Her strength had only just taken her +through the morning and its revelations, there was none left now for +patience and evasion. Gerald must be careful, was the thought that +followed the laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +She heard the door-bell ring, and then his quick step. It did not seem +to her this afternoon that she had to master the disquiet of heart that +his coming always brought. It was something steeled and hostile that +waited for him. + +When he had entered and stood before her she saw that he intended to be +careful, to be very careful, and the recognition of that attitude in him +gave further bitterness to her cold, her fierce revolt. What right had +he to that bright formal smile, that chill pressure of her fingers, that +air of crisp cheerfulness, as of one injured but willing, magnanimously, +to conceal his hurt? What right--good heavens!--had Gerald to feel +injured? She almost laughed again as she looked at him and at this +unveiling of his sublime self-centredness. He expected to find his world +just as he would have it, his cushion at his head and his footstool at +his feet, the wife in her place fulfilling her comely duties, the +spinster friend in hers, administering balms and counsels; the wife at +Merriston House, and the spinster friend in the little sitting-room +where, for so many years, he had come to her with all his moods and +misfortunes. She felt that her eyes fixed themselves on him with a cold +menace as he stood there on the other side of the fire and, putting his +foot on the fender, looked first at her and then down at the flames. His +very silence was full of the sense of injury; but she knew that hers was +the compelling silence and that she could force him to be the first to +speak. And so it was that presently he said: + +'Well, Helen, this is great news.' + +'Yes, isn't it?' she answered. 'It has been a year of news, hasn't it?' + +He stared, courteously blank, and something in her was pleased to +observe that he looked silly with his affectation of blandness. + +'I beg your pardon?' + +'You had your great event, and I, now, have mine.' + +'Ah yes, I see.' + +'It's all rather queer when one comes to think of it,' said Helen. +'Althea, my new friend--whom I told you of here, only a few months +ago--and her friend. How important they have become to us, and how +little, last summer, we could have dreamed of it.' She, too, was +speaking artificially, and was aware of it; but she was well aware that +Gerald didn't find that she looked silly. She had every advantage over +the friend who came with his pretended calm and his badly hidden +rancour. And since he stood silent, looking at the fire, she added, +mildly and cheerfully: 'I am so glad for your happiness, Gerald, and I +hope that you are glad for mine.' + +He looked up at her now, and she could not read the look; it hid +something--or else it sought for something hidden; and in its +oddity--which reminded her of a blind animal dazedly seeking its +path--it so nearly touched her that, with a revulsion from any hint of +weakening pity for him, it made her bitterness against him greater than +before. + +'I'm afraid I can't say I'm glad, Helen,' he replied. 'I'm too amazed, +still, to feel anything except'--he seemed to grope for a word and then +to give it up--'amazement.' + +'I was surprised myself,' said Helen. 'I had not much hope left of +anything so fortunate happening to me.' + +'You feel it, then, so fortunate?' + +'Don't you think that it is--to marry millions,' Helen asked, smiling, +'and to have found such a good man to care for me?' + +'I think it is he who is fortunate,' said Gerald, after a moment. + +'Thank you; perhaps we both are fortunate.' + +Once more there was a long silence and then, suddenly, Gerald flung +away, thrusting his hands in his pockets and stopping before the window, +his back turned to her. 'I can't stand this,' he declared. + +'What can't you stand?' + +'You don't love this man. He doesn't love you.' + +'What is that to you?' asked Helen. + +'I can't think it of you; I can't bear to think it.' + +'What is it to you?' she repeated, in a deadened voice. + +'Why do you say that?' he took her up with controlled fury. 'How +couldn't it but be a great deal to me? Haven't you been a great +deal--for all our lives nearly? Do you mean that you're going to kick +me out completely--because you are going to marry? What does it mean to +me? I wish it could mean something to you of what it does to me. To give +yourself--you--you--to a man who doesn't love you--whom you don't +love--for money. Oh, I know we've always talked of that sort of thing as +if it were possible--and perhaps it is--for a man. But when it comes to +a woman--a woman one has cared for--looked up to--as I have to you--it's +a different matter. One expects a different standard.' + +'What standard do you expect from me?' asked Helen. There were tears, +but tears of rage, in her voice. + +'You know,' said Gerald, who also was struggling with an emotion that, +rising, overcame his control, 'you know what I think of you--what I +expect of you. A great match--a great man--something fitting for +you--one could accept that; but this little American nonentity, this +little American--barely a gentleman--whom you'd never have looked at if +he hadn't money--a man who will make you ridiculous, a man who can't +have a thought or feeling in common with you--it's not fit--it's not +worthy; it smirches you; it's debasing.' + +He had not turned to look at her while he spoke, perhaps did not dare to +look. He knew that his anger, his more than anger, had no warrant, and +that the words in which it cloaked itself--though he believed in all he +said--were unjustifiable. But it was more than anger, and it must speak, +must plead, must protest. He had no right to say these things, perhaps, +but Helen should understand the more beneath, should understand that he +was lost, bewildered, miserable; if Helen did not understand, what was +to become of him? And now she stood there behind him, not speaking, not +answering him, so that he was almost frightened and murmured on, half +inaudibly: 'It's a wrong you do--to me--to our friendship, as well as to +yourself.' + +Helen now spoke, and the tone of her voice arrested his attention even +before the meaning of her words reached him. It was a tone that he had +never heard from her, and it was not so much that it made him feel that +he had lost her as that it made him feel--strangely and +penetratingly--that he had never known her. + +'You say all this to me, Gerald, you who in all these years have never +taken the trouble to wonder or think about me at all--except how I might +amuse you or advise you, or help you.' These were Helen's words. 'Why +should I go on considering you, who have never considered me?' + +It was so sudden, so amazing, and so cruel that, turning to her, he +literally stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed. 'I don't know what you +mean, Helen,' he said. + +'Of course you don't,' she continued in her measured voice, 'of course +you don't know what I mean; you never have. I don't blame you; you are +not imaginative, and all my life I've taken care that you should know +very little of what I meant. The only bit of me that you've known has +been the bit that has always been at your service. There is a good deal +more of me than that.' + +'But--what have you meant?' he stammered, almost in tears. + +Her face, white and cold, was bent on him, and in her little pause she +seemed to deliberate--not on what he should be told, that was fixed--but +on how to tell it; and for this she found finally short and simple +words. + +'Can't you guess, even now, when at last I've become desperate and +indifferent?' she said. 'Can't you see, even now, that I've always loved +you?' + +They confronted each other in a long moment of revelation and avowal. It +grew like a great distance between them, the distance of all the years +through which she had suffered and he been blind. Gerald saw it like a +chasm, dark with time, with secrecy, with his intolerable stupidity. He +gazed at her across it, and in her face, her strange, strong, fragile, +weary face, he saw it all, at last. Yes, she had loved him all her life, +and he had never seen it. + +She had moved, in speaking to him, away from her place near the fire, +and he now went to it, and put his arms on the mantelpiece and hid his +face upon them. 'Fool--fool that I am!' he uttered softly. He stood so, +his face hidden from her, and his words seemed to release some bond in +Helen's heart. The worst of the bitterness against him passed away. The +tragedy, after all, was not his fault, but Fate's, and to suggest that +he was accountable was to be grotesquely stupid. That he had not loved +her was the tragedy; that he had never seen was, in reality, the +tragedy's alleviation. Absurd to blame poor Gerald for not seeing. When +she spoke again it was in an altered voice. + +'No, you're not,' she said, and she seemed with him to contemplate the +chasm and to make it clear for him--she had always made things clear for +him, and there was now, with all the melancholy, a peacefulness in +sharing with him this, their last, situation. Never before had they +talked over one so strange, and never again would they talk over any +other so near; to speak at last was to make it, in its very nearness, +immeasurably remote, to put it away, from both their lives, for ever. +'No, you're not; I shouldn't have said that you were not imaginative; I +shouldn't have said that you had never considered me; you have--you have +been the best of friends; I was letting myself be cruel. It's only that +_I'm_ not a fool. A woman who isn't can always keep a man from +imagining; it's the one thing that even a stupid woman can do. And my +whole nature has been moulded by the instinct for concealment.' She +looked round mechanically for a seat while she spoke; she felt horribly +tired; and she sank on a straight, high chair near the writing-table. +Here, leaning forward, her arms resting on her knees, her hands clasped +and hanging, she went on, looking before her. 'I want to tell you about +it now. There are things to confess. I haven't been a nice woman in it +all; I've not taken it as a nice woman would. I've hated you for not +loving me. I've hated you for not wanting anything more from me and for +your contentment with what I gave you, and for caring as much as you +did, too, for being fonder of me than of any one else in the world, and +yet never caring more. Of course I understood; it was a little comfort +to my pride to understand. Even if I'd been the sort of woman you would +have fallen in love with, I was too near. I had to make myself too near; +that was my shield. I had to give you everything you wanted because +that was the sure way to hide from you that I had so much more to give. +And for years I went on hoping--not that you would see--I should have +lost everything then--but that, of yourself, you would want more.' + +Gerald had lifted his head, but his hand still hid his eyes. 'Helen, +dear Helen,' he said, and she did not understand his voice--it was pain, +but more than pain; 'why were you so cruel? why were you so proud? If +you'd only let me see; if you'd only given me a hint. Don't you know it +only needed that?' + +She paused over his question for so long that he put down his hand and +looked at her, and her eyes, meeting his unfalteringly, widened with a +strained, suffering look. + +'It's kind of you to say so,' she said. 'And I know you believe it now; +you are so fond of me, and so sorry for this horrid tale I inflict on +you, that you have to believe it. And of course it may be true. Perhaps +it did only need that.' + +They had both now looked away again, Gerald gazing unseeingly into the +mirror, Helen at the opposite wall. 'It may be true,' she repeated. 'I +had only, perhaps, to be instinctive--to withdraw--to hide--create the +little mysteries that appeal to men's senses and imaginations. I had +only to put aside my pride and to shut my eyes on my horrible, hard, +lucid self-consciousness, let instinct guide me, be a mere woman, and +you might have been in love with me. It's true. I used often to think +it, too. I used often to think that I might make you fall in love with +me if I could stop being your friend. But, don't you see, I knew myself +far too well. I _was_ too proud. I didn't want you if you only wanted me +because I'd lured you and appealed to your senses and imagination. I +didn't want you unless you wanted me for the big and not for the little +things of love. I couldn't pretend that I had something to hide--I know +perfectly how it is done--the air of evasion, of wistfulness--all the +innocent hypocrisies women make use of; but I couldn't. I didn't want +you like that. There was nothing for it but to look straight at you and +pretend, not that there was anything to hide, but that there was +nothing.' + +Again, his eyes meeting hers, she looked, indeed, straight at him and +smiled a little; for there was, indeed, nothing now to hide; and she +went on quietly, 'You see now, how I've been feeling for these last +months, when everything has gone, at last, completely. I'd determined, +long ago, to give up hope and marry some one else. But I didn't know +till this autumn, when you decided to marry Althea, I didn't know till +then how much hope there was still left to be killed. When a thing like +that has been killed, you see, one hasn't much feeling left for the rest +of life. I don't care enough, one way or the other, not to marry as I'm +doing. There is still one's life to live, and one may as well make what +seems the best of it. I've not succeeded, you see, in marrying your +great man, and I've fallen back very thankfully on my dear, good +Franklin, who is not, let me tell you, a nonentity in my eyes; I'm +fonder of him than of any one I've ever known except yourself. And it +was too much, just the one touch too much, to have you come to me to-day +with reproaches and an air of injury. But, at the same time, I ask your +pardon for having spoken to you like that--as though you'd done _me_ a +wrong. And if I've been too cruel, if the memory rankles and makes you +uncomfortable, you must keep away from me as long as you like. It won't +be for ever, I'm sure. In spite of everything I'm sure that we shall +always be friends.' + +She got up now, knowing in her exhaustion that she was near tears, and +she found her cigarette-case on the writing-table; it was an automatic +relapse to the customary. She felt that everything, indeed, was over, +and that the sooner one relapsed on every-day trivialities the better. + +Gerald watched her light the cigarette, the pulsing little flicker of +yellow flame illuminating her cheek and hair as she stood half turned +from him. She was near him and he had but one step to take to her. He +was almost unaware of motive. What he did was nearly as automatic, as +inevitable, as her search for the cigarette. He was beside her and he +put his arms around her and took the cigarette from her hand. Then, +folding her to him, he hid his face against her hair. + +It was, then, not excitement he felt so much as the envelopment of a +great, a beautiful necessity. So great, so beautiful, in its peace and +accomplishment, that it was as if he had stood there holding Helen for +an eternity, and as if all the miserable years that had separated them +were looked down at serenely from some far height. + +And Helen had stood absolutely still. When she spoke he heard in her +voice an amazement too great for anger. It was almost gentle in its +astonishment. 'Gerald,' she said, 'I am not in need of consolation.' + +Foolish Helen, he thought, breathing quietly in the warm dusk of her +hair; foolish dear one, to speak from that realm of abolished time. + +'I'm not consoling you,' he said. + +She was again silent for a moment and he felt that her heart was +throbbing hard; its shocks went through him. 'Let me go,' she said. + +He kissed her hair, holding her closer. + +Helen, starting violently, thrust him away with all her strength, and +though blissfully aware only of his own interpretation, Gerald half +released her, keeping her only by his clasp of her wrists. + +His kiss had confirmed her incredible suspicion. 'You insult me!' she +said. 'And after what I told you! What intolerable assumption! What +intolerable arrogance! What baseness!' + +Her eyes seemed to burn their eyelids; her face was transformed in its +wild, blanched indignation. + +'But I love you,' said Gerald, and he looked at her with a candour of +conviction too deep for pleading. + +'You love me!' Helen repeated. She could have wept for sheer fury and +humiliation had not her scornful concentration on him been too intent to +admit the flooding image of herself--mocked and abased by this +travesty--which might have brought the fears. 'I think that you are +mad.' + +'But I do love you,' Gerald reiterated. 'I've been mad, if you like; but +I'm quite sane now.' + +'You are a simpleton,' was Helen's reply; she could find no other word +for his fatuity. + +'Be as cruel as you like; I know I deserve it,' said Gerald. + +'You imagine I'm punishing you?' + +'I don't imagine anything, or see anything, Helen, except that we love +each other and that you've got to marry me.' + +Helen looked deeply into his eyes, deeply and, he saw it at last, +implacably. 'If your last chance hadn't been gone, can you believe that +I would ever have told you? Your last chance is gone. I will never marry +you.' And hearing steps outside, she twisted her hands from his, saying, +'Think of appearances, please. Here is Franklin.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +Gerald was standing at the window looking out when Franklin entered, and +Helen, in the place where he had left her, met the gaze of her affianced +with a firm and sombre look. There was a moment of silence while +Franklin stood near the door, turning a hesitant glance from Gerald's +back to Helen's face, and then Helen said, 'Gerald and I have been +quarrelling.' + +Franklin, feeling his way, tried to smile. 'Well, that's too bad,' he +said. He looked at her for another silent moment before adding, 'Do you +want to go on? Am I in the way?' + +'No, I don't want to go on, and you are very welcome,' Helen answered. +Her eyes were fixed on Franklin and she wondered at her own +self-command, for, in his eyes, so troubled and so kindly, she seemed to +see mutual memories; the memory of herself lying in the wood and saying +'I'm sick to death of it'; the memory of herself standing here and +saying to him 'I'm a broken-hearted woman.' And she knew that Franklin +was seeing in her face the same memories, and that, with his intuitive +insight where things of the heart were concerned, he was linking them +with the silent figure at the window. + +'I suppose,' he said, going to the fire and standing before it, his +back to the others, 'I suppose I can't help to elucidate things a +little.' + +'No, I think they are quite clear,' said Helen, 'or, at all events, you +put an end to them by staying; especially'--and she fixed her gaze on +the figure at the window--'as Gerald is going now.' + +But Gerald did not move and Franklin presently remarked, 'Sometimes, you +know, a third person can see things in another way and help things out. +If you could just, for instance, talk the matter over quietly, before +me, as a sort of adviser, you know. That might help. It's a pity for old +friends to quarrel.' + +Gerald turned from the window at this. He had come down from the heights +and knew that he had risen there too lightly, and that the tangles of +lower realities must be unravelled before he could be free to mount +again--Helen with him. He knew, at last, that he had made Helen very +angry and that it might take some time to disentangle things; but the +radiance of the heights was with him still, and if, to Helen's eye, he +looked fatuous, to Franklin, seeing his face now, for the first time, he +looked radiant. + +'Helen,' he said, smiling gravely at her, 'what Kane says is very +sensible. He is the one person in the world one could have such things +out before. Let's have them out; let's put the case to him and he shall +be umpire.' + +Helen bent her ironic and implacable gaze upon him and remained silent. + +'You think I've no right to put it before him, I suppose.' + +'You most certainly have no right. And you would gain nothing by it. +What I told you just now was true.' + +'I can't accept that.' + +'Then you are absurd.' + +'Very well, I am absurd, then. But there's one thing I have a right to +tell Kane,' Gerald went on, unsmiling now. 'I owe it to him to tell him. +He'll think badly of me, I know; but that can't be helped. We've all got +into a dreadful muddle and the only way out of it is to be frank. So I +must tell you, Kane, that Althea and I have found out that we have made +a mistake; we can't hit it off. I'm not the man to make her happy and +she feels it, I'm sure she feels it. It's only for my sake, I know, that +she hasn't broken off long ago. You are in love with Althea, and I am in +love with Helen; so there it is. I'm only saying what we are all +seeing.' Gerald spoke gravely, yet at the same time with a certain +blitheness, as though he took it for granted, for Franklin as well as +for himself, that he thus made both their paths clear and left any +hazardous element in their situations the same for both. Would Althea +have Franklin and would Helen have him? This was really all that now +needed elucidation. + +A heavy silence followed his words. In the silence the impression that +came to Gerald was as if one threw reconnoitring pebbles into a well, +expecting a swift response of shallowness, and heard instead, after a +wondering pause, the hollow reverberations of sombre, undreamed-of +depths. Franklin's eyes were on him and Helen's eyes were on him, and he +knew that in both their eyes he had proved himself once more, to say the +least of it, absurd. + +'Mr. Digby,' said Franklin Kane, and his voice was so strange that it +sounded indeed like the fall of the stone in far-off darkness, 'perhaps +you are saying what we all see; but perhaps we don't all see the same +things in the same way; perhaps,' Franklin went on, finding his way, +'you don't even see some things at all.' + +Gerald had flushed. 'I know I'm behaving caddishly. I've no right to say +anything until I see Althea.' + +'Well, perhaps not,' Franklin conceded. + +'But, you know,' said Gerald, groping too, 'it's not as if it were +really sudden--the Althea side of it, I mean. We've not hit it off at +all. I've disappointed her frightfully; it will be a relief to her, I +know--to hear'--Gerald stammered a little--'that I see now, as clearly +as she does, that we couldn't be happy together. Of course,' and he grew +still more red, 'it will be she who throws me over. And--I think I'd +better go to her at once.' + +'Wait, Gerald,' said Helen. + +He paused in his precipitate dash to the door. Only her gaze, till now, +had told of the chaos within her; but when Gerald said that he was going +to Althea, she found words. 'Wait a moment. I don't think that you +understand. I don't think, as Franklin says, that you see some things at +all. Do you realise what you are doing?' + +Gerald stood, his hand on the door knob, and looked at her. 'Yes; I +realise it perfectly.' + +'Do you realise that it will not change me and that I think you are +behaving outrageously?' + +'Even if it won't change you I'd have to do it now. I can't marry +another woman when I'm in love with you.' + +'Can't you? When you know that you can never marry me?' + +'Even if I know that,' said Gerald, staring at her and, with his +deepening sense of complications, looking, for him, almost stern. + +'Well, know it; once for all.' + +'That you won't ever forgive me?' Gerald questioned. + +'Put it like that if you like to,' she answered. + +Gerald turned again to go, and it was now Franklin who checked him. + +'Mr. Digby--wait,' he said; 'Helen--wait.' He had been looking at them +both while they interchanged their hostilities, and yet, though watching +them, he had been absent, as though he were watching something else even +more. 'What I mean, what I want to say, is this----' he rather +stammered. 'Don't please go to Althea directly. I'm to go to her this +evening. She asked me to come and see her at six.' He pulled out his +watch. 'It's five now. Will you wait? Will you wait till this evening, +please?' + +Gerald again had deeply flushed. 'Of course, if you ask it. Only I do +feel that I ought to see her, you know,' he paused, perplexed. Then, as +he looked at Franklin Kane, something came to him. The cloud of his +oppression seemed to pass from his face and it was once more +illuminated, not with blitheness, but with recognition. He saw, he +thought he saw, the way Franklin opened for them all. And his words +expressed the dazzled relief of that vision. 'I see,' he said, gazing on +at Franklin, 'yes, I see. Yes, if you can manage that it will be +splendid of you, Kane.' Flooded with the hope of swift elucidation he +seized the other's hand while he went on. 'It's been such a dreadful +mess. Do forgive me. You must; you will, won't you? It may mean +happiness for you, even though Helen says it can't for me. I do wish you +all good fortune. And--I'll be at my club until I hear from you. And I +can't say how I thank you.' With this, incoherently and rapidly +pronounced, Gerald was gone and Franklin and Helen were left standing +before each other. + +For a long time they did not speak, but Franklin's silence seemed caused +by no embarrassment. He still looked perplexed, but, through his +perplexity, he looked intent, as though tracing in greater and greater +clearness the path before him--the path that Gerald had seen that he was +opening and that might, Gerald had said, mean happiness to them all. It +was Helen watching him who felt a cruel embarrassment. She saw Franklin +sacrificed and she saw herself unable to save him. It would not save him +to tell him again that she would never marry Gerald. Franklin knew, too +clearly for any evasion, that Althea's was the desperate case, the case +for succour. She, Helen, could be thrown over--for they couldn't evade +that aspect--and suffer never a scratch; but for Althea to throw over +Gerald meant that in doing it she must tear her heart to pieces. + +And she could not save Franklin by telling him that she had divined his +love for her; that would give him all the more reason for ridding her of +a husband who hadn't kept to the spirit of their contract. No, the only +way to have saved him would have been to love him and to make him know +and feel it; and this was the only thing she could not do for Franklin. + +She took refuge in her nearest feeling, that of scorn for Gerald. 'It's +unforgivable of Gerald,' she said. + +Franklin's eyes--they had a deepened, ravaged look, but they were still +calm--probed hers, all their intentness now for her. 'Why, no,' he said, +after a moment, 'I don't see that.' + +Helen, turning away, had dropped into her chair, leaning her forehead on +her hand. 'I shall never forgive him,' she said. + +Franklin, on the other side of the fire, stood thinking, thinking so +hard that he was not allowing himself to feel. He was thinking so hard +of Helen that he was unconscious how the question he now asked might +affect himself. 'You do love him, Helen? It's him you've always loved?' + +'Always,' she said. + +'And he's found it out--only to-day.' + +'He didn't find it out; I told him. He came to reproach me for my +engagement.' + +Franklin turned it over. 'But what he has found out, then, is that he +loves you.' + +'So he imagines. It's not a valuable gift, as you see, Gerald's love.' + +Again Franklin paused and she knew that, for her sake, he was weighing +the value of Gerald's love. And he found in answer to what she said his +former words: 'Why, no, I don't see that,' he said. + +'I'm afraid it's all I do see,' Helen replied. + +He looked down upon her and after a silence he asked: 'May I say +something?' + +She nodded, resting her face in her hands. + +'You're wrong, you know,' said Franklin. 'Not wrong in feeling this way +now; I don't believe you can help that; but in deciding to go on feeling +it. You mustn't talk about final decisions.' + +'But they are made.' + +'They can't be made in life. Life unmakes them, I mean, unless you set +yourself against it and ruin things that might be mended.' + +'I'm afraid I can't take things as you do,' said Helen. 'Some things are +ruined from the very beginning.' + +'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin; 'at all events some +things aren't. And you're wrong about this thing, I'm sure of it. You're +hard and you're proud, and you set yourself against life and won't let +it work on you. The only way to get anything worth while out of life is +to be humble with it and be willing to let it lead you, I do assure you, +Helen.' + +Suddenly, her face hidden in her hands, she began to cry. + +'He is spoiled for me. Everything is spoiled for me,' she sobbed. 'I'd +rather be proud and miserable than humiliated. Who wants a joy that is +spoiled? Some things can't be joys if they come too late.' + +She wept, and in the silence between them knew only her own sorrow and +the bitterness of the desecration that had been wrought in her own love. +Then, dimly, through her tears, she heard Franklin's voice, and heard +that it trembled. + +'I think they can, Helen,' he said. 'I think it's wonderful the way joy +can grow if we don't set ourselves against life. I'm going to try to +make it grow'--how his poor voice trembled, she was drawn from her own +grief in hearing it--'and I wish I could leave you believing that you +were going to try too.' + +She put down her hands and lifted her strange, tear-stained face. + +'You are going to Althea.' + +'Yes,' said Franklin, and he smiled gently at her. + +'You are going to ask her to marry you before she can know that Gerald +is giving her up.' + +He paused for a moment. 'I'm going to see if she needs me.' + +Helen gazed at him. She couldn't see joy growing, but she saw a +determination that, in its sudden strength, was almost a joy. + +'And--if she doesn't need you, Franklin?' + +'Ah, well,' said Franklin, continuing to smile rather fixedly, 'I've +stood that, you see, for a good many years.' + +Helen rose and came beside him. 'Franklin,' she said, and she took his +hand, 'if she doesn't have you--you'll come back.' + +'Come back?' he questioned, and she saw that all his hardly held +fortitude was shaken by his wonder. + +'To me,' said Helen. 'You'll marry me, if Althea won't have you. Even if +she does--I'm not going to marry Gerald. So don't go to her with any +mistaken ideas about me.' + +He was very pale, holding her hand fast, as it held his. 'You mean--you +hate him so much--for never having seen--that you'll go through with +it--to punish him.' + +She shook her head. 'No, I'm not so bad as that. It won't be for +revenge. It will be for you--and for myself, too; because I'd rather +have it so; I'd rather have you, Franklin, than the ruined thing.' + +She knew that it was final and supreme temptation that she put before +him, and she held it there resolved, so that if there were one chance +for him he should have it. She knew that she would stand by what she +said. Franklin was her pride and Gerald her humiliation; she would never +accept humiliation; and though she could see Franklin go without a +qualm, she could, she saw it clearly, have a welcome for him nearly as +deep as love's, if he came back to her. And what she hoped, quite +selflessly, was that the temptation would suffice; that he would not go +to Althea. She looked into his face, and she saw that he was tormented. + +'But, Helen,' he said, 'the man you love loves you; doesn't that settle +everything?' + +She shook her head again. 'It settles nothing. I told you that I was a +woman with a broken heart. It's not mended; it never can be mended.' + +'But, Helen,' he said, and a pitiful smile of supplication dawned on his +ravaged little face, 'that's where you're so wrong. You've got to let it +soften and then it will have to mend. It's the hard hearts that get +broken.' + +'Well, mine is hard.' + +'Let it melt, Helen,' he pleaded with her, 'please let it melt. Please +let yourself be happy, dear Helen.' + +But still she shook her head, looking deeply at him, and in the +negation, in the look, it was as if she held her cup of magic steadily +before him. She was there, for him, if he would have her. She kept him +to his word for his sake; but she kept him to his word for hers, too. +Yes, he saw that though it was for his sake, it was not for his +alone--there was the final magic--that her eyes met his in that long, +clear look. It was the nearest he would ever come to Helen; it was the +most she could ever do for him; and, with a pang, deep and piercing, he +felt all that it meant, and felt his love of her avowed in his own eyes, +and recognised, received in hers. Helplessly, now, he looked at her, his +lips pressed together so that they should not show their trembling, and +only a little muscle in his cheek quivering irrepressibly. And he +faltered: 'Helen--you could never love me back.' + +'Not in that way,' said Helen. She was grave and clear; she had not a +hesitation. 'But that way is ruined and over for me. I could live for +you, though. I could make it worth your while.' + +He looked, and he could say nothing. Against his need of Helen he must +measure Althea's need of him. He must measure, too--ah, cruel +perplexity--the chance for Helen's happiness. She was unhesitating; but +how could she know herself so inflexible, how could she know that the +hard heart might not melt? For the sake of Helen's happiness he must +measure not only Gerald's need of her against his own and Gerald's power +against his own mere pitifulness, but he must wonder, in an agony of +sudden surmise, which, in the long-run, could give her most, the loved +or the unloved man. In all his life no moment had ever equalled this in +its fulness, and its intensity, and its pain. It thundered, it rushed, +it darkened--like the moment of death by drowning and like the great +river that bears away the drowning man. Memories flashed in it, broken +and vivid--of Althea's eyes and Helen's smile; Althea so appealing, +Helen so strong; and, incongruous in its remoteness, a memory of the +bleak, shabby little street in a Boston suburb, the small wooden house +painted brown, where he was born, where scanty nasturtiums flowered on +the fence in summer, and in winter, by the light of a lamp with a ground +glass shade, his mother's face, careful, worn, and gentle, bent over the +family mending. Where, indeed, had the river borne him, and what had +been done to him? + +Helen's voice came to him, and Helen's face reshaped itself--a strange +and lovely beacon over the engulfing waters. She saw his torment and she +understood. 'Go to her if you must,' she said; 'and I know that you +must. But don't go with mistaken ideas. Remember what I tell you. +Nothing is changed--for me, or in me. If Althea doesn't want you +back--or if Althea does want you back--I shall be waiting.' And, seeing +his extremity, Helen, grave and clear, filled her cup of magic to the +brim. As she had said that morning, she said now--but with what a +difference: 'Kiss me good-bye, Franklin.' + +He could not move towards her; he could not kiss her; but, smiling more +tenderly than he could have thought Helen would ever smile, she put her +arms around him and drew his rapt, transfigured face to hers. And +holding him tenderly, she kissed him and said: 'Whatever happens--you've +had the best of me.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Althea, since the misty walk with Gerald, had been plunged in a pit of +mental confusion. She swung from accepted abasement to the desperate +thought of the magnanimity in such abasement; she dropped from this +fragile foothold to burning resentment, and, seeing where resentment +must lead her, she turned again and clasped, with tight-closed eyes, the +love that, looked upon, could not be held without humiliation. +Self-doubt and self-analysis had brought her to this state of pitiful +chaos. The only self left seemed centred in her love; if she did not +give up Gerald, what was left her but accepted abasement? If she let him +go, it would be to own to herself that she had failed to hold him, to +see herself as a nonentity. Yet, to go on clinging, what would that +show? Only with closed eyes could she cling. To open them for the merest +glimmer was to see that she was, indeed, nothing, if she had not +strength to relinquish a man who did not any longer, in any sense, wish +to make her his wife. With closed eyes one might imagine that it was +strength that clung; with open eyes one saw that it was weakness. + +Miss Harriet Robinson, all alert gaiety and appreciation, had arrived at +Merriston on Saturday, had talked all through Sunday, and had come up +to London with Althea and Gerald on Monday morning. Gerald had gone to a +smoking-carriage, and Althea had hardly exchanged a word with him. She +and Miss Robinson went to a little hotel in Mayfair, a hotel supposed to +atone for its costliness and shabbiness by some peculiar emanation of +British comfort. Americans of an earnest, if luxurious type, congregated +there and found a satisfactory local flavour in worn chintzes and uneven +passages. Lady Blair had kindly pressed Althea to stay with her in South +Kensington and be married from her house; but even a week ago, when this +plan had been suggested, Althea had shrunk from it. It had seemed, even +then, too decisive. Once beneath Lady Blair's quasi-maternal roof one +would be propelled, like a labelled parcel, resistlessly to the altar. +Even then Althea had felt that the little hotel in Mayfair, with its +transient guests and impersonal atmosphere, offered further breathing +space for indefiniteness. + +She was thankful indeed for breathing space as, on the afternoon of her +arrival, she sat sunken in a large chair and felt, as one relief, that +she would not see Miss Robinson again until evening. It had been +tormenting, all the journey up, to tear herself from her own sick +thoughts and to answer Miss Robinson's unsuspecting comments and +suggestions. + +Miss Robinson was as complacent and as beaming as though she had herself +'settled' Althea. She richly embroidered the themes, now so remote, that +had once occupied poor Althea's imagination--house-parties at Merriston; +hostess-ship on a large scale in London; Gerald's seat in Parliament +taken as a matter-of-course. Althea, feeling the intolerable irony, had +attempted vague qualifications; Gerald did not care for politics; she +herself preferred a quieter life; they probably could not afford a town +house. But to such disclaimers Miss Robinson opposed the brightness of +her faith in her friend's capacities. 'Ah, my dear, it's your very +reticence, your very quietness, that will tell. Once settled--I've +always felt it of you--you will make your place--and your place can only +be a big one. My only regret is that you won't get your wedding-dress in +Paris--oh yes, I know that they have immensely improved over here; but, +for cut and _cachet_, Paris is still the only place.' + +This had all been tormenting, and Miss Buckston's presence at lunch had +been something of a refuge--Miss Buckston, far more interested in her +Bach choir practice than in Althea's plans, and lending but a +preoccupied attention to Miss Robinson's matrimonial talk. Miss +Buckston, at a glance, had dismissed Miss Robinson as frothy and +shallow. They were both gone now, thank goodness. Lady Blair would not +descend upon her till next morning, and Sally and Mrs. Peel were not due +in London until the end of the week. Althea sat, her head leaning back, +her eyes closed, and wondered whether Gerald would come and see her. He +had parted from her at the station, and the memory of his face, +courteous, gentle, yet so unseeing, made her feel like weeping +piteously. She spent the afternoon in the chair, her eyes closed and an +electric excitement of expectancy tingling through her, and Gerald did +not come. He did not come that evening, and the evening passed like a +phantasmagoria--the dinner in the sober little dining-room, Miss +Robinson, richly dressed, opposite her; and the hours in her +drawing-room afterwards, she and Miss Robinson on either side of the +fire, quietly conversing. And next morning there was no word from him. +It was then, as she lay in bed and felt the tears, though she did not +sob, roll down over her cheeks upon the pillow, that sudden strength +came with sudden revolt. A revulsion against her suffering and the cause +of it went through her, and she seemed to shake off a torpor, an +obsession, and to re-enter some moral heritage from which, for months, +her helpless love had shut her out. + +Lying there, her cheeks still wet but her eyes now stern and steady, she +felt herself sustained, as if by sudden wings, at a vertiginous height +from which she looked down upon herself and upon her love. What had it +been, that love? what was it but passion pure and simple, the craving +feminine thing, enmeshed in charm. To a woman of her training, her +tradition, must not a love that could finally satisfy her nature, its +deeps and heights, be a far other love; a love of spirit rather than of +flesh? What was all the pain that had warped her for so long but the +inevitable retribution for her back-sliding? Old adages came to her, +aerial Emersonian faiths. Why, one was bound and fettered if feeling was +to rule one and not mind. Friendship, deep, spiritual congeniality, was +the real basis for marriage, not the enchantment of the heart and +senses. She had been weak and dazzled; she had followed the +will-o'-the-wisp--and see, see the bog where it had led her. + +She saw it now, still sustained above it and looking down. Her love for +Gerald was not a high thing; it called out no greatness in her; +appealed to none; there was no spiritual congeniality between them. In +the region of her soul he was, and would always remain, a stranger. + +Sure of this at last, she rose and wrote to Franklin, swiftly and +urgently. She did not clearly know what she wanted of him; but she felt, +like a flame of faith within her, that he, and he only, could sustain +her at her height. He was her spiritual affinity; he was her wings. +Merely to see him, merely to steep herself in the radiance of his love +and sympathy, would be to recover power, poise, personality, and +independence. It was a goal she flew towards, though she saw it but in +dizzy glimpses, and as if through vast hallucinations of space. + +She told Franklin to come at six. She gave herself one more day; for +what she could not have said. A lightness of head seemed to swim over +her, and a loss of breath, when she tried to see more clearly the goal, +or what might still capture and keep her from it. + +She told Amélie that she had a bad headache and would spend the day on +her sofa, denying herself to Lady Blair; and all day long she lay there +with tingling nerves and a heavily beating heart--poor heart, what was +happening to it in its depths she could not tell--and Gerald did not +write or come. + +At tea-time Miss Robinson could not be avoided. She tip-toed in and sat +beside her sofa commenting compassionately on her pallor. 'I do so beg +you to go straight to bed, dear,' she said. 'Let me give you some sal +volatile; there is nothing better for a headache.' + +But Althea, smiling heroically, said that she must stay up to see +Franklin Kane. 'He wants to see me, and will be here at six. After he is +gone I will go to bed.' She did not know why she should thus arrange +facts a little for Miss Robinson; but all her nature was stretched on +its impulse towards safety, and it was automatically that she adjusted +facts to that end. After the first great moment of enfranchisement and +soaring, it was like relapsing to some sub-conscious function of the +organism--digestion or circulation--that did things for one if one +didn't interfere with it. Her mind no longer directed her course except +in this transformed and subsidiary guise; it had become part of the +machinery of self-preservation. + +'You really are an angel, my dear,' said Miss Robinson. 'You oughtn't to +allow your devotees to _accaparer_ you like this. You will wear yourself +out.' + +Althea, with a smile still more heroic, said that dear Franklin could +never wear her out; and Miss Robinson, not to be undeceived, shook her +head, while retiring to make room for the indiscreet friend. + +When she was gone, Althea got up and took her place in the chintz chair +where she had waited for so long yesterday. + +Outside, a foggy day closed to almost opaque obscurity. The fire burned +brightly, there were candles on the mantelpiece and a lamp on the table, +yet the encompassing darkness seemed to have entered the room. After the +aerial heights of the morning it was now at a corresponding depth, as if +sunken to the ocean-bed, that she seemed to sit and wait, and feel, in +a trance-like pause, deep, essential forces working. And she remembered +the sunny day in Paris, and the other hotel drawing-room where, empty +and aimless, she had sat, only six months ago. How much had come to her +since then; through how much hope and life had she lived, to what +heights been lifted, to what depths struck down. And now, once more she +sat, bereft of everything, and waiting for she knew not what. + +Franklin appeared almost to the moment. Althea had not seen him since +leaving London some weeks before, and at the first glance he seemed to +her in some way different. She had only time to think, fleetingly, of +all that had happened to Franklin since she had last seen him, all the +strange, new things that Helen must have meant to him; and the thought, +fleeting though it was, made more urgent the impulse that pressed her +on. For, after all, the second glance showed him as so much the same, +the same to the unbecomingness of his clothes, the flatness of his +features, the general effect of decision and placidity that he always, +predominatingly, gave. + +It was on Franklin's sameness that she leaned. It was Franklin's +sameness that was her goal; she trusted it like the ground beneath her +feet. She went to him and put out her hands. 'Dear Franklin,' she said, +'I am so glad to see you.' + +He took her hands and held them while he looked into her eyes. The face +she lifted to him was a woeful one, in spite of the steadying of its +pale lips to a smile. It was not enfranchisement and the sustained +height that he saw--it was fear and desolation; they looked at him out +of her large, sad eyes and they were like an uttered cry. He saw her +need, worse still, he saw her trust; and yet, ah yet, his hope, his +unacknowledged hope, the hope which Helen's magic had poured into his +veins, pulsed in him. He saw her need, but as he looked, full of +compassion and solicitude, he was hoping that her need was not of him. + +Suddenly Althea burst into sobs. She leaned her face against his +shoulder, her hands still held in his, and she wept out: 'O Franklin, I +had to send for you--you are my only friend--I am so unhappy, so +unhappy.' Franklin put an arm around her, still holding her hand, and he +slightly patted her back as she leaned upon him. 'Poor Althea, poor +dear,' he said. + +'Oh, what shall I do, Franklin?' she whispered. + +'Tell me all about it,' said Franklin. 'Tell me what's the matter.' + +She paused for a moment, and in the pause her thoughts, released for +that one instant from their place of servitude, scurried through the +inner confusion. His tone, the quietness, kindness, rationality of it, +seemed to demand reason, not impulse, from her, the order of truth and +not the chaos of feeling. But pain and fear had worked for too long upon +her, and she did not know what truth was. All she knew was that he was +near, and tender and compassionate, and to know that seemed to be +knowing at last that here was the real love, the love of spirit from +which she had turned to lower things. Impulse, not insincere, surged up, +and moved by it alone she sobbed on, 'O Franklin, I have made a mistake, +a horrible, horrible mistake. It's killing me. I can't go on. I don't +love him, Franklin--I don't love Gerald--I can't marry him. And how can +I tell him? How can I break faith with him?' + +Franklin stood very still, his hand clasping hers, the other ceasing its +rhythmic, consolatory movement. He held her, this woman whom he had +loved for so many years, and over her bent head he looked before him at +the frivolous and ugly wall-paper, a chaos of festooned chrysanthemums +on a bright pink ground. He gazed at the chrysanthemums, and he +wondered, with a direful pang, whether Althea were consciously lying to +him. + +She sobbed on: 'Even in the first week, I knew that something was wrong. +Of course I was in love--but it was only that--there was nothing else +except being in love. Doubts gnawed at me from the first; I couldn't +bear to accept them; I hoped on and on. Only in this last week I've seen +that I can't--I can't marry him. Oh----' and the wail was again +repeated, 'what shall I do, Franklin?' + +He spoke at last, and in the disarray of her sobbing and darkened +condition--her face pressed against him, her ears full of the sound of +her own labouring breath--she could not know to the full how strange his +voice was, though she felt strangeness and caught her breath to listen. + +'Don't take it like this, Althea,' he said. 'It's not so bad as all +this. It can all be made right. You must just tell him the truth and set +him free.' + +And now there was a strange silence. He was waiting, and she was waiting +too; she stilled her breath and he stilled his; all each heard was the +beating of his and her own heart. And the silence, to Althea, was full +of a new and formless fear, and to Franklin of an acceptation sad beyond +all the sadnesses of his life. Even before Althea spoke, and while the +sweet, the rapturous, the impossible hope softly died away, he knew in +his heart, emptied of magic, that it was he Althea needed. + +She spoke at last, in a changed and trembling voice; it pierced him, for +he felt the new fear in it: 'How can I tell him the truth, Franklin?' +she said. 'How can I tell you the truth? How can I say that I turned +from the real thing, the deepest, most beautiful thing in my life--and +hurt it, broke it, put it aside, so blind, so terribly blind I was--and +took the unreal thing? How can I ever forgive myself--but, O Franklin, +much, much more, how can you ever forgive me?' her voice wailed up, +claiming him supremely. + +She believed it to be the truth, and he saw that she believed it. He +saw, sadly, clearly, that among all the twistings and deviations of her +predicament, one thing held firm for her, so firm that it had given her +this new faith in herself--her faith in his supreme devotion. And he saw +that he owed it to her. He had given it to her, he had made it her +possession, to trust to as she trusted to the ground under her feet, +ever since they were boy and girl together. Six months ago it would have +been with joy, and with joy only, that he would have received her, and +have received the gift of her bruised, uncertain heart. Six months--why +only a week ago he would have thought that it could only be with joy. + +So now he found his voice and he knew that it was nearly his old voice +for her, and he said, in answer to that despairing statement that +wailed for contradiction: 'Oh no, Althea, dear. Oh no, you haven't +wrecked our lives.' + +'But you are bound now,' she hardly audibly faltered. 'You have another +life opening before you. You can't come back now.' + +'No, Althea,' Franklin repeated, and he stroked her shoulder again. 'I +can come back, if you want me. And you do want me, don't you, dear? You +will let me try to make you happy?' + +She put back her head to look at him, her poor face, tear-stained, her +eyes wild with their suffering, and he saw the new fear in them, the +formless fear. 'O Franklin,' she said, and the question was indeed a +strange one to be asked by her of him: 'do you love me?' + +And now, pierced by his pity, Franklin could rise to all she needed of +him. The old faith sustained him, too. One didn't love some one for all +one's life like that, to be left quite dispossessed. Many things were +changed, but many still held firm; and though, deep in his heart, sick +with its relinquishment, Helen's words seemed to whisper, 'Some things +can't be joys when they come too late,' he could answer himself as he +had answered her, putting away the irony and scepticism of +disenchantment--'It's wonderful the way joy can grow,' and draw strength +for himself and for his poor Althea from that act of affirmation. + +'Why, of course I love you, Althea, dear,' he said. 'How can you ask me +that? I've always loved you, haven't I? You knew I did, didn't you, or +else you wouldn't have sent? You knew I wasn't bound if you were free. I +understand it all.' And smiling at her so that she should forget for +ever that she had had a new fear, he added, 'And see here, dear, you +mustn't delay a moment in letting Gerald know. Come, write him a note +now, and I'll have it sent to his club so that he shall hear right +away.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Helen woke next morning after unbroken, heavy slumbers, with a mind as +vague and empty as a young child's. All night long she had been dreaming +strange, dreary dreams of her youth. There had been no pain in them, or +fear, only a sad lassitude, as of one who, beaten and weary, looks back +from a far distance at pain and fear outlived. And lying in her bed, +inert and placid, she felt as if she had been in a great battle, and +that after the annihilation of anæsthetics she had waked to find herself +with limbs gone and wounds bandaged, passive and acquiescent, in a world +from which all large issues had been eliminated for ever. + +It was the emptiest kind of life on which her eyes opened so quietly +this morning. She was not even to be life's captive. The little note +which had come to her last night from Franklin and now lay beside her +bed had told her that. He had told her that Althea had taken him back, +and he had only added, 'Thank you, dear Helen, for all that you have +given me and all that you were willing to give.' + +In the overpowering sense of sadness that had been the last of the day's +great emotions Helen had found no mitigation of relief for her own +escape. That she had escaped made only an added bitterness. And even +sadness seemed to be a memory this morning, and the relief that came, +profound and almost sweet, was in the sense of having passed away from +feeling. She had felt too much; though, had life been in her with which +to think or feel, she could have wept over Franklin. + +Sometimes she closed her eyes, too much at peace for a smile; sometimes +she looked quietly about her familiar little room, above Aunt Grizel's, +and showing from its windows only a view of the sky and of the +chimney-pots opposite, a room oddly empty of associations and links; no +photographs, few books, few pictures; only the vase of flowers she liked +always to have near her; her old Bible and prayer-book and hymnal, +battered by years rather than by use, for religion held no part at all +in Helen's life; and two faded prints of seventeenth-century +battleships, sailing in gallant squadrons on a silvery sea. These had +hung in Helen's schoolroom, and she had always been fond of them. The +room was symbolic of her life, so insignificant in every outer contact, +so centred, in her significant self, on its one deep preoccupation. But +there was no preoccupation now. Gerald's image passed before her and +meant nothing more than the other things she looked at, while her mind +drifted like an aimless butterfly from the flowers and the prints to the +pretty old mirror--a gift of Gerald's--and hovered over the graceful +feminine objects scattered upon the chairs and tables. The thought of +Gerald stirred nothing more than a mild wonder. What a strange thing, +her whole life hanging on this man, coloured, moulded by him. What did +such a feeling mean? and what had she really wanted of Gerald more than +he had given? She wanted nothing now. + +It was with an effort--a painful, dragging effort--that she roused +herself to talk to Aunt Grizel, who appeared at the same time as her +breakfast. Not that she needed to act placidity and acquiescence before +Aunt Grizel; she felt them too deeply to need to act; the pain, perhaps, +came from having nothing else with which to meet her. + +Aunt Grizel was amazed, distressed, nearly indignant; she only was not +indignant because of a pity that perplexed even while it soothed her. +She, too, had had a letter from Franklin that morning, and only that +morning had heard of the broken engagement and of how Franklin faced it. +She did not offer to show Helen Franklin's letter, which she held in her +hand, emphasising her perplexity by doubling it over and slapping her +palm with it. 'She sent for him, then.' It was on Althea that she longed +to discharge her smothered anger. + +Helen was ready for her; to have to be so ready was part of the pain. +'Well, in a sense perhaps, it was all she could do, wasn't it? when she +found that she couldn't go on with Gerald, and really wanted Franklin at +last.' + +'Rather late in the day to come to that conclusion when Mr. Kane was +engaged to another woman.' + +'Well--he was engaged to another woman only because Althea wouldn't have +him.' + +'Oh!--Ah!' Aunt Grizel was non-committal on this point. 'She lets him +seem to jilt you.' + +'Perhaps she does.' Helen's placidity was profound. + +'I know Mr. Kane, he wouldn't have been willing to do that unless +pressure had been brought to bear.' + +'Pressure was, I suppose; the pressure of his own feeling and of +Althea's unhappiness. He saw that his chance had come and he had to take +it. He couldn't go on and marry me, could he, Aunt Grizel? when he saw +the chance had come for him to take,' said Helen reasonably. + +'Well,' said Aunt Grizel, 'the main point isn't, of course, what the +people who know of your engagement will think--we don't mind that. What +we want to decide on is what we think ourselves. I keep my own counsel, +for I know you'd rather I did, and you keep yours. But what about this +money? He writes to me that he wants me to take over from him quite a +little fortune, so that when I die I can leave you about a thousand a +year. He has thought it out; it isn't too much and it isn't too little. +He is altogether a remarkable man; his tact never fails him. Of course +it's nothing compared with what he wanted to do for you; but at the same +time it's so much that, to put it brutally, you get for nothing the +safety I wanted you to marry him to get.' + +Helen's delicate and weary head now turned on its pillow to look at Aunt +Grizel. They looked at each other for some time in silence, and in the +silence they took counsel together. After the interchange Helen could +say, smiling a little, 'We mustn't put it brutally; that is the one +thing we must never do. Not only for his sake,' she wanted Aunt Grizel +to see it clearly, 'but for mine.' + +'How shall we put it, then? It's hardly a possible thing to accept, yet, +if he hadn't believed you would let him make you safe, would he have +gone back to Miss Jakes? One sees his point.' + +'We mustn't put it brutally, because it isn't true,' said Helen, +ignoring this last inference. 'I couldn't let you take it for me unless +I cared very much for him; and I care so much that I can't take it.' + +Aunt Grizel was silent for another moment. 'I see: it's because it's all +you can do for him now.' + +'All that he can do for me, now,' Helen just corrected her. + +'Wasn't it all he ever could do, and more? He makes you safe--of course +it's not what I wanted for you, but it's part of it--he makes you safe +and he removes himself.' + +Aunt Grizel saw the truth so clearly that Helen could allow her to seem +brutal. 'It's only because we could both do a good deal for each other +that doing this is possible,' she said. + +She then roused herself to pour out her coffee and butter her toast, and +Miss Buchanan sat in silence beside her, tapping Franklin Winslow Kane's +letter on her palm from time to time. And at last she brought out her +final decision. 'When I write to him and tell him that I accept, I shall +tell him too, that I'm sorry.' + +'Sorry? For what?' Helen did not quite follow her. + +'That it's all he can do now,' said Aunt Grizel; 'that he is removing +himself.' + +It was her tribute to Franklin, and Helen, even for the sake of all the +delicate appearances, couldn't protest against such a tribute. She was +glad that Franklin was to know, from Aunt Grizel, that he, himself, was +regretted. So that she said, 'Yes; I'm glad you can tell him that.' + +It was at this moment of complete understanding that the maid came in +and said that Mr. Digby was downstairs and wanted to see Miss Helen. He +would wait as long as she liked. There was then a little pause, and Aunt +Grizel saw a greater weariness pass over her niece's face. + +'Very well,' she spoke for her to the maid. 'Tell Mr. Digby that some +one will be with him directly,' and, as the door closed: 'You're not fit +to see him this morning, Helen,' she said; 'not fit to pour balms into +his wounds. Let me do it for you.' + +Helen lay gazing before her, and she was still silent. She did not know +what she wanted; but she did know that she did not want to see Gerald. +The thought of seeing him was intolerable. 'Will you pour balms?' she +said. 'I'm afraid you are not too sorry for Gerald.' + +'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not,' said Aunt Grizel, smiling a +little grimly. 'He takes things too easily, and I confess that it does +rather please me to see him, for once in his life, "get left." He needed +to "get left."' + +'Well, you won't tell him that, if I let you go to him instead of me? +You will be nice to him?' + +'Oh, I'll be nice enough. I'll condole with him.' + +'Tell him,' said Helen, as Aunt Grizel moved resolutely to the door, +'that I can't see anybody; not for a long time. I shall go away, I +think.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +Miss Grizel had known Gerald all his life, and yet she was not intimate +with him, and during the years that Helen had lived with her she had +come to feel a certain irritation against him. Her robust and caustic +nature had known no touch of jealousy for the place he held in Helen's +life. It was dispassionately that she observed, and resented on Helen's +account, the exacting closeness of a friendship with a man who, she +considered, was not worth so much time and attention. She suspected +nothing of the hidden realities of Helen's feeling, yet she did suspect, +acutely, that, had it not been for Gerald, Helen might have had more +time for other things. It was Gerald who monopolised and took for +granted. He came, and Helen was always ready. Miss Grizel had not liked +Gerald to be so assured. She was pleased, now, in going downstairs, that +Gerald Digby should find, for once, and at a moment of real need, that +Helen could not see him. + +He was standing before the fire, his eyes on the door, and as she looked +at him Miss Grizel experienced a certain softening of mood. She decided +that she had, to some extent, misjudged Gerald; he had, then, capacity +for caring deeply. Miss Jakes's defection had knocked him about badly. +There was kindness in her voice as she said: 'Good morning,' and gave +him her hand. + +But Gerald was not thinking of her or of her kindness. 'Where is Helen?' +he asked, shaking and then automatically retaining her hand. + +'You can't see Helen to-day,' said Miss Grizel, a little nettled by the +open indifference. 'She is not at all well. This whole affair, as you +may imagine, has been singularly painful for her to go through. She asks +me to tell you that she can see nobody for a long time. We are going +away; we are going to the Riviera,' said Miss Grizel, making the resolve +on the spot. + +Gerald held her hand and looked at her with a feverish unseeing gaze. 'I +must see Helen,' he said. + +'My dear Gerald,' Miss Grizel disengaged her hand and went to a chair, +'this really isn't an occasion for musts. Helen has had a shock as well +as you, and you certainly shan't see her.' + +'Does she say I shan't?' + +Miss Grizel's smile was again grim. 'She says you shan't, and so do I. +She's not fit to see anybody.' + +Gerald looked at her for another moment and then turned to the +writing-table. 'I beg your pardon; I don't mean to be rude. Only I +really must see her. Do you mind my writing a line? Will you have it +taken to her?' + +'Certainly,' said Miss Grizel, compressing her lips. + +Gerald sat down and wrote, quickly, yet carefully, pausing between the +sentences and fixing the same unseeing gaze on the garden. He then rose +and gave the note to Miss Grizel, who, ringing, gave it to the maid, +after which she and Gerald remained sitting on opposite sides of the +room in absolute silence for quite a long while. + +Gerald's note had been short. 'Don't be so unspeakably cruel,' it ran, +without preamble. 'You know, don't you, that it has all turned out +perfectly? Althea has thrown me over and taken Kane. I've made them +happy at all events. As for us--O Helen, you must see me. I can't wait. +I can't wait for an hour. I beseech you to come. Only let me see +you.--GERALD.' + +To this appeal the maid presently brought the answer, which Gerald, +oblivious of Miss Grizel's scrutiny, tore open and read. + +'Don't make me despise you, Gerald. You come because of what I told you +yesterday, and I told you because it was over, so that you insult me by +coming. You must believe me when I say that it is over, and until you +can meet me as if you had forgotten, I cannot see you. I will not see +you now. I do not want to see you.--HELEN.' + +He read this, and Miss Grizel saw the blood surge into his face. He +leaned back in his chair, crumpled Helen's note in his fingers, and +looked out of the window. Again Miss Grizel was sorry for him, though +with her sympathy there mingled satisfaction. Presently Gerald looked at +her, and it was as if he were, at last, aware of her. He looked for a +long time, and suddenly, like some one spent and indifferent, he said, +offering his explanation: 'You see--I'm in love with Helen--and she +won't have me.' + +Miss Grizel gasped and gazed. 'In love with Helen? You?' she repeated. +The gold locket on her ample bosom had risen with her astounded breath. + +'Yes,' said Gerald, 'and she won't have me.' + +'But Miss Jakes?' said Miss Grizel. + +'She is in love with Kane, and Kane with her--as he always has been, you +know. They are all right. Everything is all right, except Helen.' + +A queer illumination began to shoot across Miss Grizel's stupor. + +'Perhaps you told Helen that you loved her before Miss Jakes threw you +over. Perhaps you told Mr. Kane that Miss Jakes loved him before she +threw you over. Perhaps it's you who have upset the apple-cart.' + +'I suppose it is,' said Gerald, gloomily, but without contrition. 'I +thought it would bring things right to have the facts out. It has +brought them right--for Althea and Kane; they will be perfectly happy +together.' + +This simplicity, in the face of her own deep knowledge--the knowledge +she had built on in sending for Franklin Kane a week ago--roused a +ruthless ire in Miss Grizel. 'I'm afraid that you've let your own wishes +sadly deceive you,' she said. 'I must tell you, since you evidently +don't know it, that Mr. Kane is in love with Helen; deeply in love with +her. From what I understand of the situation you have sacrificed him to +your own feeling, and perhaps sacrificed Miss Jakes too; but I don't go +into that.' + +It was now Gerald's turn to gaze and gasp; he did not gasp, however; he +only gazed--gazed with a gaze no longer inward and unseeing. He was, at +last, seeing everything. He fell back on the one most evident thing he +saw, and had from the beginning seen. 'But Helen--she could never have +loved him. Such a marriage would be unfit for Helen. I'm not excusing +myself. I see I've been an unpardonable fool in one way.' + +Miss Grizel's ire increased. 'Unfit for Helen? Why, pray? He would have +given her the position of a princess--in our funny modern sense. I +intended, and I made the marriage. I saw he'd fallen in love with +her--dear little man--though at the time he didn't know it himself. And +since then I've had the satisfaction--one of the greatest of my life--of +seeing how happy I had made both of them. It was obvious, touchingly so, +that he was desperately in love with Helen. Yes, Gerald, don't come to +me for sympathy and help. You've wrecked a thing I had set my heart on. +You've wrecked Mr. Kane, and my opinion is that you've wrecked Helen +too.' + +Gerald, who had become very pale, kept his eyes on her, and he went back +to his one foothold in a rocking world. 'Helen could never have loved +him.' + +Miss Grizel shook her hand impatiently above her knee. 'Love! Love! What +do you all mean with your love, I'd like to know? What's this sudden +love of yours for Helen, you who, until yesterday, were willing to marry +another woman for her money--or were you in love with her too? What's +Miss Jakes's love of Mr. Kane, who, until a week ago, thought herself in +love with you? And you may well ask me what is Mr. Kane's love of Helen, +who, until a week ago, thought himself in love with Miss Jakes? But +there I answer you that he is the only one of you who seems to me to +know what love is. One can respect his feeling; it means more than +himself and his own emotions. It means something solid and dependable. +Helen recognised it, and Helen's feeling for him--though it certainly +wasn't love in your foolish sense--was something that she valued more +than anything you can have to offer her. And I repeat, though I'm sorry +to pain you, that it is clear to me that you have wrecked her life as +well as Mr. Kane's.' + +Miss Grizel had had her say. She stood up, her lips compressed, her eyes +weighty with their hard, good sense. And Gerald rose, too. He was at a +disadvantage, and an unfair one, but he did not think of that. He +thought, with stupefaction, of what he had done in this room the day +before to Franklin and to Helen. In the depths of his heart he couldn't +wish it undone, for he couldn't conceive of himself now as married to +Althea, nor could he, in spite of Miss Grizel's demonstrations, conceive +of Helen as married to Franklin Kane. But with all the depths of his +heart he wished what he had done, done differently. And although he +couldn't conceive of Helen as married to Franklin Kane, although he +couldn't accept Miss Grizel's account of her state as final, nor believe +her really wrecked--since, after all, she loved him, not Franklin--he +could clearly conceive from Miss Grizel's words that by doing it as he +had, he had wrecked many things and endangered many. What these things +were her words only showed him confusedly, and his clearest impulse now +was to see just what they were, to see just what he had done. Miss +Grizel couldn't show him, for Miss Grizel didn't know the facts; Helen +would not show him, she refused to see him; his mind leaped at once, as +he rose and stood looking rather dazedly about before going, to Franklin +Kane. Kane, as he had said yesterday, was the one person in the world +before whom one could have such things out. Even though he had wrecked +Kane, Kane was still the only person he could turn to. And since he had +wrecked him in his ignorance he felt that now, in his enlightenment, he +owed him something infinitely delicate and infinitely deep in the way of +apology. + +'Well, thank you,' he said, grasping Miss Grizel's hand. 'You had to say +it, and it had to be said. Good-bye.' + +Miss Grizel, not displeased with his fashion of taking her chastisement, +returned his grasp. 'Yes,' she said, 'you couldn't go on as you were. +But all the same, I'm sorry for you.' + +'Oh,' Gerald smiled a little. 'I don't suppose you've much left for me, +and no wonder.' + +'Oh yes, I've plenty left for you,' said Miss Grizel. And, in thinking +over his expression as he had left her, the smile, its self-mockery, yet +its lack of bitterness, his courage, and yet the frankness of his +disarray, she felt that she liked Gerald more than she had ever liked +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +'Why, yes, of course I can see you. Do sit down.' Franklin spoke +gravely, scanning his visitor's face while he moved piles of pamphlets +from a chair and pushed aside the books and papers spread before him on +the table. + +Gerald had found him, after a fruitless morning call, at his lodgings in +Clarges Street, and Franklin, in the dim little sitting-room, had risen +from the work that, for hours, had given him a feeling of anchorage--not +too secure--in a world where many of his bearings were painfully +confused. Seeing him so occupied, Gerald, in the doorway, had hesitated: +'Am I interrupting you? Shall I come another time? I want very much to +see you, if I may.' And Franklin had replied with his quick reassurance, +too kindly for coldness, yet too grave for cordiality. + +Gerald sat down at the other side of the table and glanced at the array +of papers spread upon it. They gave him a further sense of being beyond +his depth. It was like seeing suddenly the whole bulk of some ocean +craft, of which before one had noticed only the sociable and very +insignificant decks and riggings, lifted, for one's scientific +edification, in its docks. All the laborious, underlying meaning of +Franklin's life was symbolised in these neat papers and heavy books. +Gerald tried to remember, with only partial success, what Franklin's +professional interests were; people's professional interests had rarely +engaged his attention. It was queer to realise that the greater part of +Franklin Kane's life was something entirely alien from his own +imagination, and Gerald felt, as we have said, beyond his depth in +realising it. Yet the fact of a significance he had no power of gauging +did not disconcert him; he was quite willing to swim as best he could +and even to splash grotesquely; quite willing to show Franklin Kane that +he was very helpless and very ignorant, and could only appeal for mercy. + +'Please be patient with me if I make mistakes,' he said. 'I probably +shall make mistakes; please bear with me.' + +Franklin, laying one pamphlet on another, did not reply to this, keeping +only his clear, kind gaze responsively on the other's face. + +'In the first place,' said Gerald, looking down and reaching out for a +thick blue pencil which he seemed to examine while he spoke, 'I must ask +your pardon. I made a terrible fool of myself yesterday afternoon. As +you said, there were so many things I didn't see. I do see them now.' + +He lifted his eyes from the pencil, and Franklin, after meeting them for +a moment, said gently: 'Well, there isn't much good in looking at them, +is there? As for asking my pardon--you couldn't have helped not knowing +those things.' + +'Perhaps I ought to have guessed them, but I didn't. I was able to play +the fool in perfect good faith.' + +'Well, I don't know about that; I don't know that you played the fool,' +said Franklin. + +'My second point is this,' said Gerald. 'Of course I'm not going to +pretend anything. You know that I love Helen and that I believe she +loves me, and that for that reason I've a right to seem silly and +fatuous and do my best to get her. I quite see what you must both of you +have thought of me yesterday. I quite see that she couldn't stand my +blindness--to all you meant and felt, you know, and then my imagining +that everything could be patched up between her and me. She wants me to +feel my folly to the full, and no wonder. But that sort of bitterness +would have to go down where people love--wouldn't it? it's something +that can be got over. But that's what I want to ask you; perhaps I'm +more of a fool than I yet know; perhaps what her aunt tells me is true; +perhaps I've wrecked Helen as well as wrecked you. It's a very queer +question to ask--and you must forgive me--no one can answer it but you, +except Helen, and Helen won't see me. Do you really think I have wrecked +her?' + +Everybody seemed to be asking this question of poor Franklin. He gave it +his attention in this, its new application, and before answering, he +asked: + +'What's happened since I saw you?' + +Gerald informed him of the events of the morning. + +'I suppose,' said Franklin, reflecting, 'that you shouldn't have gone so +soon. You ought to have given her more time to adjust herself. It looked +a little too sure, didn't it? as if you felt that now that you'd settled +matters satisfactorily you could come and claim her.' + +'I know now what it looked like,' said Gerald; 'but, you see, I didn't +know this morning. And I was sure, I am sure,' he said, fixing his +charming eyes sadly and candidly upon Franklin, 'that Helen and I belong +to one another.' + +Franklin continued to reflect. 'Well, yes, I understand that,' he said. +'But how can you make her feel it? Why weren't you sure long ago?' + +'Oh, you ask me again why I was a fool,' said Gerald gloomily, 'and I +can only reply that Helen was too clever. After all, falling in love is +suddenly seeing something and wanting something, isn't it? Well, Helen +never let me see and never let me want.' + +'Yes, that's just the trouble. She's let you see, so that you do want, +now. But that can't be very satisfactory to her, can it?' said Franklin, +with all his impartiality. + +'Of course it can't!' said Gerald, with further gloom. 'And don't, +please, imagine that I'm idiotic enough to think myself satisfactory. My +only point is that I belong to her, unsatisfactory as I am, and that, +unless I've really wrecked her, and myself--I must be able to make her +feel that it's her point too; that other things can't really count, +finally, beside it. Have I wrecked her?' Gerald repeated. 'I mean, would +she have been really happier with you? Forgive me for asking you such a +question.' + +Franklin again resumed his occupation of laying the pamphlets of one +pile neatly upon those of the other. He had all his air of impartial +reflection, yet his hand trembled a little, and Gerald, noticing this, +murmured again, turning away his eyes: 'Forgive me. Please understand. I +must know what I've done.' + +'You see,' said Franklin, after a further silence, while he continued +to transfer the pamphlets; 'quite apart from my own feelings--which do, +I suppose, make it a difficult question to answer--I really don't know +how to answer, because what I feel is that the answer depends on you. I +mean,' said Franklin, glancing up, 'do you love her most, or do I? And +even beyond that--because, of course, the man who loved her least might +make her happiest if she loved him--have you got it in you to give her +life? Have you got it in you to give her something beyond yourself to +live for? Helen doesn't love me, she never could have loved me, and I +believe, with you, that she loves you; but even so it's quite possible +that in the long-run I might have made her happier than you can, unless +you have--in yourself--more to make her happy with.' + +Gerald gazed at Franklin, and Franklin gazed back at him. In Gerald's +face a flush slowly mounted, a vivid flush, sensitive and suffering as a +young girl's. And as if Franklin had borne a mild but effulgent light +into the innermost chambers of his heart, and made self-contemplation +for the first time in his life, perhaps, real to him, he said in a +gentle voice: 'I'm afraid you're making me hopeless. I'm afraid I've +nothing to give Helen--beyond myself. I'm a worthless fellow, really, +you know. I've never made anything of myself or taken anything seriously +at all. So how can Helen take me seriously? Yes, I see it, and I've +robbed her of everything. Only,' said Gerald, leaning forward with his +elbows on the table and his forehead on his hands, while he tried to +think it out, 'it is serious, now, you know. It's really serious at +last. I would try to give her something beyond myself and to make +things worth while for her--I see what you mean; but I don't believe I +shall ever be able to make her believe it now.' + +They sat thus for a long time in silence--Gerald with his head leant on +his hands, Franklin looking at him quietly and thoughtfully. And as a +result of long reflection, he said at last: 'If she loves you still, you +won't have to try to make her believe it. I'd like to believe it, and so +would you; but if Helen loves you, she'll take you for yourself, of +course. The question is, does she love you? Does she love you enough, I +mean, to want to mend and grow again? Perhaps it's that way you've +wrecked her; perhaps it's withered her--going on for all these years +caring, while you didn't see and want.' + +From behind his hands Gerald made a vague sound of acquiescent distress. +'What shall I do?' he then articulated. 'She won't see me. She says she +won't see me until I can meet her as if I'd forgotten. It isn't with +Helen the sort of thing it would mean with most women. She's not saving +her dignity by threats and punishments she won't hold to. Helen always +means what she says--horribly.' + +Franklin contemplated the bent head. Gerald's thick hair, disordered by +the long, fine fingers that ran up into it; Gerald's attitude sitting +there, miserable, yet not undignified, helpless, yet not humble; +Gerald's whole personality, its unused strength, its secure sweetness, +affected him strangely. He didn't feel near Gerald as he had, in a +sense, felt near Helen. They were aliens, and would remain so; but he +felt tenderly towards him. And, even while it inflicted a steady, +probing wound to recognise it, he recognised, profoundly, sadly, and +finally, that Gerald and Helen did belong to each other, by an affinity +deeper than moral standards and immeasurable by the test of happiness. +Helen had been right to love him all her life. He felt as if he, from +his distance, loved him, for himself, and because he was loveable. And +he wanted Helen to take Gerald. He was sure, now, that he wanted it. + +'See here,' he said, in his voice of mild, fraternal deliberation, 'I +don't know whether it will do much good, but we'll try it. Helen has a +very real feeling for me, you know; Helen likes me and thinks of me as a +true friend. I'm certainly not satisfactory to her,' and Franklin smiled +a little; 'but all the same she's very fond of me; she'd do a lot to +please me; I'm sure of it. So how would it be if I wrote to her and put +things to her, you know?' + +Gerald raised his head and looked over the table across the piled +pamphlets at Franklin. For a long time he looked at him, and presently +Franklin saw that tears had mounted to his eyes. The emotion that he +felt to be so unusual, communicated itself to him. He really hadn't +known till he saw Gerald Digby's eyes fill with tears what his own +emotion was. It surged up in him suddenly, blotting out Gerald's face, +overpowering the long resistance of his trained control; and it was with +an intolerable sense of loss and desolation that, knowing that he loved +Gerald and that Gerald's tears were a warrant for his loveableness and +for the workings of fate against himself, he put his head down on his +arms and, not sobbing, not weeping, yet overcome, he let the waves of +his sorrow meet over him. + +He did not know, then, what he thought or felt. All that he was +conscious of was the terrible submerging of will and thought and the +engulfing sense of desolation; and all that he seemed to hear was the +sound of his own heart beating the one lovely and agonising word: +'Helen--Helen--Helen!' + +He was aware at last, dimly, that Gerald had moved, had come round the +table, and was leaning on it beside him. Then Gerald put his hand on +Franklin's hand. The touch drew him up out of his depths. He raised his +head, keeping his face hidden, and he clasped Gerald's hand for a +moment. Then Gerald said brokenly: 'You mustn't write. You mustn't do +anything for me. You must let me take my own chances--and if I've none +left, it will be what I deserve.' + +These words, like air breathed in after long suffocation under water, +cleared Franklin's mind. He shook his head, and he found Gerald's hand +again while he said, able now, as the light grew upon him, to think: + +'I want to write. I want you to have all the chances you can.' + +'I don't deserve them,' said Gerald. + +'I don't know about that,' said Franklin, 'I don't know about that at +all. And besides'--and now he found something of his old whimsicality to +help his final argument--'let's say, if you'd rather, that Helen +deserves them. Let's say that it's for Helen's sake that I want you to +have every chance.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +Helen received Franklin's letter by the first post next morning. She +read it in bed, where she had remained ever since parting from him, +lying there with closed eyes in the drowsy apathy that had fallen upon +her. + + 'DEAR HELEN,'--Franklin wrote, and something in the writing pained + her even before she read the words--'Gerald Digby has been with me + here. Your aunt has been telling him things. He knows that I care + for you and what it all meant yesterday. It has been a very painful + experience for him, as you may imagine, and the way he took it made + me like him very much. It's because of that that I'm writing to you + now. The thing that tormented me most was the idea that, perhaps, + with all my deficiencies, I could give you more than he could. I + hadn't a very high opinion of him, you know. I felt you might be + safer with me. But now, from what I've seen, I'm sure that he is the + man for you. I understand how you could have loved him for all your + life. He's not as big as you are, nor as strong; he hasn't your + character; but you'll make him grow--and no one else can, for he + loves you with his whole heart, and he's a broken man. + + 'Dear Helen, I know what it feels like now. You're withered and + burnt out. It's lasted too long to be felt any longer and you + believe it's dead. But it isn't dead, Helen; I'm sure it isn't. + Things like that don't die unless something else comes and takes + their place. It's withered, but it will grow again. See him; be kind + to him, and you'll find out. And even if you can't find out yet, + even if you think it's all over, look at it this way. You know our + talk about marriage and how you were willing to marry me, not loving + me; well, look at it this way, for his sake, and for mine. He needs + you more than anything; he'll be nothing, or less and less, without + you; with you he'll be more and more. Think of his life. You've got + responsibility for that, Helen; you've let him depend on you + always--and you've got responsibility, too, for what's happened now. + You told him--I'm not blaming you--I understand--I think you were + right; but you changed things for him and made him see what he + hadn't seen before; nothing can ever be the same for him again; you + mustn't forget that; your friendship is spoiled for him, after what + you've done. So at the very least you can feel sorry for him and + feel like a mother to him, and marry him for that--as lots of women + do. + + 'Now I'm going to be very egotistical, but you'll know why. Think of + my life, dear Helen. We won't hide from what we know. We know that I + love you and that to give you up--even if, in a way, I had to--was + the greatest sacrifice of my life. Now, what I put to you is this: + Is it going to be for nothing--I mean for nothing where you are + concerned? If I'm to think of you going on alone with your heart + getting harder and drier every year, and everything tender and + trustful dying out of you--I don't see how I can bear it. + + 'So what I ask you is to try to be happy; what I ask you is to try + to make him happy; just look at it like that; try to make him happy + and to help him to grow to be a fine, big person, and then you'll + find out that you are growing, too, in all sorts of ways you never + dreamed of. + + 'When you get this, write to him and tell him that he may come. And + when he is with you, be kind to him. Oh--my dear Helen--I do beg it + of you. Put it like this--be kind to me and try.--Your affectionate + + FRANKLIN.' + + +When Helen had read this letter she did not weep, but she felt as if +some hurt, almost deeper than she could endure, was being inflicted on +her. It had begun with the first sight of Franklin's letter; the writing +of it had looked like hard, steady breathing over some heart-arresting +pain. Franklin's suffering flowed into her from every gentle, careful +sentence; and to Helen, so unaware, till now, of any one's suffering but +her own, this sharing of Franklin's was an experience new and +overpowering. No tears came, while she held the letter and looked before +her intently, and it was not as if her heart softened; but it seemed to +widen, as if some greatness, irresistible and grave, forced a way into +it. It widened to Franklin, to the thought of Franklin and to Franklin's +suffering; its sorrow and its compassion were for Franklin; and as it +received and enshrined him, it shut Gerald out. There was no room for +Gerald in her heart. + +She would do part of what Franklin asked of her, of course. She would +see Gerald; she would be kind to him; she would even try to feel for +him. But the effort was easy because she was so sure that it would be +fruitless. For Gerald, she was withered and burnt out. If she were to +'grow'--dear, funny phrases, even in her extremity, Helen could smile +over them; even though she loved dear Franklin and enshrined him, his +phrases would always seem funny to her--but if she were to grow it must +be for Franklin, and in a different way from what he asked. She would +indeed try not to become harder and drier; she would try to make of her +life something not too alien from his ideal for her; she would try to +pursue the just and the beautiful. But to rekindle the burnt-out fires +of her love was a miracle that even Franklin's love and Franklin's +suffering could not perform, and as for marrying Gerald in order to be a +mother to him, she did not feel it possible, even for Franklin's sake, +to assume that travesty. + +It was at five o'clock that she asked Gerald to come and see her. She +went down to him in her sitting-room, when, on the stroke of the clock, +he was announced. She felt that it required no effort to meet him, +beyond the forcing of her weariness. + +Gerald was standing before the fire, and in looking at him, as she +entered and closed the door, she was aware of a little sense of +surprise. She had not expected to find him, since the crash of Aunt +Grizel's revelations, as fatuous as the day before yesterday; nor had +she expected the boyish sulkiness of that day's earlier mood. She +expected change and the signs of discomfort and distress. It was this +haggard brightness for which she was unprepared. He looked as if he +hadn't slept or eaten, and under jaded eyelids his eyes had the +sparkling fever of insomnia. + +Helen felt that she could thoroughly carry out the first of Franklin's +requests; she could be kind and she could be sorry; yes, Gerald was very +unhappy; it was strange to think of, and pitiful. + +'Have you had any tea?' she asked him, giving him her hand, which he +pressed mechanically. + +'No, thanks,' said Gerald. + +'Do have some. You look hungry.' + +'I'm not hungry, thanks.' He was neither hostile nor pleading; he only +kept his eyes fixed on her with bright watchfulness, rather as a +patient's eyes watch the doctor who is to pronounce a verdict, and +Helen, with all her kindness, felt a little irked and ill at ease before +his gaze. + +'You've heard from Kane?' Gerald said, after a pause. Helen had taken +her usual place in the low chair. + +'Yes, this morning.' + +'And that's why you sent for me?' + +'Yes,' said Helen, 'he asked me to.' + +Gerald looked down into the fire. 'I can't tell you what I think of him. +You can't care to hear, of course. You know what I've done to him, and +that must make you feel that I'm not the person to talk about him. But +I've never met any one so good.' + +'He is good. I'm glad to hear you say it. He is the best person I've +ever met, too,' said Helen. 'As for what you did to him, you didn't know +what you were doing.' + +'I don't think that stupidity is any excuse. I ought to have felt he +couldn't be near you like that, and not love you. I robbed him of you, +didn't I? If it hadn't been for what I did, you would have married him, +all the same--in spite of what you told me, I mean.' + +Helen had coloured a little, and after a pause in which she thought over +his words she said: 'Yes, of course I would have married him all the +same. But it was really I, in what I told you, who brought it upon +myself and upon Franklin.' + +For a little while there was silence and then Gerald said, delicately, +yet with a directness that showed he took for granted in her a detached +candour equal to his own: 'I think I asked it stupidly. I suppose the +thing I can't even yet realise is that, in a way, I robbed you too. I've +robbed you of everything, haven't I, Helen?' + +'Not of everything,' said Helen, glad really of the small consolation +she could offer him. 'Not of financial safety, as it happens. It will +make you less unhappy to hear, so I must tell you, Franklin is arranging +things with Aunt Grizel so that when she dies I shall come into quite a +nice little bit of money. I shall have no more sordid worries. In that +way you mustn't have me on your conscience.' + +Gerald's eyes were on her and they took in this fact of her safety with +no commotion; it was but one--and a lesser--among the many strange facts +he had had to take in. And he forced himself to look squarely at what he +had conceived to be the final impossibility as he asked: 'And--in other +ways?--Could you have fallen in love with him, Helen?' + +It was so bad, so inconceivably bad a thing to face, that his relief +was like a joy when Helen answered. 'No, I could never have fallen in +love with dear Franklin. But I cared for him very much, the more, no +doubt, from having ceased to care about love. I felt that he was the +best person, the truest, the dearest, I had ever known, and that we +would make a success of our life together.' + +'Yes, yes, of course,' Gerald hastened past her qualifications to the +one liberating fact. 'Two people like you would have had to. But you +didn't love him; you couldn't have come to love him. I haven't robbed +you of a man you could have loved.' + +She saw his immense relief. The joy of it was in his eyes and voice; and +the thought of Franklin, of what she had not been able to do for +Franklin, made it bitter to her that because she had not been able to +save Franklin, Gerald should find relief. + +'You couldn't have robbed me of him if there'd been any chance of that,' +she said. 'If there had been any chance of my loving Franklin I would +never have let him go. Don't be glad, don't show me that you are +glad--because I didn't love him.' + +'I can't help being glad, Helen,' he said. + +She leaned her head on her hand, covering her eyes. While he was there, +showing her that he was glad because she had not loved Franklin, she +could not be kind, nor even just to him. + +'Helen,' he said, 'I know what you are feeling; but will you listen to +me?' She answered that she would listen to anything he had to say, and +her voice had the leaden tone of impersonal charity. + +'Helen,' Gerald said, 'I know how I've blundered. I see everything. But, +with it all, seeing it all, I don't think that you are fair to me. I +don't think it is fair if you can't see that I couldn't have thought of +all these other possibilities--after what you'd told me--the other day. +How could I think of anything, then, but the one thing--that you loved +me and that I loved you, and that, of course, I must set my mistake +right at once, set Althea free and come to you? I was very simple and +very stupid; but I don't think it's fair not to see that I couldn't +believe you'd really repulse me, finally, if you loved me.' + +'You ought to have believed it,' Helen said, still with her covered +eyes. 'That is what is most simple, most stupid in you. You ought to +have felt--and you ought to feel now--that to a woman who could tell you +what I did, everything is over.' + +'But, Helen, that's my point,' ever so carefully and patiently he +insisted. 'How can it be over when I love you--if you still love me?' + +She put down her hand now and looked up at him and she saw his hope; not +yet dead; sick, wounded, perplexed, but, in his care and patience, +vigilant. And it was with a sad wonder for the truth of her own words, +that she said, looking up at the face dear beyond all telling for so +many years, 'I don't want you, Gerald. I don't want your love. I'm not +blaming you. I am fair to you. I see that you couldn't help it, and that +it was my fault really. But you are asking for something that isn't +there any longer.' + +'You mean,' said Gerald, he was very pale, 'that I've won no rights; you +don't want a man who has won no rights.' + +'There are no rights to win, Gerald.' + +'Because of what I've done to him?' + +'Perhaps; but I don't think it's that.' + +'Because of what I've done to you--not seeing--all our lives?' + +'Perhaps, Gerald. I don't know. I can't tell you, for I don't know +myself. I don't think anything has been killed. I think something is +dead that's been dying by inches for years. Don't press me any more. +Accept the truth. It's all over. I don't want you any longer.' + +Helen had risen while she spoke and kept her eyes on Gerald's in +speaking. Until this moment, for all his pain and perplexity, he had not +lost hope. He had been amazed and helpless and full of fear, but he had +not believed, not really believed, that she was lost to him. Now, she +saw it in his eyes, he did believe; and as the patient, hearing his +sentence, gazes dumb and stricken, facing death, so he gazed at her, +seeing irrevocability in her unmoved face. And, accepting his doom, +sheer childishness overcame him. As Franklin the day before had felt, so +he now felt, the intolerableness of his woe; and, as with Franklin, the +waves closed over his head. Helen was so near him that it was but a +stumbling step that brought her within his arms; but it was not with the +lover's supplication that he clung to her; he clung, hiding his face on +her breast, like a child to its mother, broken-hearted, bewildered, +reproachful. And, bursting into tears, he sobbed: 'How cruel you are! +how cruel! It is your pride--you've the heart of a stone! If I'd loved +you for years and told you and made you know you loved me back--could I +have treated you like this--and cast you off--and stopped loving you, +because you'd never seen before? O Helen, how can you--how can you!' + +After a moment Helen spoke, angrily, because she was astounded, and +because, for the first time in her life, she was frightened, beyond her +depth, helpless in the waves of emotion that lifted her like great +encompassing billows. 'Gerald, don't. Gerald, it is absurd of you. +Gerald, don't cry.' She had never seen him cry. + +He heard her dimly, and the words were the cruel ones he expected. The +sense of her cruelty filled him, and the dividing sense that she, who +was so cruel, was still his only refuge, his only consolation. + +'What have I done, I'd like to know, that you should treat me like this? +If you loved me before--all those years--why should you stop now, +because I love you? why should you stop because of telling me?' + +Again Helen's voice came to him after a pause, and it seemed now to +grope, stupefied and uncertain, for answers to his absurdity. 'How can +one argue, Gerald, like this; perhaps it was because I told you? +Perhaps----' + +He took her up, not waiting to hear her surmises. 'How can one get over +a thing like that, all in a moment? How can it die like that? You're not +over it, not really. It is all pride, and you are punishing me for what +I couldn't help, and punishing yourself too, for no one will ever love +you as I do. O Helen--I can't believe it's dead. Don't you know that no +one will ever love you as I do? Can't you see how happy we could have +been together? It's so _silly_ of you not to see. Yes, you are silly as +well as cruel.' He shook her while he held her, while he buried his face +and cried--cried, literally, like a baby. + +She stood still, enfolded but not enfolding, and now she said nothing +for a long time, while her eyes, with their strained look of pain, gazed +widely, and as if in astonishment, before her; and he, knowing only the +silence, the unresponsive silence, continued to sob his protestation, +his reproach, with a helplessness and vehemence ridiculous and +heart-rending. + +Then, slowly, as if compelled, Helen put her arms around him, and, +dully, like a creature hypnotised to action strange to its whole nature, +she said once more, and in a different voice: 'Don't cry, Gerald.' But +she, too, was crying. She tried to control her sobs; but they broke from +her, strange and difficult, like the sobs of the hypnotised creature +waking from its trance to confused and painful consciousness, and, +resting her forehead on his shoulder, she repeated dully, between her +sobs: 'Don't cry.' + +He was not crying any longer. Her weeping had stilled his in an instant, +and she went on, between her broken breaths: 'How absurd--oh, how +absurd. Sit down here--yes--keep your head so, if you must, you foolish, +foolish child.' + +He held her, hearing her sobs, feeling them lift her breast, and, in all +his great astonishment, like a smile, the memory of the other day stole +over him, the stillness, the accomplishment, the blissful peace, the +lifting to a serene eternity of space. To remember it now was like +seeing the sky from a nest, and in the sweet darkness of sudden +security he murmured: '_You_ are the foolish child.' + +'How can I believe you love me?' said Helen. + +'How can you not?' + +They sat side by side, her arms around him and his head upon her breast. +'It was only because I told you----' + +'Well--isn't that reason enough?' + +'How can it be reason enough for me?' + +'How can it not? You've spent your whole life hiding from me; when I saw +you, why, of course, I fell in love at once. O Helen--dear, dear Helen!' + +'When you saw my love.' + +'Wasn't that seeing you?' + +They spoke in whispers, and their hearts were not in their words. He +raised his head and looked at her, and he smiled at her now with the +smile of the beautiful necessity. 'How you've frightened me,' he said. +'Don't be proud. Even if it did need your cleverness to show me that, +too. I mean--you've given me everything--always--and why shouldn't you +have given me the chance to see you--and to know what you are to me? How +you frightened me. You are not proud any longer. You love me.' + +She was not proud any longer. She loved him. Vaguely, in the +bewilderment of her strange, her blissful humility, among the great +billows of life that encompassed and lifted her, it seemed with enormous +heart-beats, Helen remembered Franklin's words. 'Let it melt--please let +it melt, dear Helen.' But it had needed the inarticulate, the +instinctive, to pierce to the depths of life. Gerald's tears, his head +so boyishly pressed against her, his arms so childishly clinging, had +told her what her heart might have been dead to for ever if, with +reason and self-command, he had tried to put it into words. + +She looked at him, through her tears, and she knew him dearer to her in +this resurrection than if her heart had never died to him; and, as he +smiled at her, she, too, smiled back, tremblingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +Althea had not seen Gerald after the day that they came up from +Merriston together. The breaking of their engagement was duly announced, +and, with his little note to her, thanking her for her frankness and +wishing her every happiness, Gerald and all things connected with him +seemed to pass out of her life. She saw no more of the frivolous +relations who were really serious, nor of the serious ones who were +really frivolous. She did not even see Helen. Helen's engagement to +Franklin had never been formally announced, and few, beyond her circle +of nearest friends, knew of it; the fact that Franklin had now returned +to his first love was not one that could, at the moment, be made +appropriately public. But, of course, Helen had had to be told, not only +that Franklin had gone from her, but that he had come back to Althea, +and Althea wondered deeply how this news had been imparted. She had not +felt strength to impart it herself. When she asked Franklin, very +tentatively, about it, he said: 'That's all right, dear. I've explained. +Helen perfectly understands.' + +That it was all right seemed demonstrated by the little note, kind and +sympathetic, that Helen wrote to her, saying that she did understand, +perfectly, and was so glad for her and for Franklin, and that it was +such a good thing when people found out mistakes in time. There was not +a trace of grievance; Helen seemed to relinquish a good which, she +recognised, had only been hers because Althea hadn't wanted it. And this +was natural; how could one show one's grievance in such a case? Helen, +above all, would never show it; and Althea was at once oppressed, and at +the same time oddly sustained by the thought that she had, all +inevitably, done her friend an injury. She lay awake at night, turning +over in her mind Helen's present plight and framing loving plans for the +future. She took refuge in such plans from a sense of having come to an +end of things. To think of Helen, and of what, with their wealth, she +and Franklin could do for Helen, seemed, really, her strongest hold on +life. It was the brightest thing that she had to look forward to, and +she looked forward to it with complete self-effacement. She saw the +beautiful Italian villa where Helen should be the fitting centre, the +English house where Helen, rather than she, should entertain. She felt +that she asked nothing more for herself. She was safe, if one liked to +put it so, and in that safety she felt not only her ambitions, but even +any personal desires, extinguished. Her desire, now, was to unite with +Franklin in making the proper background for Helen. But at the moment +these projects were unrealisable; taste, as well as circumstance, +required a pause, a lull. It was a relief--so many things were a relief, +so few things more than merely that--to know that Helen was in the +country somewhere, and would not be back for ten days or a fortnight. + +Meanwhile, Miss Harriet Robinson, very grave but very staunch, sustained +Althea through all the outward difficulties of her _volte-face_. Miss +Robinson, of course, had had to be told of the reason for the +_volte-face_, the fact that Althea had found, after all, that she cared +more for Franklin Winslow Kane. It was in regard to the breaking of her +engagement that Miss Robinson was staunch and grave; in regard to the +new engagement, Althea saw that, though still staunch, she was much +disturbed. Miss Robinson found Franklin hard to place, and found it hard +to understand why Althea had turned from Gerald Digby to him. Franklin's +millions didn't count for much with Miss Robinson, nor could she suspect +them of counting for anything, where marriage was concerned, with her +friend. She had not, indeed, a high opinion of the millionaire type of +her compatriots. Her standards were birth and fashion, and poor Franklin +could not be said to embody either of these claims. His mitigating +qualities could hardly shine for Miss Robinson, who, accustomed to +continually seeing and frequently evading the drab, dry, utilitarian +species of her country-people, could not be expected to find in him the +flavour of oddity and significance that his English acquaintance prized. +Franklin didn't make any effort to place himself more favourably. He was +very gentle and very attentive, and he followed all Althea's directions +as to clothes and behaviour with careful literalness; but even barbered +and tailored by the best that London had to offer, he seemed to sink +inevitably into the discreetly effaced position that the American +husband so often assumes behind his more brilliant mate, and Althea +might have been more aware of this had she not been so sunken in an +encompassing consciousness of her own obliteration. She felt herself +nearer Franklin there, and the sense of relief and safety came most to +her when she could feel herself near Franklin. It didn't disturb her, +standing by him in the background, that Miss Robinson should not +appreciate him. After all, deeper than anything, was the knowledge that +Helen had appreciated him. Recede as far as he would from the gross +foreground places, Helen's choice of him, Helen's love--for after a +fashion, Helen must have loved him--gave him a final and unquestionable +value. It was in this assurance of Helen's choice that she found a +refuge when questionings and wonders came to drag her down to suffering +again. There were many things that menaced the lull of safety, things +she could not bear yet to look at. The sense of her own abandonment to +weak and disingenuous impulses was one; another shadowed her unstable +peace more darkly. Had Helen really minded losing Franklin--apart from +his money? What had his value really been to her? What was she feeling +and doing now? What was Gerald doing and feeling, and what did they both +think or suspect of her? The answer to some of these questionings came +to her from an unsuspected quarter. It was on a morning of chill mists +and pale sunlight that Althea, free of Miss Robinson, walked down +Grosvenor Street towards the park. She liked to go into the park on such +mornings, when Miss Robinson left her free, and sit on a bench and +abandon herself to remote, impersonal dreams. It was just as she entered +Berkeley Square that she met Mrs. Mallison, that aunt of Gerald's who +had struck her, some weeks ago, as so disconcerting, with her skilfully +preserved prettiness and her ethical and metaphysical aspirations. This +lady, furred to her ears, was taking out two small black pomeranians for +an airing. She wore long pearl ear-rings, and her narrow, melancholy +face was delicately rouged and powdered. Althea's colour rose painfully; +she had seen none of Gerald's relatives since the severance. Mrs. +Mallison, however, showed no embarrassment. She stopped at once and took +Althea's hand and gazed tenderly upon her. Her manner had always +afflicted Althea, with its intimations of some deep, mystical +understanding. + +'My dear, I'm so glad--to meet you, you know. How nice, how right you've +been.' Mrs. Mallison murmured her words rather than spoke them and could +pronounce none of her r's. 'I'm so glad to be able to tell you so. +You're walking? Come with me, then; I'm just taking the dogs round the +square. Do you love dogs too? I am sure you must. You have the eyes of +the dog-lover. I don't know how I could live without mine; they +understand when no one else does. I didn't write, because I think +letters are such soulless things, don't you? They are the tombs of the +spirit--little tombs for failed things--too often. I've thought of you, +and felt for you--so much; but I couldn't write. And now I must tell you +that I agree with you with all my heart. Love's the _only_ thing in +life, isn't it?' Mrs. Mallison smiled, pressing Althea's arm +affectionately. Althea remembered to have heard that Mrs. Mallison had +made a most determined _mariage de convenance_ and had sought love in +other directions; but, summoning what good grace she could, she +answered that she, too, considered love the only thing. + +'You didn't love him enough, and you found it out in time, and you told +him. How brave; how right. And then--am I too indiscreet? but I know you +feel we are friends--you found you loved some one else; the reality came +and showed you the unreality. That enchanting Mr. Kane--oh, I felt it +the moment I looked at him--there was an affinity between us, our souls +understood each other. And so deliciously rich you'll be, not that money +makes any difference, does it? but it is nice to be able to do things +for the people one loves.' + +Althea struggled in a maze of discomfort. Behind Mrs. Mallison's +caressing intonations was something that perplexed her. What did Mrs. +Mallison know, and what did she guess? She was aware, evidently, of her +own engagement to Franklin and, no doubt, of Franklin's engagement to +Helen and its breaking off. What did she know about the cause of that +breaking off? Her troubled cogitations got no further, for Mrs. Mallison +went on: + +'And how happily it has all turned out--all round--hasn't it? How horrid +for you and Mr. Kane, if it hadn't; not that you'd have had anything to +reproach yourselves with--really--I know--because love _is_ the only +thing; but if Helen and Gerald had just been left _plantés là_, it would +have been harder, wouldn't it? I've been staying with them at the same +house in the country and it's quite obvious what's happened. You knew +from the first, no doubt; but of course they are saying nothing, just as +you and Mr. Kane are saying nothing. They didn't tell me, but I guessed +at once. And the first thing I thought was: Oh--how happy--how perfect +this makes it for Miss Jakes and Mr. Kane. They've _all_ found out in +time.' + +Althea grew cold. She commanded her voice. 'Helen? Gerald?' she said. +'Haven't you mistaken? They've always been the nearest friends.' + +'Oh no--no,' smiled Mrs. Mallison, with even greater brightness and +gentleness, 'I never mistake these things; an affair of the heart is the +one thing that I always see. Helen, perhaps, could hide it from me; she +is a woman and can hide things--Helen is cold too--I am never very sure +of Helen's heart--of course I love her dearly, every one must who knows +her; but she is cold, unawakened, the type that holds out the cheek, not +the type that kisses. I confess that I love most the reckless, loving +type; and I believe that you and I are unlike Helen there--we kiss, we +don't hold out the cheek. But, no, I never would have guessed from +Helen. It was Gerald who gave them both away. Poor, dear Gerald, never +have I beheld such a transfigured being--he is radiantly in love, quite +radiantly; it's too pretty to see him.' + +The vision of Gerald, radiantly in love, flashed horridly for Althea. It +was dim, yet bright, scintillating darkly; she could only imagine it in +similes; she had never seen anything that could visualise it for her. +The insufferable dogs, like tethered bubbles, bounded before them, +constantly impeding their progress. Althea was thankful for the excuse +afforded her by the tangling of her feet in the string to pause and +stoop; she felt that her rigid face must betray her. She stooped for a +long moment and hoped that her flush would cover her rigidity. It was +when she raised herself that she saw suddenly in Mrs. Mallison's face +something that gave her more than a suspicion. She didn't suspect her of +cruelty or vulgar vengeance--Gerald's aunt was quite without rancour on +the score of her jilting of him; but she did suspect, and more than +suspect her--it was like the unendurable probing of a wound to feel +it--of idle yet implacable curiosity, and of a curiosity edged, perhaps, +with idle malice. She summoned all her strength. She smiled and shook +her head a little. 'Faithless Gerald! So soon,' she said. 'He is +consoled quickly. No, I never guessed anything at all.' + +Mrs. Mallison had again passed her arm through hers and again pressed +it. 'It _is_ soon, isn't it? A sort of _chassé-croisé_. But how strange +and fortunate that it should be soon--I know you feel that too.' + +'Oh yes, of course, I feel it; it is an immense relief. But they ought +to have told me,' Althea smiled. + +'I wonder at that too,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'It is rather bad of them, I +think, when they must know what it would mean to you of joy. When did it +happen, do you suppose?' + +Althea wondered. Wonders were devouring her. + +'It happened with you quite suddenly, didn't it?' said Mrs. Mallison, +who breathed the soft fragrance of her solicitude into Althea's face as +she leaned her head near and pressed her arm closely. + +'Quite suddenly,' Althea replied, 'that is, with me it was sudden. +Franklin, of course, has loved me for a great many years.' + +'So he was faithless too, for his little time?' + +Althea's brain whirled. 'Faithless? Franklin?' + +'I mean, while he made his mistake--while he thought he was in love with +Helen.' + +'It wasn't a question of that. It was to be a match of reason, and +friendship--everybody knew,' Althea stammered. + +'_Was_ it?' said Mrs. Mallison with deep interest. 'I see, like yours +and Gerald's.' + +'Oh----' Althea was not able in her headlong course to do more than +glance at the implications that whizzed past. 'Gerald and I made the +mistake, I think; we believed ourselves in love.' + +'_Did_ you?' Mrs. Mallison repeated her tone of affectionate and +brooding interest. 'What a strange thing the human heart is, isn't it?' + +'Very, very strange.' + +'How dear and frank of you to see it all as you do. And there are no +more mistakes now,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'No one is reasonable and every +one is radiant.' + +'Every one is radiant and reasonable too, I hope,' said Althea. Her head +still whirled as she heard herself analysing for Mrs. Mallison's +correction these sanctities of her life. Odious, intolerable, insolent +woman! She could have burst into tears as she walked beside her, held by +her, while her hateful dogs, shrilly barking, bounded buoyantly around +them. + +'It's dear of you too, to tell me all about it,' said Mrs. Mallison. +'Have you seen Helen yet? She is just back.' + +'No, I've not seen her.' + +'You will meet? I am sure you will still be friends--two such real +people as you are.' + +'Of course we shall meet. Helen is one of my dearest friends.' + +'I see. It is so beautiful when people can rise above things. You make +me very happy. Don't tell Helen what I've told you,' Mrs. Mallison with +gentle gaiety warned her. 'I knew--in case you hadn't heard--that it +would relieve you so intensely to hear that she and Gerald were happy, +in spite of what you had to do to them. But it would make Helen cross +with me if she knew I'd told you when she hadn't. I'm rather afraid of +Helen, aren't you? I'm sure she'll give Gerald dreadful scoldings +sometimes. Poor, dear Gerald!' Mrs. Mallison laughed reminiscently. +'Never have I beheld such a transfigured being. I didn't think he had it +in him to be in love to such an extent. Oh, it was all in his face--his +eyes--when he looked at her.' + +Yes, malicious, malicious to the point of vulgarity; that was Althea's +thought as, like an arrow released from long tension, she sped away, the +turn of the square once made and Mrs. Mallison and her dogs once more +received into the small house in an adjacent street. Tears were in +Althea's eyes, hot tears, of fury, of humiliation, and--oh, it flooded +over her--of bitterest sorrow and yearning. Gerald, radiant Gerald--lost +to her for ever; not even lost; never possessed. And into the sorrow and +humiliation, poisonous suspicions crept. When did it happen? Where was +she? What had been done to her? She must see; she must know. She hailed +a hansom and was driven to old Miss Buchanan's house in Belgravia. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +Helen was sitting at her writing-table before the window, and the +morning light fell on her gracefully disordered hair and gracefully +shabby shoulders. The aspect of her back struck on Althea's bitter, +breathless mood. There was no effort made for anything with Helen. She +was the sort of person who would get things without seeking for them and +be things without caring to be them. She had taken what she wanted, when +she wanted it; first Franklin, and then--and perhaps it had been before +Franklin had failed her, perhaps it had been before she, Althea, had +failed Gerald--she had taken Gerald. Althea's mind, reeling, yet +strangely lucid after the shock of the last great injury, was also +aware, in the moment of her entrance, of many other injuries, old ones, +small ones, yet, in their summing up--and everything seemed to be summed +up now in the cruel revelation--as intolerable as the new and great one. +More strongly than ever before she was aware that Helen was hard, that +there was nothing in her soft or tentative or afraid; and the +realisation, though it was not new, came with an added bitterness this +morning. It did not weaken her, however; on the contrary, it nerved her +to self-protection. If Helen was hard, she would not, to-day, show +herself soft. It was she who must assume the air of success, and of +rueful yet helpless possessorship. These impressions and resolutions +occupied but an instant. Helen rose and came to her, and what Althea saw +in her face armed her resolutions with hostility. Helen's face confirmed +what Mrs. Mallison had said. It was not resentful, not ironically calm. +A solicitous interest, even a sort of benignity, was in her bright gaze. +Helen was hard; she did not really care at all; but she was kind, kinder +than ever before; and Althea found this kindness intolerable. + +'Dear Helen,' she said, 'I'm so glad to see you. I had to come at once +when I heard that you were back. You don't mind seeing me?' + +'Not a bit,' said Helen, who had taken her hand. 'Why should I?' + +'I was afraid that perhaps you might not want to--for a long time.' + +'We aren't so foolish as that,' said Helen smiling. + +'No, that is what I hoped you would feel too. We have been in the hands +of fate, haven't we, Helen? I've seemed weak and disloyal, I know--to +you and to Gerald; but I think it was only seeming. When I found out my +mistake I couldn't go on. And then the rest all followed--inevitably.' + +Helen had continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and she continued +to gaze at her for another moment before, pressing it, she let it fall +and said: 'Of course you couldn't go on.' + +Helen was as resolved--Althea saw that clearly--to act her part of +unresentful kindness as she to act hers of innocent remorse. And the +swordthrust in the sight was to suspect that had Helen been in reality +the dispossessed and not the secretly triumphant, she might have been as +kind and as unresentful. + +'It's all been a dreadful mistake,' Althea said, going to a chair and +loosening her furs. 'From the very beginning I felt doubt. From the very +beginning I felt that Gerald and I did not really make each other happy. +And I believe that you wondered about it too.' + +Helen had resumed her seat at the writing-table, sitting turned from it, +her hand hanging over the back of the chair, her long legs crossed, and +she faced her friend with that bright yet softened gaze, interested, +alert, but too benign, too contented, to search or question closely. She +was evidently quite willing that Althea should think what she chose, +and, this was becoming evident, she intended to help her to think it. So +after a little pause she answered, 'I did wonder, rather; it didn't seem +to me that you and Gerald were really suited.' + +'And you felt, didn't you,' Althea urged, 'that it was only because I +had been so blind, and had not seen where my heart really was, you know, +that your engagement was possible? I was so afraid you'd think we'd been +faithless to you--Franklin and I; but, when I stopped being blind----' + +'Of course,' Helen helped her on, nodding and smiling gravely, 'of +course you took him back. I don't think you were either of you +faithless, and you mustn't have me a bit on your minds; it was +startling, of course; but I'm not heart-broken,' Helen assured her. + +Oh, there was no malice here; it was something far worse to bear, this +wish to lift every shadow and smooth every path. Althea's eyes fixed +themselves hard on her friend. Her head swam a little and some of her +sustaining lucidity left her. + +'I was so afraid,' she said, 'that you, perhaps, cared for Franklin--had +come to care so much, I mean--that it might have been hard for you to +forgive. I can't tell you the relief it is----' + +'To see that I didn't care so much as that?' Helen smiled brightly, +though with a brightness, now, slightly wary, as though with all her +efforts to slide and not to press, she felt the ice cracking a little +under her feet, and as though some care might be necessary if she were +to skate safely away. 'Don't have that in the least on your mind, it was +what you always disapproved of, you know, an arrangement of convenience. +Franklin and I both understood perfectly. You know how mercenary I +am--though I told you, I remember, that I couldn't think of marrying +anybody I didn't like. I liked Franklin, more than I can say; but it was +never a question of love.' + +In Althea's ears, also, the ice seemed now to crack ominously. 'You +mean,' she said, 'that you wouldn't have thought of marrying Franklin if +it hadn't been for his money?' + +There was nothing for Helen but to skate straight ahead. 'No, I don't +suppose I should.' + +'But you had become the greatest friends.' + +She was aware that she must seem to be trying, strangely, incredibly, to +prove to Helen that she had been in love with Franklin; to prove to her +that she had no right not to resent anything; no right to find +forgiveness so easy. But there was no time now to stop. + +'Of course we became the greatest friends,' Helen said, and it was as +if with relief for the outlet. She was bewildered, and did not know +where they were going. 'I don't need to tell you what I think of +Franklin. He is the dearest and best of men, and you are the luckiest of +women to have won him.' + +'Ah,' uncontrollably Althea rose to her feet with almost the cry, 'I +see; you think me lucky to have won a man who, in himself, without +money, wasn't good enough for you. Thank you.' + +For a long moment--and in it they both recognised that the crash had +come, and that they were struggling in dark, cold water--Helen was +silent. She kept her eyes on Althea and she did not move. Then, while +she still looked steadily upon her, a slow colour rose in her cheeks. It +was helplessly, burningly, that she blushed, and Althea saw that she +blushed as much for anger as for shame, and that the shame was for her. + +She did not need Helen's blush to show her what she had done, what +desecration she had wrought. Her own blood beat upwards in hot surges +and tears rushed into her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and +dropped again into her chair, sobbing. + +Helen did not help her out. She got up and went to the mantelpiece and +looked down at the fire for some moments. And at last she spoke, 'I +didn't mean that either. I think that Franklin is too good for either of +us.' + +'Good!' wept Althea. 'He is an angel. Do you suppose I don't see that? +But why should I pretend when you don't. I'm not in love with Franklin. +I'm unworthy of him--more unworthy of him than you were--but I'm not in +love with him, even though he is an angel. So don't tell me that I am +lucky. I am a most miserable woman.' And she wept on, indifferent now to +any revelations. + +Presently she heard Helen's voice. It was harder than she had ever known +it. 'May I say something? It's for his sake--more than for yours. What I +advise you to do is not to bother so much about love. You couldn't stick +to Gerald because you weren't loved enough; and you're doubting your +feeling for Franklin, now, because you can't love him enough. Give it +all up. Follow my second-rate example. Be glad that you're marrying an +angel and that he has all that money. And do remember that though you're +not getting what you want, you are getting a good deal and he is getting +nothing, so try to play the game and to see if you can't make it up to +him; see if you can't make him happy.' + +Althea's sobbing had now ceased, though she kept her face still covered. +Bitter sadness, too deep now for resentment, was in her silence, a +silence in which she accepted what Helen's words had of truth. The +sadness was to see at last to the full, that she had no place in Helen's +life. There was no love, there was hardly liking, behind Helen's words. +And so it had been from the very first, ever since she had loved and +Helen accepted; ever since she had gone forth carrying gifts, and Helen +had stood still and been vaguely aware that homage was being offered. It +had, from the very beginning, been this; Helen, hard, self-centred, +insensible, so that anything appealing or uncertain was bound to be +shattered against her. And was not this indifference to offered love a +wrong done to it, something that all life cried out against? Had not +weakness and fear and the clinging appeal of immaturity their rights, so +that the strong heart that was closed to them, that did not go out to +them in tenderness and succour, was the dull, the lesser heart? Dimly +she knew, not exculpating herself, not judging her beautiful Helen, that +though she had, in her efforts towards happiness, pitifully failed, +there was failure too in being blind, in being unconscious of any effort +to be made. The more trivial, the meaner aspect of her grief was merged +in a fundamental sincerity. + +'What you say is true,' she said, 'for I know that I am a poor creature. +I know that I give Franklin nothing, and take everything from him. But +it is easy for you to talk of what is wise and strong, Helen, and to +tell me what I ought to do and feel. You have everything. You have the +man who loves you and the man you love. It is easy for you to be clear +and hard and see other people's faults. I know--I know about you and +Gerald.' + +Helen turned to her. Althea had dropped her hands. She did not look at +her friend, but, with tear-disfigured eyes, out of the window; and there +was a desolate dignity in her aspect. For the first time in their +unequal intercourse they were on an equal footing. Helen was aware of +Althea, and, in a vague flash, for self-contemplation was difficult to +her, she was aware of some of the things that Althea saw: the lack of +tenderness; the lack of imagination; the indifference to all that did +not come within the circle of her own tastes and affections. It was just +as Franklin had said, and Gerald, and now Althea; her heart was hard. +And she was sorry, though she did not know what she was to do; for +though she was sorry for Althea her heart did not soften for her as it +had softened for Franklin, and for the thought of Franklin--too good for +them all, sacrificed to them all. It was the thought of the cruelty of +nature, making of Franklin, with all his wealth of love, a creature +never to be desired, that gave to her vision of life, and of all this +strange predicament in which life had involved them, an ironic colour +incompatible with the warmth of trust and tenderness which Franklin had +felt lacking in her. She was ironic, she was hard, and she must make the +best of it. But it was in a gentle voice that, looking at her friend's +melancholy head, she asked: 'Who told you that?' + +'Mrs. Mallison,' said Althea. 'I've been a hypocrite to you all the +morning.' + +'And I have been an odious prig to you. That ass of a Kitty Mallison. I +had not intended any one to know for months.' Even in her discomfiture +Helen retained her tact. She did not say 'we.' + +'For my sake, I suppose?' + +'Oh no! why for yours?' Helen was determined that Althea should be hurt +no further. If pity for Franklin had edged her voice, pity for Althea +must keep from her the blighting knowledge of Franklin's sacrifice. + +'It was we who were left, wasn't it--Gerald and I? I don't want us to +appear before people's eyes at once as consolation prizes to each +other.' + +Althea now turned a sombre gaze upon her. 'He couldn't be that to you, +since you've never loved Franklin; and I know that you are not that to +him; Gerald didn't need to be consoled for losing me. He did need to be +consoled when he heard that you were marrying Franklin. I remember the +day that your letter came--the letter that said you were engaged. That +really ended things for us.' Her lip trembled. 'It is easy for you to +say that I didn't stick to Gerald because he didn't love me enough. How +could I have stuck to some one who, I see it well enough now, was +beginning to love some one else?' + +Helen contemplated her and the truths she put before her. 'Try to +forgive me,' she said. + +'There's nothing to forgive,' said Althea, rising. 'You told me the +truth, and what I had said was so despicable that I deserved to have it +told to me. All the mistakes are mine. I've wanted things that I've no +right to; I suppose it's that. You and I weren't made for each other, +just as Gerald and I weren't, and it's all only my mistake and my +misfortune--for wanting and loving people who couldn't want or love me. +I see it all at last, and it's all over. Good-bye, Helen.' She put out +her hand. + +'Oh, but don't--don't----' Helen clasped her hand, strangely shaken by +impulses of pity and self-reproach that yet left her helpless before her +friend's sincerity. 'Don't say you are going to give me up,' she +finished, and tears stood in her eyes. + +'I'm afraid I must give up all sorts of things,' said Althea, smiling +desolately. 'If we hadn't got so near, we might have gone on. I'm afraid +when people aren't made for each other they can't get so near without +its breaking them. Good-bye. I shall try to be worthy of Franklin. I +shall try to make him happy.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +She drove back to her hotel. She felt very tired. The world she gazed at +seemed vast and alien, a world in which she had no place. The truth had +come to her and she looked at it curiously, almost indifferently. London +flowed past her, long tides of purpose to right and left. The trees in +Green Park were softly blurred on the chill, white sky. She looked at +the trees and sky and at the far lift of Piccadilly, blackened with +traffic, and, at the faces that went by, as if it were all a vast +cinematograph and she the idlest of spectators. And it was here that +love had first come to her, and here that despair had come. Now both +were over and she accepted her defeat. + +She thought, when the hotel was reached, and as she went upstairs, that +she would go to bed and try to sleep. But when she entered her little +sitting-room she found Franklin there waiting for her. He had been +reading the newspapers before the fire and had risen quickly on hearing +her step. It was as if she had forgotten Franklin all this time. + +She stood by the door that she had closed, and gazed at him. It was +without will, or hope, or feeling that she gazed, as if he were a part +only of that alien world she had looked at, and this outward seeing was +relentless. A meagre, commonplace, almost comic little man. She saw +behind him his trite and colourless antecedents; she saw before him--and +her--the future, trite and colourless too, but for the extraneous +glitter of the millions that surrounded him as incongruously as a halo +would have done. He was an angel, of course; he was good; but he was +only that; there were no varieties, no graces, no mysteries. His very +interests were as meagre as his personality; he had hardly a taste, +except the taste for doing his best. Books, music, pictures--all the +great world of beauty and intellect that the world of goodness and +workaday virtues existed, perhaps, only to make possible--its finer, +more ethereal superstructure--only counted for Franklin as recreations, +relaxations, things half humorously accepted as one accepts a glass of +lemonade on a hot day. Not only was he without charm, but he was unaware +of charm; he didn't see it or feel it or need it. And she, who had seen +and felt, she who had known Gerald and Helen, must be satisfied with +this. It was this that she must strive to be worthy of. She was +unworthy, and she knew it; but that acceptation was only part of the +horror of defeat. And the soulless gaze with which she looked at him +oddly chiselled her pallid face. She was like a dumb, classic mask, too +impersonal for tragedy. Her lips were parted in their speechlessness and +her eyes vacant of thought. + +Then, after that soulless seeing, she realised that she had frightened +Franklin. He came to her. 'Dear--what is the matter?' he asked. + +He came so near that she looked into his eyes. She looked deeply, for a +long time, in silence. And while she looked, while Franklin's hands +gently found and held hers, life came to her with dreadful pain again. +She felt, rather than knew--and with a long shudder--that the world was +vast; she felt and feared it as vast and alien. She felt that she was +alone, and the loneliness was a terror, beating upon her. And she +felt--no longer seeing anything but the deeps of Franklin's eyes--that +he was her only refuge; and closing her own eyes she stumbled towards +him and he received her in his arms. + +They sat on the sofa, and Franklin clasped her while she wept, and she +seemed to re-enter childhood where all that she wanted was to cry her +heart out and have gentle arms around her while she confessed every +wrong-doing that had made a barrier between herself and her mother's +heart. 'O Franklin,' she sobbed, 'I'm so unhappy!' + +He said nothing, soothing her as a mother might have done. + +'Franklin, I loved him!' she sobbed. 'It was real: it was the reallest +thing that ever happened to me. I only sent for you because I knew that +he didn't love me. I loved him too much to go on if he didn't love me. +What I have suffered, Franklin. And now he is going to marry Helen. He +loves Helen. And I am not worthy of you.' + +'Poor child,' said Franklin. He pressed his lips to her hair. + +'You know, Franklin?' + +'Yes, I know, dear.' + +'I am not worthy of you,' Althea repeated. 'I have been weak and +selfish. I've used you--to hide from myself--because I was too +frightened to stand alone and give up things.' + +'Well, you shan't stand alone any more,' said Franklin. + +'But, Franklin--dear--kind Franklin--why should you marry me? I don't +love you--not as I loved him. I only wanted you because I was afraid. I +must tell you all the truth. I only want you now, and cling to you like +this, because I am afraid, because I can't go on alone and have nothing +to live for.' + +'You'll have me now, dear,' said Franklin. 'You'll try that, won't you, +and perhaps you'll find it more worth while than you think.' + +Something more now than fear and loneliness and penitence was piercing +her. His voice: poor Franklin's voice. What had she done to him? What +had they all done to him among them? And dimly, like the memory of a +dream, yet sharply, too, as such memory may be sharp, there drifted for +Althea the formless fear that hovered--formless yet urgent--when +Franklin had come to her in her desperate need. It hovered, and it +seemed to shape itself, as if through delicate curves of smoke, into +Helen's face--Helen's eyes and smile. Helen, charm embodied; Helen, all +the things that Franklin could never be; all the things she had believed +till now, Franklin could never feel or need. What did she know of +Franklin? so the fear whispered softly. What had Helen done to Franklin? +What had it meant to Franklin, that strange mingling with magic? + +She could never ask. She could never know. It would hover and whisper +always, the fear that had yet its beauty. It humbled her and it lifted +Franklin. He was more than she had believed. She had believed him all +hers, to take; but it was he who had given himself to her, and there +was an inmost shrine--ah, was there not?--that was not his to give. And +pity, deep pity, and sadness immeasurable for a loss not hers alone, was +in her as she sobbed: 'Ah, it is only because you are sorry for me. I +have killed all the rest. You are not in love with me any +longer--poor--poor Franklin--and everything is spoiled.' + +But Franklin could show her that he had seen the fear, and yet that life +was not spoiled by shrines in each heart from which the other was shut +out. It was difficult to know how to say it; difficult to tell her that +some truth she saw and yet that there was more truth for them +both--plenty of truth, as he would have said, for them both to live on. +And though it took him a little while to find the words, he did find +them at last, completely, for her and for himself, saying gently, while +he held her, 'No, it isn't, dear. It's not spoiled. It's not the +same--for either of us--is it?--but it isn't spoiled. We've taken +nothing from each other; some things weren't ours, that's all. And even +if you don't much want to marry me, you must please have me, now; +because I want to marry you. I want to live for you so much that by +degrees, I feel sure of it, you'll want to live for me, too. We must +live for each other; we've got each other. Isn't that enough, Althea?' + +'Is it--_is_ it enough?' she sobbed. + +'I guess it is,' said Franklin. + +His voice was sane and sweet, even if it was sad. It seemed the voice of +life. Althea closed her eyes and let it fold her round. Only with +Franklin could she find consolation in her defeat, or strength to live +without the happiness that had failed her. Only Franklin could console +her for having to take Franklin. Was that really all that it came to? +No, she felt it growing, as they sat in silence, her sobs quieting, her +head on his shoulder; it came to more. But she saw nothing clearly after +the hateful, soulless seeing. The only clear thing was that it was good +to be with Franklin. + + + +THE END. + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. + +ESTABLISHED 1798 +[Illustration:] +T. NELSON AND SONS +PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS + + + * * * * * + + +THE NELSON LIBRARY OF COPYRIGHT FICTION + + Uniform with this Volume and same Price. + + _FORTHCOMING VOLUMES._ + + +MANALIVE. G. K. Chesterton. + +Mr. Chesterton is avowedly the maker of fantasies, half allegorical in +motive; but like all true allegories, they touch ordinary life at many +points. This story will be found as daring and subtle in conception, and +as brilliant in presentation as his best work. (_May 19._) + + +WHITE WINGS. William Black. + +William Black's famous novel may be described as a classic of yachting. +No sunnier tale of the seas has ever been written. (_June 2._) + + +SCARLET RUNNER. C. N. and A. M. Williamson. + +In this book Mr. and Mrs. Williamson describe the various doings of a +young gentleman whose sole worldly possession is a large touring car. +Adventures are to the adventurous, and Christopher Race found them in +full. (_June 16._) + + + _Already Published._ + + +TRENT'S LAST CASE. E. C. Bentley. + +This has been by far the most successful detective novel of recent +years. Mr. Lewis Hind in _The Daily Chronicle_ described it as the best +detective story of the century. + + +THE OPEN QUESTION. Elizabeth Robins. + +This was the book with which Miss Robins first won her great reputation +as a novelist. The scene is laid in America, and the story is described +by the author as a "study of two temperaments." + + +THE MONEY MARKET. E. F. Benson. + +A brilliant study of London society and of the strife between love and +the power of purse. + + +THE LUCK OF THE VAILS. E. F. Benson. + +In this story of modern country-house life Mr. Benson mingles mystery, +intrigue, and comedy with the skill of which he alone has the secret. + + +THE POTTER'S THUMB. Flora Annie Steel. + +"Sometimes the potter's thumb slips in the moulding, so in the firing +the pot cracks." Mrs. Steel's brilliant study of Anglo-Indian life is +based upon this text. It is one of the most dramatic and moving of her +Indian novels. + + +ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. Flora Annie Steel. + +This book is generally regarded as Mrs. Steel's masterpiece. It is a +story of the Indian Mutiny, and contains a wonderful picture of the +heroism of English men and women in that time of terror. + + +THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. Stanley J. Weyman. + +This, one of the first of Mr. Weyman's famous novels, deals with France +in the time of the Huguenot wars, and contains a brilliant picture of +the massacre of St. Bartholomew. + + +MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD. A. Courlander. + +This realistic story of life on a great London newspaper is probably the +best novel of journalism ever written. + + +A WALKING GENTLEMAN. James Prior. + +In this delightful fantasia a young peer, on the eve of his marriage, +walks out of his park into the world of common folk, and in the +adventures which follow finds that zest for life which he had hitherto +found wanting. + + +BROTHERS. H. A. Vachell. + +The publishers are happy to be able to add to the Nelson Library Mr. +Vachell's most famous novel, one of the most successful of recent years. +It is a brilliant study of character, full of drama and profound +humanity. + + +THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. A. Conan Doyle. + +The doings of this soldier of Napoleon have long been among Sir A. Conan +Doyle's most popular achievements in the art of fiction. As Mr. +Merriman's Barlasch represents the graver type of French veteran, so +Brigadier Gerard represents the dash and braggadocio of the Grande +Armée. + + +WHITE HEATHER. William Black. + +This charming love story is one of the most popular of Mr. Black's +romances of Highland life and sport. + + +SIMON DALE. Anthony Hope. + +This is Mr. Anthony Hope's only historical novel. It deals with the +Court of Charles II., and gives a brilliant picture of that complex age, +relieved by a charming love story. + + +A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Stanley J. Weyman. + +This is the first novel by which Mr. Weyman won his great reputation. It +is a tale of France during the religious wars of the sixteenth century, +and has long ranked as one of the most brilliant historical romances of +our day. + + +THE WAR IN THE AIR. H. G. Wells. + +"The War in the Air" is a story of the awful devastation following a +conflict between two first-class powers with the resources of the air at +their command. It is one of the most brilliant and successful of Mr. +Wells's studies in futurity. + + +RUPERT OF HENTZAU. Anthony Hope. + +This is a sequel to the famous "Prisoner of Zenda," already published in +the Nelson Library. It tells of the end of the long vendetta between +young Rupert of Hentzau and the Englishman, Rudolph Rassendyll. It is +needless to praise a book which, with its predecessor, has been +recognized as one of the greatest of modern romances. + + +SALT OF THE SEA. Morley Roberts. + +This is a collection of Mr. Morley Roberts's best sea stories selected +from half a dozen of his former volumes. "The Promotion of the Admiral" +and its sequel have been ranked by good critics as among the best modern +short stories. Mr. Roberts is scarcely less fine in his eerie tales, as +in the wonderful tale of "Billy be-damned." + + +THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. A. Conan Doyle. + +The publishers are happy to be able to add to their Nelson Library the +first collection of those stories which have made the name of Sherlock +Holmes a household word throughout the world. + + +THE PALADIN. H. A. Vachell. + +Mr. Vachell's gift of sympathetic understanding has rarely appeared to +better advantage than in this story. It is a fascinating study of +quixotry and idealism. + + +THE OSBORNES. E. F. Benson. + +In this book Mr. Benson has provided a careful and sympathetic study of +a middle-class family who rise to affluence. It is full of brilliant +humour and wide human sympathy. + + +THE RETURN OF THE EMIGRANT. Lydia M. Mackay. + +This is a story of modern Highland life, full of carefully studied +types, and lit with all the glamour of the Western Highlands. It is the +most important recent contribution to Scottish fiction. + + +PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT. + +By the Author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." This tale, famous +both as a book and as a play, tells how a young and beautiful German +princess, growing weary of Court restrictions, flies from her home, and +with her maid seeks refuge in an English village. Her royal generosity +soon leads her into financial straits, and she is rescued and restored +to her family by her lover. The humour and piquancy of the situations +are not less great than the charm of the heroine. + + +LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. "Q" (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch). + +Sir Oliver Vyell, the British Collector of Customs at Boston, rescues a +poor girl from the stocks, educates her, and makes her mistress of his +household. The scene moves to Lisbon, and there is a wonderful picture +of the earthquake. + + +HETTY WESLEY. "Q." + +This love story of one of the members of the Wesley family is perhaps +"Q's" most brilliant novel, as distinct from those romances with which +his name is chiefly associated. + + +HURRISH. Hon. Emily Lawless. + +This is a tale of peasant life in Ireland which has few rivals in Irish +literature. It is done with the dignity and restraint of a Greek +tragedy. + + +JEMMY ABERCRAW. Bernard Capes. + +In this brilliant romance the chief figure is a highwayman who conducts +his profession in a spirit of light-hearted chivalry. The last of the +Jacobite plots in England is introduced into the narrative. + + +RULES OF THE GAME. Stewart Edward White. + +Mr. S. E. White is one of the best of those younger American novelists +who deal with man in his conflicts with nature. This is a story of the +Californian Sierras and the great duel between the financial trusts and +the Government for the preservation of the forests. Like all Mr. White's +books it is full of swift incident and the magic of the wilds. + + +WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC. Sir Gilbert Parker. + +In this charming story Sir Gilbert Parker tells of the fortunes of a +young adventurer in Canada in the early nineteenth century who claimed +to be the son of the great Napoleon. The mystery of his life and his +tragic death make up one of the most original and moving of recent +romances. The author does for Quebec what in other works he has done for +the Western and Northern wilds--he interprets to the world its essential +romance. + + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Booth Tarkington. + +In this book the author of "Monsieur Beaucaire" tells a story of his own +country. "The Gentleman from Indiana" is a tale of a young university +graduate who becomes a newspaper owner and editor in a Western town, and +wages war against "graft" and corruption. His crusade brings him into +relations with the girl who had captured his heart at college, and their +love story is subtly interwoven with his political campaign. It is one +of the best of modern American novels, and readers will delight not only +in the stirring drama of the plot, but in the fresh and sympathetic +pictures given of the young townships of the West. + + +THE INVIOLABLE SANCTUARY. George A. Birmingham. + +Mr. Birmingham's novel takes us to the west of Ireland. The heroine is a +young lady of fifteen, who, with the help of a boy cousin, discovers a +mystery in the bay, and lands the whole parish in a bog of intrigue. It +is in every way as amusing and delightful as "Spanish Gold" and "The +Simpkins Plot." + + * * * * * + +THE NELSON LIBRARY. + + _Uniform with this Volume and same Price._ + + CONDENSED LIST. + + _Arranged alphabetically under Authors' Names._ + + BAILEY, H. C. + Springtime. + Beaujeu. + + BECKE, LOUIS. + Edward Barry, South Sea Pearler. + + BELLOC, HILAIRE. + Mr. Clutterbuck's Election. + The Girondin. + + BENSON, E. F. + Daisy's Aunt. + The Luck of the Vails. + The Money Market. + The Osbornes. + The Princess Sophia. + + BENTLEY, E. C. + Trent's Last Case. + + BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE A. + The Simpkins Plot. + The Inviolable Sanctuary. + + BLACK, WILLIAM. + White Heather. + + BRADDON, Miss. + Lady Audley's Secret. + Vixen. + + BRAMAH, ERNEST. + The Secret of the League. + + BUCHAN, JOHN. + Prester John. + + BURNETT, MRS. F. H. + The Making of a Marchioness. + + By The Author of "Elizabeth and + her German Garden." + Princess Priscilla's Fortnight. + + CAINE, HALL. + A Son of Hagar. + + CAPES, BERNARD. + Jemmy Abercraw. + + CARR, M. E. + The Poison of Tongues. + + CASTLE, A. and E. + If Youth but Knew. + Incomparable Bellairs. + French Nan. + The Rose of the World. + The Panther's Cub. + + CHILDERS, ERSKINE. + The Riddle of the Sands. + + CHOLMONDELEY, MARY. + Red Pottage. + + CLIFFORD, MRS. W. K. + Woodside Farm. + + CONRAD, JOSEPH. + Romance. + + COPPING, A. + Gotty and the Guv'nor. + + COURLANDER, A. + Mightier than the Sword. + + DOUGLAS, GEORGE. + The House with the Green Shutters. + + DOYLE, A. CONAN. + The Refugees. + The Great Shadow. + Micah Clarke. + The Sign of Four. + Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. + The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. + The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. + The Hound of the Baskervilles. + + DUNCAN, SARA JEANETTE. + Set in Authority. + + FALKNER, J. MEADE. + Moonfleet. + + FINDLATER, MARY AND JANE. + Crossriggs. + + FORREST, R. E. + Eight Days. + + FUTRELLE, JACQUES. + The Lady in the Case. + + GARNETT, MRS. + The Infamous John Friend. + + GISSING, GEORGE. + Odd Women. + Born in Exile. + + GRIER, SYDNEY. + The Warden of the Marches. + + HARLAND, HENRY. + The Cardinal's Snuff-Box. + My Friend Prospero. + + HARRADEN, BEATRICE. + Katharine Frensham. + Interplay. + Out of the Wreck I Rise. + + HOBBES, JOHN OLIVER. + Love and the Soul-hunters. + + HOPE, ANTHONY. + The Intrusions of Peggy. + Quisanté. + The King's Mirror. + The God in the Car. + Count Antonio. + The Dolly Dialogues. + The Prisoner of Zenda. + A Man of Mark. + Rupert of Hentzau. + Sophy of Kravonia. + Tristram of Blent. + The Great Miss Driver. + Simon Dale. + Tales of Two People. + + HORNUNG, E. W. + Raffles. + Mr. Justice Raffles. + A Thief in the Night: the Last Chronicles of Raffles. + Stingaree. + + HYNE, C. J. CUTCLIFFE. + Thompson's Progress. + Mr. Horrocks, Purser. + + JACOB, VIOLET. + The Interloper. + + JACOBS, W. W. + The Lady of the Barge. + The Skipper's Wooing. + + JAMES, HENRY. + The American. + + LAWLESS, Hon. EMILY. + Hurrish. + + LONDON, JACK. + White Fang. + Adventure. + A Daughter of the Snows. + + LORIMER, G. H. + Old Gorgon Graham. + + MACNAUGHTAN, S. + The Fortune of Christina M'Nab. + A Lame Dog's Diary. + Selah Harrison. + The Expensive Miss Du Cane. + The Gift. + + MACKAY, L. MILLER. + Return of the Emigrant. + + MALET, LUCAS. + The Wages of Sin. + The Gateless Barrier. + + MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD. + Exton Manor. + + MASEFIELD, JOHN. + Captain Margaret. + Multitude and Solitude. + + MASON, A. E. W. + Clementina. + The Four Feathers. + The Broken Road. + + MERRICK, LEONARD. + The House of Lynch. + The Call from the Past. + + MERRIMAN, H. SETON. + The Last Hope. + The Isle of Unrest. + The Vultures. + In Kedar's Tents. + Roden's Corner. + Barlasch of the Guard. + The Velvet Glove. + + MORRISON, ARTHUR. + A Child of the Jago. + + NICHOLSON, MEREDITH. + The War of the Carolinas. + The House of a Thousand Candles. + + NORRIS, FRANK. + The Octopus. + The Pit. + Shanghaied. + + OLLIVANT, ALFRED. + Owd Bob. + + PAIN, BARRY. + The One Before. + + PARKER, SIR GILBERT. + The Battle of the Strong. + The Translation of a Savage. + An Adventurer of the North. + When Valmond came to Pontiac. + The Right of Way. + Donovan Pasha. + The Seats of the Mighty. + + PASTURE, Mrs. H. De La. + The Man from America. + The Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square. + The Grey Knight. + + PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. + The American Prisoner. + The Farm of the Dagger. + + PRIOR, JAMES. + Forest Folk. + A Walking Gentleman. + + "Q." + Sir John Constantine. + Major Vigoureux. + Shining Ferry. + True Tilda. + Lady Good-for-Nothing. + Hetty Wesley. + + RIDGE, W. PETT. + Mrs. Galer's Business. + + ROBERTS, MORLEY. + Salt of the Sea. + + ROBINS, E. + Come and Find Me. + The Open Question. + + SAVILE, FRANK. + The Road. + + SEDGWICK, Miss A. D. + Valerie Upton. + + SIDGWICK, Mrs. A. + Cynthia's Way. + Cousin Ivo. + + SILBERRAD, UNA L. + The Good Comrade. + John Bolsover. + Ordinary People. + + SNAITH, J. C. + Fortune. + + STEEL, FLORA ANNIE. + The Potter's Thumb. + On the Face of the Waters. + + TARKINGTON, BOOTH. + Monsieur Beaucaire, and The Beautiful Lady. + The Gentleman from Indiana. + + TWAIN, MARK. + Tom Sawyer. + Huckleberry Finn. + + VACHELL, H. A. + John Charity. + The Waters of Jordan. + The Other Side. + The Paladin. + Brothers. + + VERNEDE, R. E. + The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel. + + WARD, MRS. HUMPHRY. + The Marriage of William Ashe. + Robert Elsmere. + Marcella. + Lady Rose's Daughter. + Sir George Tressady. + Helbeck of Bannisdale. + Eleanor. + + WELLS, H. G. + Kipps. + The Food of the Gods. + Love and Mr. Lewisham. + The First Men in the Moon. + The Sleeper Awakes. + The Invisible Man. + The History of Mr. Polly. + The Country of the Blind. + The War in the Air. + + WEYMAN, STANLEY J. + The House of the Wolf. + A Gentleman of France. + Sophia. + + WHITE, STEWART E. + The Blazed Trail. + Rules of the Game. + + WHITEING, RICHARD. + No. 5 John Street. + + WILLIAMSON, C. N. and A. M. + The Princess Passes. + Love and the Spy. + The Lightning Conductor. + + +T. NELSON & SONS, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Franklin Kane, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKLIN KANE *** + +***** This file should be named 18886-8.txt or 18886-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/8/18886/ + +Produced by Louise Pryor, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/18886-8.zip b/18886-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..00cd071 --- /dev/null +++ b/18886-8.zip diff --git a/18886-h.zip b/18886-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..be55892 --- /dev/null +++ b/18886-h.zip diff --git a/18886-h/18886-h.htm b/18886-h/18886-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2e63be --- /dev/null +++ b/18886-h/18886-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11596 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Franklin Kane, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + p { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; + } + + table {margin-left: 35%; margin-right: 35%;} + + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + visibility: hidden; + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + } /* page numbers */ + + .linenum {position: absolute; top: auto; left: 4%;} /* poetry number */ + .blockquot{margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 10%;} + + .author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + .bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + .bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + .bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + .br {border-right: solid 2px;} + .bbox {border: solid 2px;} + + .center {text-align: center;} + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + .u {text-decoration: underline;} + + .caption {font-weight: bold;} + + .figcenter {margin: auto; text-align: center;} + + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Franklin Kane, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Franklin Kane + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +Release Date: July 22, 2006 [EBook #18886] +[Last updated: December 30, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKLIN KANE *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Pryor, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img001.jpg" alt="My dear Mr. Kane" title="My dear Mr. Kane" /></div> + +<h4>'My dear Mr. Kane, I do congratulate you,' Helen said.</h4> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img002.jpg" alt="Title Page" title="Title Page" /></div> +<p><br /><br /></p> + + + + + +<h1>FRANKLIN</h1> + +<h1>KANE</h1> + + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK</h2> + + + +<h4>(MRS. BASIL DE SÉLINCOURT)</h4> + +<p><br /></p> + +<p class='center'>T. NELSON & SONS<br />LONDON AND EDINBURGH<br /> PARIS: 189, rue Saint-Jacques<br /> +LEIPZIG: 35-37 Königstrasse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /></p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" width="65%" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">CHAPTER XXXII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV.</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV.</a></td></tr> +</table> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<h2>FRANKLIN KANE.</h2> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + + +<p>Miss Althea Jakes was tired after her long journey from Basle. It was a +brilliant summer afternoon, and though the shutters were half closed on +the beating Parisian sunlight, the hotel sitting-room looked, in its +brightness, hardly shadowed. Unpinning her hat, laying it on the table +beside her, passing her hands over the undisordered folds of her hair, +Miss Jakes looked about her at the old-gold brocade of the furniture, +the many mirrors in ornate gold frames, the photographs from Bougereau, +the long, crisp lace curtains. It was the same sitting-room that she had +had last year, the same that she had had the year before last—the same, +indeed, to which she had been conducted on her first stay at the Hôtel +Talleyrand, eight years ago. The brocade looked as new, the gilded +frames as glittering, the lace curtains as snowy as ever. Everything was +as she had always seen it, from the ugly Satsuma vases flanking the ugly +bronze clock on the mantelpiece, to the sheaf of pink roses lying beside +her in their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> white paper wrappings. Even Miss Harriet Robinson's choice +of welcoming flowers was the same. So it had always been, and so, no +doubt, it would continue to be for many years to come; and she, no +doubt, for many summers, would arrive from Basle to sit, jadedly, +looking at it.</p> + +<p>Amélie, her maid, was unpacking in the next room; the door was ajar, and +Miss Jakes could hear the creaking of lifted trays and the rustling of +multitudinous tissue-paper layers. The sounds suggested an answer to a +dim question that had begun to hover in her travel-worn mind. One came +back every summer to the Hôtel Talleyrand for the purpose of getting +clothes; that, perhaps, was a sufficient answer. Yet, to-day, it did not +seem sufficient. She was not really so very much interested in her +clothes; not nearly enough interested to make them a compensation for +such fatigue and loneliness as she was now feeling. And as she realised +this, a further question followed: in what was she particularly +interested? What was a sufficient motive for all the European +journeyings with which her life, for the past ten or twelve years, had +been filled? In a less jaded mood, in her usual mood of mild, if rather +wistful, assurance, she would have answered at once that she was +interested in everything—in everything that was of the best—pictures, +music, places, and people. These surely were her objects.</p> + +<p>She was that peculiarly civilised being, the American woman of +independent means and discriminating tastes, whose cosmopolitan studies +and acquaintances give, in their multiplicity, the impression of a full, +if not a completed, life. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> to-day the gloomy question hovered: was +not the very pilgrimage to Bayreuth, the study of archæology in Rome, +and of pictures in Florence, of much the same nature as the yearly visit +to Paris for clothes? What was attained by it all? Was it not something +merely superficial, to be put on and worn, as it were, not to be lived +for with a growing satisfaction? Miss Jakes did not answer this +question; she dismissed it with some indignation, and she got up and +rang rather sharply for tea, which was late; and after asking the +garçon, with a smile that in its gentleness contrasted with the +sharpness of the pull, that it might be brought at once, she paused near +the table to lean over and smell her sheaf of roses, and to read again, +listlessly, Miss Harriet Robinson's words of affectionate greeting. Miss +Robinson was a middle-aged American lady who lived in Paris, and had +long urged Althea to settle there near her. Ten years ago, when she had +first met Miss Robinson in Boston, Althea had thought her a brilliant +and significant figure; but she had by now met too many of her kind—in +Rome, in Florence, in Dresden—to feel any wish for a more intimate +relationship. She was fond of Miss Robinson, but she prayed that fate +did not reserve for her a withering to the like brisk, colourless +spinsterhood. This hope, the necessity for such hope, was the final +depth of her gloomy mood, and she found herself looking at something +very dark as she stood holding Miss Robinson's expensive roses. For, +after all, what was going to become of her? The final depth shaped +itself to-day in more grimly realistic fashion than ever before: what +was she going to do with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> herself, in the last resort, unless something +happened? Her mind dwelt upon all the visible alternatives. There was +philanthropic lunch-going and lunch-giving spinsterhood in Boston; there +was spinsterhood in Europe, semi-social, semi-intellectual, and +monotonous in its very variety, for Althea had come to feel change as +monotonous; or there was spinsterhood in England established near her +friend, Miss Buckston, who raised poultry in the country, and went up to +London for Bach choir practices and Woman's Suffrage meetings. Althea +couldn't see herself as taking an interest in poultry or in Woman's +Suffrage, nor did she feel herself fitted for patriotic duties in +Boston. There was nothing for it, then, but to continue her present +nomadic life. After seeing herself shut in to this conclusion, it was a +real relief to her to hear the tea-tray chink outside, and to see it +enter, high on the garçon's shoulder, as if with a trivial but cheerful +reply to her dreary questionings. Tea, at all events, would always +happen and always be pleasant. Althea smiled sadly as she made the +reflection, for she was not of an Epicurean temperament. After she had +drunk her tea she felt strengthened to go in and ask Amélie about her +clothes. She might have to get a great many new ones, especially if she +went home for the autumn and winter, as she half intended to do. She +took up the roses, as she passed them, to show to Amélie. Amélie was a +bony, efficient Frenchwoman, with high cheek-bones and sleek black hair. +She had come to Althea first, many years ago, as a courier-maid, to take +her back to America. Althea's mother had died in Dresden, and Althea had +been equipped<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> by anxious friends with this competent attendant for her +sad return journey. Amélie had proved intelligent and reliable in the +highest degree, and though she had made herself rather disagreeable +during her first year in Boston, she had stayed on ever since. She still +made herself disagreeable from time to time, and Althea had sometimes +lacked only the courage to dismiss her; but she could hardly imagine +herself existing without Amélie, and in Europe Amélie was seldom +disagreeable. In Europe, at the worst, she was gruff and ungracious, and +Althea was fond enough of her to ignore these failings, although they +frightened her a little; but though an easily intimidated person, and +much at a loss in meeting opposition or rudeness, she was also +tenacious. She might be frightened, but people could never make her do +what she didn't want to do, not even Amélie. Her relations with Amélie +were slightly strained just now, for she had not taken her advice as to +their return journey from Venice. Amélie had insisted on Mont Cenis, and +Althea had chosen the St. Gothard; so that it was as a measure of +propitiation that she selected three of the roses for Amélie as she went +into the bedroom. Amélie, who was kneeling before one of the larger +boxes and carefully lifting skirts from its trays, paused to sniff at +the flowers, and to express a terse thanks and admiration. 'Ah, bien +merci, mademoiselle,' she said, laying her share on the table beside +her.</p> + +<p>She was not very encouraging about the condition of Althea's wardrobe.</p> + +<p>'Elles sont défraîchies—démodées—en vérité,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> mademoiselle,' she +replied, when Althea asked if many new purchases were necessary.</p> + +<p>Althea sighed. 'All the fittings!'</p> + +<p>'Il faut souffrir pour être belle,' said Amélie unsympathetically.</p> + +<p>Althea had not dared yet to tell her that she might be going back to +America that winter. The thought of Amélie's gloom cast a shadow over +the project, and she could not yet quite face it. She wandered back to +the sitting-room, and, thinking of Amélie's last words, she stood for +some time and looked at herself in the large mirror which rose from +mantelpiece to cornice, enclosed in cascades of gilt. One of the things +that Althea, in her mild assurance, was really secure of—for, as we +have intimated, her assurance often covered a certain insecurity—was +her own appearance. She didn't know about 'belle,' that seemed rather a +trivial term, and the English equivalent better to express the +distinctive characteristic of her face. She had so often been told she +was nobly beautiful that she did not see herself critically, and she now +leaned her elbow on the mantelpiece and gazed at herself with sad +approbation. The mirror reflected only her head and shoulders, and Miss +Jakes's figure could not, even by a partisan, have been described as +beautiful; she was short, and though immature in outline, her form was +neither slender nor graceful. Althea did not feel these defects, and was +well satisfied with her figure, especially with her carriage, which was +full of dignity; but it was her head that best pleased her, and her +head, indeed, had aspects of great benignity and sweetness. It was a +large head, crowned with coils of dull gold hair;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> her clothing followed +the fashions obediently, but her fashion of dressing her hair did not +vary, and the smooth parting, the carved ripples along her brow became +her, though they did not become her stiffly conventional attire. Her +face, though almost classic in its spaces and modelling, lacked in +feature the classic decision and amplitude, so that the effect was +rather that of a dignified room meagrely furnished. For these +deficiencies, however, Miss Jakes's eyes might well be accepted as +atonement. They were large, dark, and innocent; they lay far apart, +heavily lidded and with wistful eyebrows above them; their expression +varied easily from lucid serenity to a stricken, expectant look, like +that of a threatened doe, and slight causes could make Miss Jakes's eyes +look stricken. They did not look stricken now, but they looked +profoundly melancholy.</p> + +<p>Here she stood, in the heartless little French sitting-room, meaning so +well, so desirous of the best, yet alone, uncertain of any aim, and very +weary of everything.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + + +<p>Althea, though a cosmopolitan wanderer, had seldom stayed in an hotel +unaccompanied. She did not like, now, going down to the <i>table d'hôte</i> +dinner alone, and was rather glad that her Aunt Julia and Aunt Julia's +two daughters were to arrive in Paris next week. It was really almost +the only reason she had for being glad of Aunt Julia's arrival, and she +could imagine no reason for being glad of the girls'. Tiresome as it was +to think of going to tea with Miss Harriet Robinson, to think of hearing +from her all the latest gossip, and all the latest opinions of the +latest books and pictures—alert, mechanical appreciations with which +Miss Robinson was but too ready—it was yet more tiresome to look +forward to Aunt Julia's appreciations, which were dogmatic and often +belated, and to foresee that she must run once more the gauntlet of Aunt +Julia's disapproval of expatriated Americans. Althea was accustomed to +these assaults and met them with weary dignity, at times expostulating: +'It is all very well for you, Aunt Julia, who have Uncle Tom and the +girls; I have nobody, and all my friends are married.' But this brought +upon her an invariable retort: 'Well, why don't you get married then? +Franklin Winslow Kane asks nothing better.' This retort angered Althea, +but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> she was too fond of Franklin Winslow Kane to reply that perhaps +she, herself, did ask something better. So that it was as a convenience, +and not as a comfort, that she looked forward to Aunt Julia; and to the +girls she did not look forward at all. They were young, ebullient, +slangy; they belonged to a later generation than her own, strange to her +in that it seemed weighted with none of the responsibilities and +reverences that she had grown up among. It was a generation that had no +respect for and no anxiety concerning Europe; that played violent +outdoor games, and went without hats in summer.</p> + +<p>The dining-room was full when she went down to dinner, her inward tremor +of shyness sustained by the consciousness of the perfect fit and cut of +her elaborate little dress. People sat at small tables, and the general +impression was one of circumspection and withdrawal. Most of the +occupants were of Althea's type—richly dressed, quiet-voiced Americans, +careful of their own dignity and quick at assessing other people's. A +French family loudly chattered and frankly stared in one corner; for the +rest, all seemed to be compatriots.</p> + +<p>But after Althea had taken her seat at her own table near the pleasantly +open window, and had consulted the menu and ordered a half-bottle of +white wine, another young woman entered and went to the last vacant +table left in the room, the table next Althea's—so near, indeed, that +the waiter found some difficulty in squeezing himself between them when +he presented the <i>carte des vins</i> to the newcomer.</p> + +<p>She was not an American, Althea felt sure of this at once, and the mere +negation was so emphatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> that it almost constituted, for the first +startled glance, a complete definition. But, glancing again and again, +while she ate her soup, Althea realised there were so many familiar +things the newcomer was not, that she seemed made up of differences. The +fact that she was English—she spoke to the waiter absent-mindedly in +that tongue—did not make her less different, for she was like no +English person that Althea had ever seen. She engaged at once the whole +of her attention, but at first Althea could not have said whether this +attention were admiring; her main impression was of oddity, of something +curiously arresting and noticeable.</p> + +<p>The newcomer sat in profile to Althea, her back to the room, facing the +open window, out of which she gazed vaguely and unseeingly. She was +dressed in black, a thin dress, rather frayed along the edges—an +evening dress; though, as a concession to Continental custom, she had a +wide black scarf over her bare shoulders. She sat, leaning forward, her +elbows on the table, and once, when she glanced round and found Althea's +eyes fixed on her, she looked back for a moment, but with something of +the same vagueness and unseeingness with which she looked out of the +window.</p> + +<p>She was very odd. An enemy might say that she had Chinese eyes +and a beak-like nose. The beak was small, as were all the +features—delicately, decisively placed in the pale, narrow face—yet it +jutted over prominently, and the long eyes were updrawn at the outer +corners and only opened widely with an effect of effort. She had +quantities of hair, dense and dark, arranged with an ordered +carelessness, and widely framing her face and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> throat. She was very +thin, and she seemed very tired; and fatigue, which made Althea look +wistful, made this young lady look bored and bitter. Her grey eyes, +perhaps it was the strangeness of their straight-drawn upper lids, were +dazed and dim in expression. She ate little, leaned limply on her +elbows, and sometimes rubbed her hands over her face, and sat so, her +fingers in her hair, for a languid moment. Dinner was only half over +when she rose and went away, her black dress trailing behind her, and a +moon-like space of neck visible between her heavily-clustered hair and +the gauze scarf.</p> + +<p>Althea could not have said why, but for the rest of the meal, and after +she had gone back to her sitting-room, the thought of the young lady in +black remained almost oppressively with her.</p> + +<p>She had felt empty and aimless before seeing her; since seeing her she +felt more empty, more aimless than ever. It was an absurd impression, +and she tried to shake it off with the help of a recent volume of +literary criticism, but it coloured her mind as though a drop of some +potent chemical had been tipped into her uncomfortable yet indefinable +mood, and had suddenly made visible in it all sorts of latent elements.</p> + +<p>It was curious to feel, as a deep conviction about a perfect stranger, +that though the young lady in black might often know moods, they would +never be undefined ones; to be sure that, however little she had, she +would always accurately know what she wanted. The effect of seeing some +one so hard, so clear, so alien, was much as if, a gracefully moulded +but fragile earthenware pot, she had suddenly, while floating down the +stream, found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> herself crashing against the bronze vessel of the fable.</p> + +<p>A corrective to this morbid state of mind came to her with the evening +post, and in the form of a thick letter bearing the Boston postmark. +Franklin Winslow Kane had not occurred to Althea as an alternative to +the various forms of dignified extinction with which her imagination had +been occupied that afternoon. Franklin often occurred to her as a +solace, but he never occurred to her as an escape.</p> + +<p>He was a young man of very homespun extraction, who hovered in Boston on +the ambiguous verge between the social and the scholastic worlds; the +sort of young man whom one asked to tea rather than to dinner. He was an +earnest student, and was attached to the university by an official, +though unimportant, tie. A physicist, and, in his own sober way, with +something of a reputation, he was profoundly involved in theories that +dealt with the smallest things and the largest—molecules and the +formation of universes.</p> + +<p>He had first proposed to Althea when she was eighteen. She was now +thirty-three, and for all these years Franklin had proposed to her on +every occasion that offered itself. He was deeply, yet calmly, +determinedly, yet ever so patiently, in love with her; and while other +more eligible and more easily consoled aspirants had drifted away and +got married and become absorbed in their growing families, Franklin +alone remained admirably faithful. She had never given him any grounds +for expecting that she might some day marry him, yet he evidently found +it impossible to marry anybody<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> else. This was the touching fact about +Franklin, the one bright point, as it were, in his singularly colourless +personality. His fidelity was like a fleck of orange on the wing of some +grey, unobtrusive moth; it made him visible.</p> + +<p>Althea's compassionate friendship seemed to sustain him sufficiently on +his way; he did not pine or protest, though he punctually requested. He +frequently appeared and he indefatigably wrote, and his long constancy, +the unemotional trust and closeness of their intimacy, made him seem +less a lover than the American husband of tradition, devoted and +uncomplaining, who had given up hoping that his wife would ever come +home and live with him.</p> + +<p>Althea rather resented this aspect of their relation; she was well aware +of its comicality; but though Franklin's devotion was at times something +of a burden, though she could expect from him none of the glamour of +courtship, she could ill have dispensed with his absorption in her. +Franklin's absorption in her was part of her own personality; she would +hardly have known herself without it; and her relation to him, irksome, +even absurd as she sometimes found it, was perhaps the one thing in her +life that most nearly linked her to reality; it was a mirage, at all +events, of the responsible affections that her life lacked.</p> + +<p>And now, in her mood of positive morbidity, the sight of Franklin's +handwriting on the thick envelope brought her the keenest sense she had +ever had of his value. One might have no aim oneself, yet to be some one +else's aim saved one from that engulfing consciousness of nonentity; one +might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> be uncertain and indefinite, but a devotion like Franklin's +really defined one. She must be significant, after all, since this very +admirable person—admirable, though ineligible—had found her so for so +many years. It was with a warming sense of restoration, almost of +reconstruction, that she opened the letter, drew out the thickly-folded +sheets of thin paper and began to read the neat, familiar writing. He +told her everything that he was doing and thinking, and about everything +that interested him. He wrote to her of kinetics and atoms as if she had +been a fellow-student. It was as if, helplessly, he felt the whole bulk +of his outlook to be his only chance of interesting her, since no detail +was likely to do so. Unfortunately it didn't interest her much. +Franklin's eagerness about some local election, or admiration for some +talented pupil, or enthusiasm in regard to a new theory that delved +deeper and circled wider than any before, left her imagination inert, as +did he. But to-night all these things were transformed by the greatness +of her own need and of her own relief. And when she read that Franklin +was to be in Europe in six weeks' time, and that he intended to spend +some months there, and, if she would allow it, as near her as was +possible, a sudden hope rose in her and seemed almost a joy.</p> + +<p>Was it so impossible, after all, as an alternative? Equipped with her +own outlooks, with her wider experience, and with her ample means, might +not dear Franklin be eligible? To sink back on Franklin, after all these +years, would be, of course, to confess to failure; but even in failure +there were choices, and wasn't this the best form of failure?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Franklin +was not, could never be, the lover she had dreamed of; she had never met +that lover, and she had always dreamed of him. Franklin was +dun-coloured; the lover of her dreams a Perseus-like flash of purple and +gold, ardent, graceful, compelling, some one who would open doors to +large, bright vistas, and lead her into a life of beauty. But this was a +dream and Franklin was the fact, and to-night he seemed the only fact +worth looking at. Wasn't dun-colour, after all, preferable to the +trivial kaleidoscope of shifting tints which was all that the future, +apart from Franklin, seemed to offer her? Might not dun-colour, even, +illuminated by joy, turn to gold, like highway dust when the sun shines +upon it? Althea wondered, leaning back in her chair and gazing before +her; she wondered deeply.</p> + +<p>If only Franklin would come in now with the right look. If only he would +come in with the right word, or, if not with the word, with an even more +compelling silence! Compulsion was needed, and could Franklin compel? +Could he make her fall in love with him? So she wondered, sitting alone +in the Paris hotel, the open letter in her hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + + +<p>When Althea went in to lunch next day, after an arduous morning of +shopping, she observed, with mingled relief and disappointment, that the +young lady in black was not in her place. She might very probably have +gone away, and it was odd to think that an impression so strong was +probably to remain an impression merely. On the whole, she was sorry to +think that it might be so, though the impression had not been altogether +happy.</p> + +<p>After lunch she lay down and read reviews for a lazy hour, and then +dressed to receive Miss Harriet Robinson, who, voluble and beaming, +arrived punctually at four.</p> + +<p>Miss Robinson looked almost exactly as she had looked for the last ten +years. She changed as little as the hotel drawing-room, but that the +pictures on the wall, the vases on the shelf of her mental decoration +varied with every season. She was always passionately interested in +something, and it was surprising to note how completely in the new she +forgot last year's passion. This year it was eugenics and Strauss; the +welfare of the race had suddenly engaged her attention, and the menaced +future of music. She was slender, erect, and beautifully dressed. Her +hands were small,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> and she constantly but inexpressively gesticulated +with them; her elaborately undulated hair looked like polished, fluted +silver; her eyes were small, dark, and intent; she smiled as constantly +and as inexpressively as she gesticulated.</p> + +<p>'And so you really think of going back for the winter?' she asked Althea +finally, when the responsibilities of parenthood and the impermanency of +modern musical artifices had been demonstrated. 'Why, my dear? You see +everybody here. Everybody comes here, sooner or later.'</p> + +<p>'I don't like getting out of touch with home,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'I confess that I feel this home,' said Miss Robinson. 'America is so +horribly changed, so vulgarised. The people they accept socially! And +the cost of things! My dear, the last time I went to the States I had to +pay five hundred francs—one hundred dollars—for my winter hat! <i>Je +vous demande!</i> If they will drive us out they must take the +consequences.'</p> + +<p>Althea felt tempted to inquire what these might be. Miss Robinson +sometimes roused a slight irony in her; but she received the +expostulation with a dim smile.</p> + +<p>'Why won't you settle here?' Miss Robinson continued, 'or in Rome—there +is quite a delightful society in Rome—or Florence, or London. Not that +I could endure the English winter.'</p> + +<p>'I've sometimes thought of England,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'Well, do think of it. I'm perfectly disinterested. Rather than have you +unsettled, I would like to have you settled there. You have interesting +friends, I know.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Yes, very interesting,' said Althea, with some satisfaction.</p> + +<p>'You would probably make quite a place for yourself in London, if you +went at it carefully and consideringly, and didn't allow the wrong sort +of people to <i>accaparer</i> you. We always count, when we want to, we +American women of the good type,' said Miss Robinson, with frank +complacency; 'and I don't see why, with your gifts and charm, you +shouldn't have a salon, political or artistic.'</p> + +<p>Althea was again tempted to wonder what it was Miss Robinson counted +for; but since she had often been told that her gifts and charm demanded +a salon, she was inclined to believe it. 'It's only,' she demurred, +'that I have so many friends, in so many places; it is hard to decide on +settling.'</p> + +<p>'One never does make a real life for oneself until one does settle. I've +found that out for myself,' said Miss Robinson.</p> + +<p>It did not enter into her mind that Althea might still settle, in a +different sense. She was of that vast army of rootless Europeanised +Americans, who may almost be said to belong to a celibate order, so +little does the question of matrimony and family life affect their +existence. For a younger, more frivolous type, Europe might have a +merely matrimonial significance; but to Miss Robinson, and to thousands +of her kind, it meant an escape from displeasing circumstance and a +preoccupation almost monastic with the abstract and the æsthetic. To +Althea it had never meant merely that. Her own people in America were +fastidious and exclusive; from choice, they considered, but, in reality, +partly from necessity; they had never been rich<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> enough or fashionable +enough to be exposed to the temptation of great European alliances. +Althea would have scorned such ambitions as basely vulgar; she had never +thought of Europe as an arena for social triumphs; but it had assuredly +been coloured for her with the colour of romance. It was in Europe, +rather than in America, that she expected to find, if ever, her ardent, +compelling wooer. And it irritated her a little that Miss Robinson +should not seem to consider such a possibility for her.</p> + +<p>She did not accept her friend's invitation to go with her to the +Français that evening; the weariness of the morning of shopping was her +excuse. She wanted to study a little; she never neglected to keep her +mind in training; and after dinner she sat down with a stout tome on +political economy. She had only got through half a chapter when Amélie +came to her and asked her if she could suggest a remedy for a young lady +next door who, the <i>femme de chambre</i> said, was quite alone, and had +evidently succumbed to a violent attack of influenza.</p> + +<p>'C'est une dame anglaise,' said Amélie, 'et une bien gentille.'</p> + +<p>Althea sprang up, strangely excited. Was it the lady in black? Had she +then not gone yet? 'Next door, you say?' she asked. Yes; the stranger's +bedroom was next her own, and she had no <i>salon</i>.</p> + +<p>'I will go in myself and see her,' said Althea, after a moment of +reflection.</p> + +<p>She was not at all given to such impulses, and, under any other +circumstances, would have sent Amélie with the offer of assistance. But +she sud<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>denly felt it an opportunity, for what she could not have said. +It was like seeing a curious-looking book opened before one; one wanted +to read in it, if only a snatched paragraph here and there.</p> + +<p>Amélie protested as to infection, but Althea was a resourceful traveller +and had disinfectants for every occasion. She drenched her handkerchief, +gargled her throat, and, armed with her little case of remedies, knocked +at the door near by. A languid voice answered her and she entered.</p> + +<p>The room was lighted by two candles that stood on the mantelpiece, and +the bed in its alcove was dim. Tossed clothes lay on the chairs; a +battered box stood open, its tray lying on the floor; the dressing-table +was in confusion, and the scent of cigarette smoke mingled with that of +a tall white lily that was placed in a vase on a little table beside the +bed. To the well-maided Althea the disorder was appalling, yet it +expressed, too, something of charm. The invalid lay plunged in her +pillows, her dark hair tossed above her head, and, as Althea approached, +she did not unclose her eyes.</p> + +<p>'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Althea, feeling some trepidation. 'My maid +told me that you were ill—that you had influenza, and I know just what +to do for it. May I give you some medicine? I do hope I have not waked +you up,' for the invalid was now looking at her with some astonishment.</p> + +<p>'No; I wasn't asleep. How very kind of you. I thought it was the +chambermaid,' she said. 'Forgive me for seeming so rude.'</p> + +<p>Her eyes were more dazed than ever, and she more mysterious, with her +unbound hair.</p> + +<p>'You oughtn't to lie with your arms outside the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> covers like that,' said +Althea. 'It's most important not to get chilled. I'm afraid you don't +know how to take care of yourself.' She smiled a little, gentle and +assured, though inwardly with still a tremor; and she drew the clothes +about the invalid, who had relapsed passively on to her pillows.</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid I don't. How very kind of you!' she murmured again.</p> + +<p>Althea brought a glass of water and, selecting her little bottle, poured +out the proper number of drops. 'You were feeling ill last night, +weren't you?' she said, after the dose had been swallowed. 'I thought +that you looked ill.'</p> + +<p>'Last night?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, don't you remember? I sat next you in the dining-room.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes; of course, of course! I remember now. You had this dress on; I +noticed all the little silver tassels. Yes, I've been feeling wretched +for several days; I've done hardly anything—no shopping, no +sight-seeing, and I ought to be back in London to-morrow; but I suppose +I'll have to stay in bed for a week; it's very tiresome.' She spoke +wearily, yet in decisive little sentences, and her voice, its hardness +and its liquid intonations, made Althea think of wet pebbles softly +shaken together.</p> + +<p>'You haven't sent for a doctor?' she inquired, while she took out her +small clinical thermometer.</p> + +<p>'No, indeed; I never send for doctors. Can't afford 'em,' said the young +lady, with a wan grimace. 'Must I put that into my mouth?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, please; I must take your temperature.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> I think, if you let me +prescribe for you, I can see after you as well as a doctor,' Althea +assured her. 'I'm used to taking care of people who are ill. The friend +I've just been staying with in Venice had influenza very badly while I +was with her.'</p> + +<p>She rather hoped, after the thermometer was removed, that the young lady +would ask her some question about Venice and her present destination; +but, though so amiable and so grateful, she did not seem to feel any +curiosity about the good Samaritan who thus succoured her.</p> + +<p>Althea found her patient less feverish next morning when she went in +early to see her, and though she said that her body felt as though it +were being beaten with red-hot hammers, she smiled in saying it, and +Althea then, administering her dose, asked her what her name might be.</p> + +<p>It was Helen Buchanan, she learned.</p> + +<p>'And mine is Althea Jakes. You are English, aren't you?'</p> + +<p>'Oh no, I'm Scotch,' said Miss Buchanan.</p> + +<p>'And I am American. Do you know any Americans?'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, quite a lot. One of them is a Mrs. Harrison, and lives in +Chicago,' said Miss Buchanan, who seemed in a more communicative mood. +'I met her in Nice one winter; a very nice, kind woman, who gives most +sumptuous parties. Her husband is a millionaire; one never sees him. Do +you come from Chicago? Do you know her?'</p> + +<p>Althea, with some emphasis, said that she came from Boston.</p> + +<p>'Another,' Miss Buchanan pursued, 'lives in New York, though she is +usually over here; she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> is immensely rich, too. She hunts every winter +in England, and is great fun and is frightfully well up in +everything—pictures, books, music, you know: Americans usually are well +up, aren't they? She wants me to stay with her some day in New York; +perhaps I shall, if I can manage to afford the voyage. Her name is +Bigham; perhaps you know her.'</p> + +<p>'No. I know of her, though; she is very well known,' said Althea rather +coldly; for Mrs. Bigham was an excessively fashionable and reputedly +reckless lady who had divorced one husband and married another, and +whose doings filled more scrupulous circles with indignation and +unwilling interest.</p> + +<p>'Then I met a dear little woman in Oxford once,' said Miss Buchanan. +'She was studying there—she had come from a college in America. She was +so nice and clever, and charming, too; quaint and full of flavour. She +was going to teach in a college when she went back. She was very poor, +quite different from the others. Her father, she told me, kept a shop, +but didn't get on at all; and her brother, to whom she was devoted, sold +harmoniums. It was just like an American novel. Wayman was her +name—Miss Carrie Wayman; perhaps you know her. I forget the name of the +town she came from, but it was somewhere in the western part of +America.'</p> + +<p>No, Althea said, she did not know Miss Wayman, and she felt some little +severity for the confusion that Miss Buchanan's remarks indicated. With +greater emphasis than before, she said that she did not know the West at +all.</p> + +<p>'It must be rather nice—plains and cowboys<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> and Rocky Mountains,' Miss +Buchanan said. 'I've a cousin on a ranch in Dakota, and I've often +thought I'd like to go out there for a season; he says the riding is +wonderful, and the scenery and flowers. Oh, my wretched head; it feels +as if it were stuffed with incandescent cotton-wool.'</p> + +<p>'You must remember to keep your arms under the covers,' said Althea, as +Miss Buchanan lifted her hands and pressed them to her brows. 'And let +me plait your hair for you; it must be so hot and uncomfortable.'</p> + +<p>And now again, looking up at her while the friendly office was +performed, Miss Buchanan said, 'How kind you are! too kind for words. I +can't think what I should have done without you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + + +<p>It became easy after this for Althea to carry into effect all her +beneficent wishes. The friends who had taken Miss Buchanan to the +Riviera had gone on to London, leaving her alone in Paris for a week's +shopping, and there was no one else to look after her. She brought her +fruit and flowers and sat with her in all her spare moments. The feeling +of anxiety that had oppressed her on the evening of gloom when she had +first seen her was transformed into a soft and delightful perturbation. +As the unknown lady in black Miss Buchanan had indeed charmed as well as +oppressed her, and the charm grew while the oppression, though it still +hovered, was felt more as a sense of alluring mystery. She had never in +her life met any one in the least like Miss Buchanan. She was at once so +open and so impenetrable. She replied to all questions with complete +unreserve, but she had never, with all her candour, the air of making +confidences. It hurt Althea a little, and yet was part of the +allurement, to see that she was, probably, too indifferent to be +reticent. Lying on her pillows, a cigarette—all too frequently, Althea +considered—between her lips, and her hair wound in a heavy wreath upon +her head, she would listen pleasantly, and as pleasantly reply; and +Althea could not tell whether it was because she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> really found it +pleasant to talk and be talked to, or whether, since she had nothing +better to do, she merely showed good manners. Althea was sensitive to +every shade in manners, and was sure that Miss Buchanan, however great +her tact might be, did not find her a bore; yet she could not be at all +sure that she found her interesting, and this disconcerted her. +Sometimes the suspicion of it made her feel humble, and sometimes it +made her feel a little angry, for she was not accustomed to being found +uninteresting. She herself, however, was interested; and it was when she +most frankly owned to this, laying both anger and humility aside, that +she was happiest in the presence of her new acquaintance. She liked to +talk to her, and she liked to make her talk. From these conversations +she was soon able to build up a picture of Miss Buchanan's life. She +came of an old Scotch family, and she had spent her childhood and +girlhood in an old Scotch house. This house, Althea was sure, she really +did enjoy talking about. She described it to Althea: the way the rooms +lay, and the passages ran, and the queer old stairs climbed up and down. +She described the ghost that she herself had seen once—her +matter-of-fact acceptance of the ghost startled Althea—and the hills +and moors that one looked out on from the windows. Led by Althea's +absorbed inquiries, she drifted on to detailed reminiscence—the dogs +she had cared for, the flowers she had grown, and the dear red lacquer +mirror that she had broken. 'Papa did die that year,' she added, after +mentioning the incident.</p> + +<p>'Surely you don't connect the two things,' said Althea, who felt some +remonstrance necessary.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> Miss Buchanan said no, she supposed not; it was +silly to be superstitious; yet she didn't like breaking mirrors.</p> + +<p>Her brother lived in the house now. He had married some one she didn't +much care about, though she did not enlarge on this dislike. 'Nigel had +to marry money,' was all she said. 'He couldn't have kept the place +going if he hadn't. Jessie isn't at all a bad sort, and they get on very +well and have three nice little boys; but I don't much take to her nor +she to me, so that I'm not much there any more.'</p> + +<p>'And your mother?' Althea questioned, 'where does she live? Don't you +stay with her ever?' She had gathered that the widowed Mrs. Buchanan was +very pretty and very selfish, but she was hardly prepared for the +frankness with which Miss Buchanan defined her own attitude towards her.</p> + +<p>'Oh, I can't stand Mamma,' she said; 'we don't get on at all. I'm not +fond of rowdy people, and Mamma knows such dreadful bounders. So long as +people have plenty of money and make things amusing for her, she'll put +up with anything.'</p> + +<p>Althea had all the American reverence for the sanctities and loyalties +of the family, and these ruthless explanations filled her with uneasy +surprise. Miss Buchanan was ruthless about all her relatives; there were +few of them, apparently, that she cared for except the English cousins +with whom she had spent many years of girlhood, and the Aunt Grizel who +made a home for her in London. To her she alluded with affectionate +emphasis:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> 'Oh, Aunt Grizel is very different from the rest of them.'</p> + +<p>Aunt Grizel was not well off, but it was she who made Helen the little +allowance that enabled her to go about; and she had insured her life, so +that at her death, when her annuity lapsed, Helen should be sure of the +same modest sum. 'Owing to Aunt Grizel I'll just not starve,' said +Helen, with the faint grimace, half bitter, half comic, that sometimes +made her strange face still stranger. 'One hundred and fifty pounds a +year: think of it! Isn't it damnable? Yet it's better than nothing, as +Aunt Grizel and I often say after groaning together.'</p> + +<p>Althea, safely niched in her annual three thousand, was indeed +horrified.</p> + +<p>'One hundred and fifty,' she repeated helplessly. 'Do you mean that you +manage to dress on that now?'</p> + +<p>'Dress on it, my dear! I pay all my travelling expenses, my cabs, my +stamps, my Christmas presents—everything out of it, as well as buy my +clothes. And it will have to pay for my rent and food besides, when Aunt +Grizel dies—when I'm not being taken in somewhere. Of course, she still +counts on my marrying, poor dear.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, but, of course you <i>will</i> marry,' said Althea, with conviction.</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan, who was getting much better, was propped high on her +pillows to-day, and was attired in a most becoming flow of lace and +silk. Nothing less exposed to the gross chances of the world could be +imagined. She did not turn her eyes on her companion as the confident +assertion was made,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> and she kept silence for a moment. Then she +answered placidly:</p> + +<p>'Of course, if I'm to live—and not merely exist—I must try to, I +suppose.'</p> + +<p>Althea was taken aback and pained by the wording of this speech. Her +national susceptibilities were again wounded by the implication that a +rare and beautiful woman—for so she termed Helen Buchanan—might be +forced, not only to hope for marriage, but to seek it; the implication +that urgency lay rather in the woman's state than in the man's. She had +all the romantic American confidence in the power of the rare and +beautiful woman to marry when and whom she chose.</p> + +<p>'I am sure you need never try,' she said with warmth. 'I'm sure you have +dozens of delightful people in love with you.'</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan turned her eyes on her and laughed as though she found +this idea amusing. 'Why, in heaven's name, should I have dozens of +delightful people in love with me?'</p> + +<p>'You are so lovely, so charming, so distinguished.'</p> + +<p>'Am I? Thanks, my dear. I'm afraid you see things <i>en couleur de rose</i>.' +And, still smiling, her eyes dwelling on Althea with their indifferent +kindness, she went on: 'Have you delightful dozens in love with you?'</p> + +<p>Althea did not desert her guns. She felt that the very honour of their +sex—hers and Helen's—was on trial in her person. She might not be as +lovely as her friend—though she might be; that wasn't a matter for her +to inquire into; but as woman—as well-bred, highly educated, refined +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> gentle woman—she, too, was chooser, and not seeker.</p> + +<p>'Only one delightful person is in love with me at this moment, I'm sorry +to say,' she answered, smiling back; 'but I've had very nearly my proper +share in the past.' It had been necessary thus to deck poor Franklin out +if her standpoint were to be maintained; and, indeed, could not one deem +him delightful, in some senses—in moral senses; he surely was +delightfully good. The little effort to see dear Franklin's goodness as +delightful rather discomposed her, and as Miss Buchanan asked no further +question as to the one delightful suitor, the little confusion mounted +to her eyes and cheeks. She wondered if she had spoken tastelessly, and +hastened away from this personal aspect of the question.</p> + +<p>'You don't really mean—I'm sure you don't mean that you would marry +just for money.'</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan kept her ambiguous eyes half merrily, half pensively upon +her. 'Of course, if he were very nice. I wouldn't marry a man who wasn't +nice for money.'</p> + +<p>'Surely you couldn't marry a man unless you were in love with him?'</p> + +<p>'Certainly I could. Money lasts, and love so often doesn't.' Helen +continued to smile as she spoke.</p> + +<p>There was now a tremor of pain in Althea's protest. 'Dear Miss Buchanan, +I can't bear to hear you speak like that. I can't bear to think of any +one so lovely doing anything so sordid, so miserable, as making a +<i>mariage de convenance</i>.' Tears rose to her eyes.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan was again silent for a moment, and it was now her turn to +look slightly confused. 'It's very nice of you to mind,' she said; and +she added, as if to help Althea not to mind, 'But, you see, I am sordid; +I am miserable.'</p> + +<p>'Sordid? Miserable? Do you mean unhappy?' Poor Althea gazed, full of her +most genuine distress.</p> + +<p>'Oh no; I mean in your sense. I'm a poor creature, quite ordinary and +grubby; that's all,' said Miss Buchanan.</p> + +<p>They said nothing more of it then, beyond Althea's murmur of now +inarticulate protest; but the episode probably remained in Miss +Buchanan's memory as something rather puzzling as well as rather +pitiful, this demonstration of a feeling so entirely unexpected that she +had not known what to do with it.</p> + +<p>If, in these graver matters, she distressed Althea, in lesser ones she +was continually, if not distressing her, at all events calling upon her, +in complete unconsciousness, for readjustments of focus that were +sometimes, in their lesser way, painful too. When she asserted that she +was not musical, Althea almost suspected her of saying it in order to +evade her own descriptions of experiences at Bayreuth. Pleasantly as she +might listen, it was sometimes, Althea had discovered, with a restive +air masked by a pervasive vagueness; this vagueness usually drifted over +her when Althea described experiences of an intellectual or æsthetic +nature. It could be no question of evasion, however, when, in answer to +a question of Althea's, she said that she hated Paris. Since girlhood +Althea had accepted Paris as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> the final stage in a civilised being's +education: the Théâtre Français, the lectures at the Sorbonne, the +Louvre and the Cluny, and, for a later age, Anatole France—it seemed +almost barbarous to say that one hated the splendid city that clothed, +as did no other place in the world, one's body and one's mind. 'How can +you hate it?' she inquired. 'It means so much that is intellectual, so +much that is beautiful.'</p> + +<p>'I suppose so,' said Miss Buchanan. 'I do like to look at it sometimes; +the spaces and colour are so nice.'</p> + +<p>'The spaces, and what's in them, surely. What is it that you don't like? +The French haven't our standards of morality, of course, but don't you +think it's rather narrow to judge them by our standards?'</p> + +<p>Althea was pleased to set forth thus clearly her own liberality of +standard. She sometimes suspected Miss Buchanan of thinking her naïve. +But Miss Buchanan now looked a little puzzled, as if it were not this at +all that she had meant, and said presently that perhaps it was the +women's faces—the well-dressed women. 'I don't mind the poor ones so +much; they often look too sharp, but they often look kind and +frightfully tired. It is the well-dressed ones I can't put up with. And +the men are even more horrid. I always want to spend a week in walking +over the moors when I've been here. It leaves a hot taste in my mouth, +like some horrid liqueur.'</p> + +<p>'But the beauty—the intelligence,' Althea urged. 'Surely you are a +little intolerant, to see only people's faces in Paris. Think of the +Salon Carrée<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> and the Cluny; they take away the taste of the liqueur. +How can one have enough of them?'</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan again demurred. 'Oh, I think I can have enough of them.'</p> + +<p>'But you care for pictures, for beautiful things,' said Althea, half +vexed and half disturbed. But Miss Buchanan said that she liked having +them about her, not having to go and look at them. 'It is so stuffy in +museums, too; they always give me a headache. However, I don't believe I +really do care about pictures. You see, altogether I've had no +education.'</p> + +<p>Her education, indeed, contrasted with Althea's well-ordered and +elaborate progression, had been lamentable—a mere succession of +incompetent governesses. Yet, on pressing her researches, Althea, though +finding almost unbelievable voids, felt, more than anything else, tastes +sharp and fine that seemed to cut into her own tastes and show her +suddenly that she did not really like what she had thought she liked, or +that she liked what she had hardly before been aware of. All that Helen +could be brought to define was that she liked looking at things in the +country: at birds, clouds, and flowers; but though striking Althea as a +creature strangely untouched and unmoulded, she struck her yet more +strongly as beautifully definite. She marvelled at her indifference to +her own shortcomings, and she marvelled at the strength of personality +that could so dispense with other people's furnishings.</p> + +<p>Among the things that Helen made her see, freshly and perturbingly, was +the sheaf of friends in England of whom she had thought with such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +security when Miss Robinson had spoken of the London <i>salon</i>.</p> + +<p>Althea had been trained in a school of severe social caution. Social +caution was personified to her in her memory of her mother—a slender, +black-garbed lady, with parted grey hair, neatly waved along her brow, +and a tortoiseshell lorgnette that she used to raise, mildly yet +alarmingly, at foreign <i>tables d'hôtes</i>, for an appraising survey of the +company. The memory of this lorgnette operated with Althea as a sort of +social standard; it typified delicacy, dignity, deliberation, a +scrupulous regard for the claims of heredity, and a scrupulous avoidance +of uncertain or all too certain types. Althea felt that she had carried +on the tradition worthily. The lorgnette would have passed all her more +recent friends—those made with only its inspiration as a guide. She was +as careful as her mother as to whom she admitted to her +acquaintanceship, eschewing in particular those of her compatriots whose +accents or demeanour betrayed them to her trained discrimination as +outside the radius of acceptance. But Althea's kindness of heart was +even deeper than her caution, and much as she dreaded becoming involved +with the wrong sort of people, she dreaded even more hurting anybody's +feelings, with the result that once or twice she had made mistakes, and +had had, under the direction of Lady Blair, to withdraw in a manner as +painful to her feelings as to her pride. 'Oh no, my dear,' Lady Blair +had said of some English acquaintances whom Althea had met in Rome, and +who had asked her to come and see them in England. 'Quite impossible; +most worthy people, I am sure, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> no doubt the daughter took honours +at Girton—the middle classes are highly educated nowadays; but one +doesn't know that sort of people.'</p> + +<p>Lady Blair was the widow of a judge, and, in her large velvet +drawing-room, a thick fog outside and a number of elderly legal ladies +drinking tea about her, Althea had always felt herself to be in the very +heart of British social safety. Lady Blair was an old friend of her +mother's, and, with Miss Buckston, was her nearest English friend. She +also felt safe on the lawn under the mulberry-tree at Grimshaw Rectory, +and when ensconced for her long visit in Colonel and Mrs. Colling's +little house in Devonshire, where hydrangeas grew against a blue +background of sea, and a small white yacht rocked in the bay at the foot +of the garden.</p> + +<p>It was therefore with some perplexity that, here too, she brought from +her interviews with Helen an impression of new standards. They were not +drastic and relegating, like those of Lady Blair's; they did not make +her feel unsafe as Lady Blair's had done; they merely made her feel that +her world was very narrow and she herself rather ingenuous.</p> + +<p>Helen herself seemed unaware of standards, and had certainly never +experienced any of Althea's anxieties. She had always been safe, partly, +Althea had perceived, because she had been born safe, but, in the main, +because she was quite indifferent to safety. And with this indifference +and this security went the further fact that she had, probably, never +been ingenuous. With all her admiration, her affection for her new +friend, this sense of the change that she was working in her life +sometimes made Althea a little afraid of her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> and sometimes a little +indignant. She, herself, was perfectly safe in America, and when she +felt indignant she asked herself what Helen Buchanan would have done had +she been turned into a strange continent with hardly any other guides +than the memory of a lorgnette and a Baedeker.</p> + +<p>It was when she was bound to answer this question, and to recognise that +in such circumstances Miss Buchanan would have gone her way, entirely +unperturbed, and entirely sure of her own preferences, that Althea felt +afraid of her. In all circumstances, she more and more clearly saw it, +Miss Buchanan would impose her own standards, and be oppressed or +enlightened by none. Althea had always thought of herself as very calm +and strong; it was as calm and strong that Franklin Winslow Kane so +worshipped her; but when she talked to Miss Buchanan she had sharp +shoots of suspicion that she was, in reality, weak and wavering.</p> + +<p>Althea's accounts of her friends in England seemed to interest Miss +Buchanan even less than her accounts of Bayreuth. She had met Miss +Buckston, but had only a vague and, evidently, not a pleasant impression +of her. Lady Blair she had never heard of, nor the inmates of Grimshaw +Rectory. The Collings were also blanks, except that Mrs. Colling had an +uncle, an old Lord Taunton; and when Althea put forward this identifying +fact, Helen said that she knew him and liked him very much.</p> + +<p>'I suppose you know a great many people,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>Yes, Miss Buchanan replied, she supposed she did. 'Too many, sometimes. +One gets sick of them, don't you think? But perhaps your people are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> +more interesting than mine; you travel so much, and seem to know such +heaps of them all over the world.'</p> + +<p>But Althea, from these interviews, took a growing impression that though +Miss Buchanan might be sick of her own people, she would be far more +sick of hers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + + +<p>Miss Buchanan was well on the way to complete recovery, was able to have +tea every afternoon with Althea, and to be taken for long drives in the +Bois, when Aunt Julia and the girls arrived at the Hôtel Talleyrand.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pepperell was a sister of Althea's mother, and lived soberly and +solidly in New York, disapproving as much of millionaires and their +manners as of expatriated Americans. She was large and dressed with +immaculate precision and simplicity, and had it not been for a homespun +quality of mingled benevolence and shrewdness, she might have passed as +stately. But Mrs. Pepperell had no wish to appear stately, and was +rather intolerant of the pretension in others. Her sharp tongue had +indulged itself in a good many sallies on this score at her sister +Bessie's expense; Bessie being the lady of the lorgnette, Althea's +deceased mother.</p> + +<p>Althea, remembering that dear mother so well, all dignified elegance as +she had been—too dignified, too elegant, perhaps, to be either so +shrewd or so benevolent as her sister—always thought of Aunt Julia as +rather commonplace in comparison. Yet, as she followed in her wake on +the evening of her arrival, she felt that Aunt Julia was obviously and +eminently 'nice.' The one old-fashioned diamond<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> ornament at her throat, +the ruffles at her wrist, the gloss of her silver-brown hair, reminded +her of her own mother's preferences.</p> + +<p>The girls were 'nice,' too, as far as their appearance and breeding +went, but Althea found their manners very bad. They were not strident +and they were not arrogant, but so much noisiness and so much innocent +assurance might, to unsympathetic eyes, seem so. They were handsome +girls, fresh-skinned, athletic, tall and slender. They wore beautifully +simple white lawn dresses, and their shining fair hair was brushed off +their foreheads and tied at the back with black bows in a very becoming +fashion, though Althea thought the bows too large and the fashion too +obviously local.</p> + +<p>Helen was in her old place that night, and she smiled at Althea as she +and her party took their places at a table larger and at a little +distance. She was to come in for coffee after dinner, so that Althea +adjourned introductions. Aunt Julia looked sharply and appraisingly at +the black figure, and the girls did not look at all. They were filled +with young delight and excitement at the prospect of a three weeks' romp +in Paris, among dressmakers, tea-parties, and the opera. 'And Herbert +Vaughan is here. I've just had a letter from him, forwarded from +London,' Dorothy announced, to which Mildred, with glad emphasis, cried +'Bully!'</p> + +<p>Althea sighed, crumbled her bread, and looked out of the window +resignedly.</p> + +<p>'You mustn't talk slang before Cousin Althea,' said Dorothy.</p> + +<p>'What Cousin Althea needs is slang,' said Mildred.</p> + +<p>'I shan't lack it with you, shall I, Mildred?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Althea returned, with, a +rather chilly smile. She knew that Dorothy and Mildred considered her, +as they would have put it, 'A back number'; they liked to draw her out +and to shock her. She wanted to make it clear that she wasn't shocked, +but that she was wearied. At the same time it was true that Mildred and +Dorothy made her uncomfortable in subtler ways; she was, perhaps, a +little afraid of them, too. They, too, imposed their own standards, and +were oppressed and enlightened by none.</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia smiled indulgently at her children, and asked Althea if she +did not think that they were looking very well. They certainly were, and +Althea had to own it. 'But don't let them overdo their athletics, Aunt +Julia,' she said. 'It is such a pity when girls get brawny.'</p> + +<p>'I'm brawny; feel my muscle,' said Mildred, stretching a hard young arm +across the table. Althea shook her head. She did not like being made +conspicuous, and already the girls' loud voices had drawn attention; the +French family were all staring.</p> + +<p>'Who is the lady in black, Althea?' Mrs. Pepperell asked. 'A friend of +yours?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, a most charming friend,' said Althea. 'Helen Buchanan is her name; +she is Scotch—a very old family—and she is one of the most interesting +people I've ever known. You will meet her after dinner. She is coming in +to spend the evening.'</p> + +<p>'Where did you meet her? How long have you known her?' asked Aunt Julia, +evidently unimpressed.</p> + +<p>Althea said that she had met her here, but that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> they had mutual +friends, thinking of Miss Buckston in what she felt to be an emergency.</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia, with her air of general scepticism as to what she could find +so worth while in Europe, often made her embark on definitions and +declarations. She could certainly tolerate no uncertainty on the subject +of Helen's worth.</p> + +<p>'Very odd looking,' said Aunt Julia, while the girls glanced round +indifferently at the subject of discussion.</p> + +<p>'And peculiarly distinguished looking,' said Althea. 'She makes most +people look so half-baked and insignificant.'</p> + +<p>'I think it a rather sinister face,' said Aunt Julia. 'And how she +slouches! Sit up, Mildred. I don't want you to catch European tricks.'</p> + +<p>But, after dinner, Althea felt that Helen made her impression. She was +still wan and weak; she said very little, though she smiled very +pleasantly, and she sat—as Aunt Julia had said, 'slouched,' yet so +gracefully—in a corner of the sofa. The charm worked. The girls felt +it, Aunt Julia felt it, though Aunt Julia held aloof from it. Althea saw +that Aunt Julia, most certainly, did not interest Helen, but the girls +amused her; she liked them. They sat near her and made her laugh by +their accounts of their journey, the funny people on the steamer, their +plans for the summer, and life in America, as they lived it. Dorothy +assured her that she didn't know what fun was till she came to America, +and Mildred cried: 'Oh, do come! We'll give you the time of your life!' +Helen declared that she hoped some day to experience this climax.</p> + +<p>Before going to bed, and attired in her dressing-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>gown, Althea went to +Helen's room to ask her how she felt, but also to see what impression +her relatives had made. Helen was languidly brushing her hair, and +Althea took the brush from her and brushed it for her.</p> + +<p>'Isn't it lamentable,' she said, 'that Aunt Julia, who is full of a +certain sort of wise perception about other things, doesn't seem to see +at all how bad the children's manners are. She lets them monopolise +everybody's attention with the utmost complacency.'</p> + +<p>Helen, while her hair was being brushed, put out her hand for her watch +and was winding it. 'Have they bad manners?' she said. 'But they are +nice girls.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, they are nice. But surely you don't like their slang?'</p> + +<p>Helen smiled at the recollection of it. 'More fun than a goat,' she +quoted. 'Why shouldn't they talk slang?'</p> + +<p>'Dear Helen,'—they had come quite happily to Christian names—'surely +you care for keeping the language pure. Surely you think it regrettable +that the younger generation should defile and mangle it like that.'</p> + +<p>But Helen only laughed, and confessed that she really didn't care what +happened to the language. 'There'll always be plenty of people to talk +it too well,' she said.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pepperell, on her side, had her verdict, and she gave it some days +later when she and her niece were driving to the dressmaker's.</p> + +<p>'She is a very nice girl, Miss Buchanan, and clever, too, in her quiet +English way, though start<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>lingly ignorant. Dorothy actually told me that +she had never read any Browning, and thought that Sophocles was +Diogenes, and lived in a tub. But frankly, Althea, I can't say that I +take to her very much.'</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia, often irritating to Althea, was never more so than when, as +now, she assumed that her verdicts and opinions were of importance to +her niece. Althea shrank from open combat with anybody, yet she could, +under cover of gentle candour, plant her shafts. She planted one now in +answering: 'I don't think that you would, either of you, take to one +another. Helen's flavour is rather recondite.'</p> + +<p>'Recondite, my dear,' said Aunt Julia, who never pretended not to know +when a shaft had been planted. 'I think, everyday <i>mère de famille</i> as I +am, that I am quite capable of appreciating the recondite. Miss +Buchanan's appearance is striking, and she is an independent creature; +but, essentially, she is the most commonplace type of English +girl—well-bred, poor, idle, uneducated, and with no object in life +except to amuse herself and find a husband with money. And under that +air of sleepy indifference she has a very sharp eye to the main chance, +you may take my word for it.'</p> + +<p>Althea was very angry, the more so for the distorted truth this judgment +conveyed. 'I'm afraid I shouldn't take your word on any matter +concerning my friend,' she returned; 'and I think, Aunt Julia, that you +forget that it is my friend you are speaking of.'</p> + +<p>'My dear, don't lose your temper. I only say it to put you on your +guard. You are so given to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> idealisation, and you may find yourself +disappointed if you trust to depths that are not there. As to +friendship, don't forget that she is, as yet, the merest acquaintance.'</p> + +<p>'One may feel nearer some people in a week than to others after years.'</p> + +<p>'As to being near in a week—she doesn't feel near <i>you</i>; that is all I +mean. Don't cast your pearls too lavishly.'</p> + +<p>Althea made no reply, but under her air of unruffled calm, Aunt Julia's +shaft rankled.</p> + +<p>She found herself that afternoon, when she and Helen were alone at tea, +sounding her, probing her, for reassuring symptoms of warmth or +affection. 'I so hope that we may keep really in touch with one +another,' she said. 'I couldn't bear not to keep in touch with you, +Helen.'</p> + +<p>Helen looked at her with the look, vague, kind, and a little puzzled, +that seemed to plant Aunt Julia's shaft anew. 'Keep in touch,' she +repeated. 'Of course. You'll be coming to England some day, and then +you'll be sure to look me up, won't you?'</p> + +<p>'But, until I do come, we will write? You will write to me a great +deal?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, my dear, I do so hate writing. I never have anything to say in a +letter. Let us exchange postcards, when our doings require it.'</p> + +<p>'Postcards!' Althea could not repress a disconsolate note. 'How can I +tell from postcards what you are thinking and feeling?'</p> + +<p>'You may always take it for granted that I'm doing very little of +either,' said Helen, smiling.</p> + +<p>Althea was silent for a moment, and then, with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> distress apparent in +voice and face, she said: 'I can't bear you to say that.'</p> + +<p>Helen still smiled, but she was evidently at a loss. She added some milk +to her tea and took a slice of bread and butter before saying, more +kindly, yet more lightly than before: 'You mustn't judge me by yourself. +I'm not a bit thoughtful, you know, or warm-hearted and intellectual, +like you. I just rub along. I'm sure you'll not find it worth while +keeping in touch with me.'</p> + +<p>'It's merely that I care for you very much,' said Althea, in a slightly +quivering voice. 'And I can't bear to think that I am nothing to you.'</p> + +<p>There was again a little pause in which, because her eyes had suddenly +filled with tears, Althea looked down and could not see her friend. +Helen's voice, when she spoke, showed her that she was pained and +disconcerted. 'You make me feel like such a clumsy brute when you say +things like that,' she said. 'You are so kind, and I am so selfish and +self-centred. But of course I care for you too.'</p> + +<p>'Do you really?' said Althea, who, even if she would, could not have +retained the appearance of lightness and independence. 'You really feel +me as a friend, a true friend?'</p> + +<p>'If you really think me worth your while, of course. I don't see how you +can—an ill-tempered, ignorant, uninteresting woman, whom you've run +across in a hotel and been good to.'</p> + +<p>'I don't think of you like that, as you know. I think you a strangely +lovely and strangely interesting person. From the first moment I saw you +you appealed to me. I felt that you needed something—love and sympathy, +perhaps. The fact that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> it's been a sort of chance—our meeting—makes +it all the sweeter to me.'</p> + +<p>Again Helen was silent for a moment, and again Althea, sitting with +downcast eyes, knew that, though touched, she was uncomfortable. 'You +are too nice and kind for words,' she then said. 'I can't tell you how +kind I think it of you.'</p> + +<p>'Then we are friends? You do feel me as a friend who will always be +interested and always care?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, indeed; and I do so thank you.'</p> + +<p>Althea put out her hand, and Helen gave her hers, saying, 'You <i>are</i> a +dear,' and adding, as though to take refuge from her own discomposure, +'much too dear for the likes of me.'</p> + +<p>The bond was thus sealed, yet Aunt Julia's shaft still stuck. It was she +who had felt near, and who had drawn Helen near. Helen, probably, would +never have thought of keeping in touch. She was Helen's friend because +she had appealed for friendship, and because Helen thought her a dear. +The only comfort was to know that Helen's humility was real. She might +have offered her friendship could she have realised that it was of value +to anybody.</p> + +<p>It was a few evenings after this, and perhaps as a result of their talk, +that, as they sat in Althea's room over coffee, Helen said: 'Why don't +you come to England this summer, Althea?'</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia had proposed that Althea should go on to Bayreuth with her +and the girls, and Althea was turning over the plan, thinking that +perhaps she had had enough of Bayreuth, so that Helen's suggestion, +especially as it was made in Aunt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> Julia's presence, was a welcome one. +'Perhaps I will,' she said. 'Will you be there?'</p> + +<p>'I'll be in London, with Aunt Grizel, until the middle of July; after +that, in the country till winter. You ought to take a house in the +country and let me come to stay with you,' said Helen, smiling.</p> + +<p>'Will you pay me a long visit?' Althea smiled back.</p> + +<p>'As long as you'll ask me for.'</p> + +<p>'Well, you are asked for as long as you will stay. Where shall I get a +house? There are some nice ones near Miss Buckston's.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, don't let us be too near Miss Buckston,' said Helen, laughing.</p> + +<p>'But surely, Althea, you won't give up Bayreuth,' Aunt Julia interposed. +'It is going to be specially fine this year. And then you know so few +people in England, you will be very lonely. Nothing is more lonely than +the English country when you know nobody.'</p> + +<p>'Helen is a host in herself,' said Althea; and though Helen did not +realise the full force of the compliment, it was more than satisfactory +to have her acquiesce with: 'Oh, as to people, I can bring you heaps of +them, if you want them.'</p> + +<p>'It is a lovely idea,' said Althea; 'and if I must miss Bayreuth, Aunt +Julia, I needn't miss you and the girls. You will have to come and stay +with me. Do you know of a nice house, Helen, in pretty country, and not +too near Miss Buckston?' It was rather a shame of her, she felt, this +proviso, but indeed she had never found Miss Buckston endearing, and +since knowing Helen she had seen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> more clearly than before that she was +in many ways oppressive.</p> + +<p>Helen was reflecting. 'I do know of a house,' she said, 'in a very nice +country, too. You might have a look at it. It's where I used to go, as a +girl, you know, and stay with my cousins, the Digbys.'</p> + +<p>'That would be perfect, Helen.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, I don't know that you would find it perfect. It is a plain stone +house, with a big, dilapidated garden, nice trees and lawns, miles from +everything, and with old-fashioned, shabby furniture. Since Gerald came +into the place, he's not been able to keep it up, and he has to let it. +He hasn't been able to let it for the last year or so, and would be glad +of the chance. If you like the place you'll only have to say the word.'</p> + +<p>'I know I shall like it. Don't you like it?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, I love it; but that's a different matter. It is more of a home to +me than any place in the world.'</p> + +<p>'I consider it settled. I don't need to see it.'</p> + +<p>'No; it certainly isn't settled,' Helen replied, with her pleasant +decisiveness. 'You certainly shan't take it till you see it. I will +write to Gerald and tell him that no one else is to have it until you +do.'</p> + +<p>'I am quite determined to have that house,' said Althea. 'A place that +you love must be lovely. Write if you like. But the matter is settled in +my mind.'</p> + +<p>'Don't be foolish, my dear,' said Aunt Julia. 'Miss Buchanan is quite +right. You mustn't think of taking a house until you see it. How do you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> +know that the drainage is in order, or even that the beds are +comfortable. Miss Buchanan says that it is miles away from everything, +too. You may find the situation very dismal and unsympathetic.'</p> + +<p>'It's pretty country, I think,' said Helen, 'and I'm sure the drainage +and the beds are all right. But Althea must certainly see it first.'</p> + +<p>It was settled, however, quite settled in Althea's mind that she was to +take Merriston House. She bade Helen farewell three days later, and they +had arranged that they were, within a fortnight, to meet in London, and +go together to look at it.</p> + +<p>And Althea wrote to Franklin Winslow Kane, and informed him of her new +plans, and that he must be her guest at Merriston House for as long as +his own plans allowed him. Her mood in regard to Franklin had greatly +altered since that evening of gloom a fortnight ago. Franklin, then, had +seemed the only fact worth looking at; but now she seemed embarked on a +voyage of discovery, where bright new planets swam above the horizon +with every forward rock of her boat. Franklin was by no means dismissed; +Franklin could never be dismissed; but he was relegated; and though, as +far as her fondness went, he would always be firmly placed, she could +hardly place him clearly in the new and significantly peopled +environment that her new friendship opened to her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + + +<p>Helen Buchanan was a person greatly in demand, and, in her migratory +existence, her pauses at her Aunt Grizel's little house near Eaton +Square were, though frequent, seldom long. When she did come, her +bedroom and her sitting-room were always waiting for her, as was Aunt +Grizel with her cheerful 'Well, my dear, glad to see you back again.' +Their mutual respect and trust were deep; their affection, too, though +it was seldom expressed. She knew Aunt Grizel to the ground, and Aunt +Grizel knew her to the ground—almost; and they were always pleased to +be together.</p> + +<p>Helen's sitting-room, where she could see any one she liked and at any +time she liked, was behind the dining-room on the ground floor, and from +its window one saw a small neat garden with a plot of grass, bordering +flower-beds, a row of little fruit-trees, black-branched but brightly +foliaged, and high walls that looked as though they were built out of +sooty plum cake. Aunt Grizel's cat, Pharaoh, sleek, black, and stalwart, +often lay on the grass plot in the sunlight; he was lying there now, +languidly turned upon his side, with outstretched feet and drowsily +blinking eyes, when Helen and her cousin, Gerald Digby, talked together +on the day after her return from Paris.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>Gerald Digby stood before the fireplace looking with satisfaction at his +companion. He enjoyed looking at Helen, for he admired her more than any +woman he knew. It was always a pleasure to see her again; and, like Aunt +Grizel, he trusted and respected her deeply, though again, like Aunt +Grizel, he did not, perhaps, know her quite down to the ground. He +thought, however, that he did; he knew that Helen was as intimate with +nobody in the world as with him, not even with Aunt Grizel, and it was +one of his most delightful experiences to saunter through all the +chambers of Helen's mind, convinced that every door was open to him.</p> + +<p>Gerald Digby was a tall and very slender man; he tilted forward when he +walked, and often carried his hands in his pockets. He had thick, +mouse-coloured hair, which in perplexed or meditative moments he often +ruffled by rubbing his hand through it, and even when thus disordered it +kept its air of fashionable grace. His large, long nose, his finely +curved lips and eyelids, had a delicately carved look, as though the +sculptor had taken great care over the details of his face. His brown +eyes had thick, upturned lashes, and were often in expression absent and +irresponsible, but when he looked at any one, intent and merry, like a +gay dog's eyes. And of the many charming things about Gerald Digby the +most charming was his smile, which was as infectious as a child's, and +exposed a joyous array of large white teeth.</p> + +<p>He was smiling at his cousin now, for she was telling him, dryly, yet +with a mocking humour all her own, of her Paris fiasco that had delayed +her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> return to London by a fortnight, and, by the expense it had +entailed upon her, had deprived her of the new hat and dress that she +had hoped in Paris to secure. Talking of Paris led to the letter she had +sent him four or five days ago. 'About this rich American,' said Gerald; +'is she really going to take Merriston, do you think? It's awfully good +of you, Helen, to try and get a tenant for me.'</p> + +<p>'I don't know that you'd call her rich—not as Americans go; but I +believe she will take Merriston. She wanted to take it at once, on +faith; but I insisted that she must see it first.'</p> + +<p>'You must have cried up the dear old place for her to be so eager.'</p> + +<p>'I think she is eager about pleasing me,' said Helen. 'I told her that I +loved the place and hadn't been there for years, and that moved her very +much. She has taken a great fancy to me.'</p> + +<p>'Really,' said Gerald. 'Why?'</p> + +<p>'I'm sure I don't know. She is a dear little person, but rather funny.'</p> + +<p>'Of course, there is no reason why any one shouldn't take a fancy to +you,' said Gerald, smiling; 'only—to that extent—in so short a time.'</p> + +<p>'I appealed to her pity, I think; she came in and took care of me, and +was really unspeakably kind. And she seemed to get tremendously +interested in me. But then, she seemed capable of getting tremendously +interested in lots of things. I've noticed that Americans often take +things very seriously.'</p> + +<p>'And you became great pals?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I suppose we did.'</p> + +<p>'She interested you?'</p> + +<p>Helen smiled a little perplexedly, and lit a cigarette<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> before +answering. 'Well, no; I can't say that she did that; but that, probably, +was my own fault.'</p> + +<p>'Why didn't she interest you?' Gerald went on, taking a cigarette from +the case she offered. He was fond of such desultory pursuit of a +subject; he and Helen spent hours in idle exchanges of impression.</p> + +<p>Helen's answer was hardly illuminating: 'She wasn't interesting.'</p> + +<p>'It was rather interesting of her to take such an interest in you,' said +Gerald subtly.</p> + +<p>'No.' Helen warmed to the theme. It had indeed perplexed her, and she +was glad to unravel her impressions to this understanding listener. 'No, +that's just what it wasn't; it might have been if one hadn't felt her a +person so easily affected. She had—how can I put it?—it seems brutal +when she is such a dear—but she had so little stuff in her; it was as +if she had to find it all the time in other things and people. She is +like a glass of water that would like to be wine, and she has no wine in +her; it could only be poured in, and there's not room for much. At best +she can only be <i>eau rougie</i>.'</p> + +<p>Gerald laughed. 'How you see things, and say them! Poor Miss +Jakes!—that's her name, isn't it? She sounds tame.'</p> + +<p>'She is tame.'</p> + +<p>'Is she young, pretty?'</p> + +<p>'Not young, about my age; not pretty, but it's a nice face; wistful, +with large, quite lovely eyes. She knows a lot about everything, and has +been everywhere, and has kept all her illusions intact—a queer mixture +of information and innocence. It's difficult to keep one's mind on what +she's saying;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> there is never any background to it. She wants something, +but she doesn't know whether it's what other people want or whether it's +what she wants, so that she can't want anything very definitely.'</p> + +<p>Gerald still laughed. 'How you must have been taking her in!'</p> + +<p>'I suppose I must have been, though I didn't know it. But I did like +her, you know. I liked her very much. A glass of water is a nice thing +sometimes.'</p> + +<p>'Nicer than <i>eau rougie</i>; I'm afraid she's <i>eau rougie</i>.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Eau rougie</i> may be nice, too, if one is tired and thirsty and needs +mild refreshment, not altogether tasteless, and not at all intoxicating. +She was certainly that to me. I was very much touched by her kindness.'</p> + +<p>'I shall be touched if she'll take Merriston. I'm fearfully hard up. I +suppose it would only be a little let; but that would be better than +nothing.'</p> + +<p>'She might stay for the winter if she liked it. I shan't try to make her +like it, but I'll do my best to make her stay on if she does, and with a +clear conscience, for I think that her staying will depend on her seeing +me.'</p> + +<p>'Wouldn't that mean that she'd be a great deal on your hands?'</p> + +<p>'I shouldn't mind that; we get on very well. She will be here next week, +you know. You must come to tea and meet her.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't know. I don't think that I'm particularly eager to meet +her,' Gerald confessed jocosely.</p> + +<p>'You'll have to meet her a good deal if you are to see much of me,' said +Helen; on which he owned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> that, with that compulsion put upon him, he +and Miss Jakes might become intimates.</p> + +<p>Gerald Digby was a young man who did very little work. He had been +vaguely intended, by an affectionate but haphazard family, for the +diplomatic service, but it was found, after he had done himself some +credit at Eton and Oxford, that the family resources didn't admit of +this obviously suitable career for him; and an aged and wealthy uncle, +who had been looked to confidently for succour, married at the moment, +most unfeelingly, so that Gerald's career had to be definitely +abandoned. Another relation found him a berth in the City, where he +might hope to amass quite a fortune; but Gerald soon said that he far +preferred poverty. He thought that he would like to paint and be an +artist; he had a joyful eye for delicate, minute forms of beauty, and +was most happily occupied when absorbed in Japanese-like studies of +transient loveliness—a bird in flight, a verdant grasshopper on a +wheat-blade, the tangled festoons of a wild convolvulus spray. His +talent, however, though genuine, could hardly supply him with a +livelihood, and he would have been seriously put to it had not his +father's death left him a tiny income, while a half-informal +secretaryship to a political friend, offered him propitiously at the +same time, gave him leisure for his painting as well as for a good many +other pleasant things. He had leisure, in especial, for going from +country-house to country-house, where he was immensely in demand, and +where he hunted, danced, and acted in private theatricals—usually in +company with his cousin Helen. Helen's position in life was very much +like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> his own, but that she hadn't even an informal secretaryship to +depend upon. He had known Helen all his life, and she was almost like a +sister, only nicer; for he associated sisters with his own brood, who +were lean, hunting ladies, pleasant, but monotonous and inarticulate. +Helen was very articulate and very various. He loved to look at her, as +he loved to look at birds and flowers, and he loved to talk with her. He +had many opportunities to look and talk. They stayed at the same houses +in the country, and in London, when she was with old Miss Buchanan, he +usually saw her every day. If he didn't drop in for a moment on his way +to work at ten-thirty in the morning, he dropped in to tea; and if his +or Helen's day were too full to admit of this, he managed to come in for +a goodnight chat after a dinner or before a dance. He enjoyed Helen's +talk and Helen's appearance most of all, he thought, at these late +hours, when, a little weary and jaded, in evening dress and cloak, she +lit her invariable cigarette, and mused with him over the events and +people of the day. He liked Helen's way of talking about people; they +knew an interminable array of them, many involved in enlivening +complications, yet Helen never gossiped; the musing impersonality and +impartiality with which she commented and surmised lifted her themes to +a realm almost of art; she was pungent, yet never malicious, and the +tolerant lucidity of her insight was almost benign.</p> + +<p>Her narrow face, leaning back in its dark aureole of hair, her strange +eyes and bitter-sweet lips—all dimmed, as it were, by drowsiness and +smoke, and yet never more intelligently awake than at these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> nocturnal +hours—remained with him as most typical of Helen's most significant and +charming self. It was her aspect of mystery and that faint hint of +bitterness that he found so charming; Helen herself he never thought of +as mysterious. Mystery was a mere outward asset of her beauty, like the +powdery surface of a moth's wing. He didn't think of Helen as +mysterious, perhaps because he thought little about her at all; he only +looked and listened while she made him think about everything but +herself, and he felt always happy and altogether at ease in her +presence. There seemed, indeed, no reason for thinking about a person +whom one had known all one's life long.</p> + +<p>And Helen was more than the best of company and the loveliest of +objects; she was at once comrade and counsellor. He depended upon her +more than upon any one. Comically helpless as he often found himself, he +asked her advice about everything, and always received the wisest.</p> + +<p>He had had often, though not so much in late years, to ask her advice +about girls, for in spite of his financial ineligibility he was so +engaging a person that he found himself continually drawn to the verge +of decisive flirtations. His was rarely the initiative; he was +responsive and affectionate and not at all susceptible, and Helen, who +knew girls of her world to the bone, could accurately gauge the effect +upon him of the pleading coquetry at which they were such adepts. She +could gauge them the better, no doubt, from having herself no trace of +coquetry. Men often liked her, but often found her cold and cynical, and +even suspected her of conceit, especially since it was known that she +had refused many ex<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>cellent opportunities for establishing herself in +life. She was also suspected by many of abysmal cleverness, and this +reputation frightened admiring but uncomplicated young men more than +anything else. Now, when her first youth was past, men more seldom fell +in love with her and more frequently liked her; they had had time to +find out that if she were cold she was also very kind, and that if +abysmally clever, she could adapt her cleverness to pleasant, trivial +uses.</p> + +<p>Gerald, when he thought at all about her, thought of Helen as indeed +cold, clever, and cynical; but these qualities never oppressed him, +aware from the first, as he had been, of the others, and he found in +them, moreover, veritable shields and bucklers for himself. It was to +some one deeply experienced, yet quite unwarped by personal emotions, +that he brought his recitals of distress and uncertainty. Lady Molly was +a perfect little dear, but could he go on with it? How could he if he +would? She hadn't any money, and her people would be furious; she +herself, he felt sure, would be miserable in no time, if they did marry. +They wouldn't even have enough—would they, did Helen think?—for love +in a cottage, and Molly would hate love in a cottage. They would have to +go about living on their relations and friends, as he now did, more or +less; but with a wife and babies, how could one? Did Helen think one +could? Gerald would finish dismally, standing before her with his hands +thrust deeply into his pockets and a ruffled brow of inquiry. Or else it +was the pretty Miss Oliver who had him—half alarmed, half enchanted—in +her toils, and Gerald couldn't imagine what she was going to do with +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> For such entanglements Helen's advice had always shown a way out, +and for his uncertainties—though she never took the responsibility of +actual guidance—her reflective questionings, her mere reflective +silences, were illuminating. They made clear for him, as for her, that +recklessness could only be worth while if one were really—off one's own +bat, as it were—'in love'; and that, this lacking, recklessness was +folly sure to end in disaster. 'Wait, either until you care so much that +you must, or else until you meet some one so nice, so rich, and so +suitable that you may,' said Helen. 'If you are not careful you will +find yourself married to some one who will bore you and quarrel with you +on twopence a year.'</p> + +<p>'You must be careful for me,' said Gerald. 'Please warn and protect.'</p> + +<p>And Helen replied that she would always do her best for him.</p> + +<p>It had never occurred to Gerald to turn the tables on Helen and tell her +that she ought to marry. His imagination was not occupied with Helen's +state, though once, after a conversation with old Miss Buchanan, he +remarked to Helen, looking at her with a vague curiosity, that it was a +pity she hadn't taken Lord Henry or Mr. Fergusson. 'Miss Buchanan tells +me you might have been one of the first hostesses in London if you +hadn't thrown away your chances.'</p> + +<p>'I'm all right,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'Yes, you yourself are; but after she dies?'</p> + +<p>Helen owned, with a smile, that she could certainly do with some few +thousands a year; but that, in default of them, she could manage to +scrape along.</p> + +<p>'But you've never had any better chances, have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> you?' said Gerald rather +tentatively. He might confide everything in Helen, but he realised, as a +restraining influence, that she never made any confidences, even to him, +who, he was convinced, knew her down to the ground.</p> + +<p>Helen owned that she hadn't.</p> + +<p>'Your aunt thinks it a dreadful pity. She's very much worried about +you.'</p> + +<p>'It's late in the day for the poor dear to worry. The chances were over +long ago.'</p> + +<p>'You didn't care enough?'</p> + +<p>'I was young and foolish enough to want to be in love when I married,' +said Helen, smiling at him with her half-closed eyes.</p> + +<p>And Gerald said that, yes, he would have expected that from her; and +with this dismissed the subject from his mind, taking it for granted +that Helen's disengaged, sustaining, and enlivening spinsterhood would +always be there for his solace and amusement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + + +<p>Helen was on one side of her and Mr. Digby sat in an opposite corner of +the railway carriage, and they were approaching the end of the journey +to Merriston House on a bright July day soon after Althea's arrival in +England. She had met Mr. Digby at Helen's the day before and had +suggested that he should come with them. Gerald had remarked that it +might be tiresome if she hated Merriston, and he were there to see that +she hated it; but Althea was so sure of liking it that her conviction +imposed itself.</p> + +<p>Mr. Digby and Helen were both smoking; they had asked her very +solicitously whether she minded, and she had said she didn't, although +in fact she did not like the smell of tobacco, and Helen's constant +cigarette distressed her quite unselfishly on the score of health. The +windows were wide open, and though the gale that blew through ruffled +her smooth hair and made her veil tickle disagreeably, these minor +discomforts could not spoil her predominant sense of excitement and +adventure. Mr. Digby's presence, particularly, roused it. He was so +long, so limp, so graceful, lounging there in his corner. His socks and +his tie were of such a charming shade of blue and his hair such a +charming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> shade of light mouse-colour. He was vague and blithe, immersed +in his own thoughts, which, apparently, were pleasant and superficial. +When his eyes met Althea's, he smiled at her, and she thought his smile +the most engaging she had ever seen. For the rest, he hardly spoke at +all, and did not seem to consider it incumbent on him to make any +conversational efforts, yet his mere presence lent festivity to the +occasion.</p> + +<p>Helen did not talk much either; she smoked her cigarette and looked out +of the window with half-closed eyes. Her slender feet, encased in grey +shoes, were propped on the opposite seat; her grey travelling-dress hung +in smoke-like folds about her; in her little hat was a bright green +wing.</p> + +<p>Althea wondered if Mr. Digby appreciated his cousin's appearance, or if +long brotherly familiarity had dimmed his perception of it. She wondered +how her own appearance struck him. She knew that she was very trim and +very elegant, and in mere beauty—quite apart from charm, which she +didn't claim—she surely excelled Helen; Helen with her narrow eyes, odd +projecting nose, and small, sulkily-moulded lips. Deeply though she felt +the fascination of her friend's strange visage, she could but believe +her own the lovelier. So many people—not only Franklin Winslow +Kane—had thought her lovely. There was no disloyalty in recognising the +fact for oneself, and an innocent satisfaction in the hope that Mr. +Digby might recognise it too.</p> + +<p>The day that flashed by on either side had also a festive quality: blue +skies heaped with snowy clouds; fields brimmed with breeze-swept grain, +green and silver, or streaked with the gold of butter-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>cups; swift +streams and the curves of summer foliage. It was a country remote, +wooded and pastoral, and Althea, a connoisseur in landscapes, was +enchanted.</p> + +<p>'Do you like it?' Helen asked her as they passed along the edge of a +little wood, glimpses of bright meadow among its clearings. 'We are +almost there now, and it's like this all about Merriston.'</p> + +<p>'I've hardly seen any part of England I like so much,' said Althea. 'It +has a sweet, untouched wildness rather rare in England.'</p> + +<p>'I always think that it's a country to love and live in,' said Helen. +'Some countries seem made only to be looked at.'</p> + +<p>Althea wondered, as she then went on looking at this country, whether +she were thinking of her girlhood and of her many journeys to Merriston. +She wondered if Mr. Digby were thinking of his boyhood. Ever since +seeing those two together yesterday afternoon she had wondered about +them. She had never encountered a relationship quite like theirs; it was +so close, so confident, yet so untender. She could hardly make out that +they liked each other; all that one saw was that they trusted, so that +it had something of the businesslike quality of a partnership. Yet she +found herself building up an absurd little romance about their past. It +might be, who knew, that Mr. Digby had once been in love with Helen and +that she had refused him; he was poor, and she had said that she must +marry money. Althea's heart tightened a little with compassion for Mr. +Digby. Only, if this ever had been, it was well over now; and more +narrowly observing Mr. Digby's charming and irresponsible face, she +reflected that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> he was hardly the sort of person to illustrate large +themes of passion and fidelity.</p> + +<p>A fly was waiting for them at the station, and as they jolted away +Gerald remarked that she was now to see one of the worst features of +Merriston; it was over an hour from the station, and if one hadn't a +motor the drive was a great bore. Althea, however, didn't find it a +bore. Her companions talked now, their heads at the windows; it had been +years since they had traversed that country together; every inch of it +was known to them and significant of weary waits, wonderful runs, feats +and misadventures at gates and ditches; for their reminiscences were +mainly sportsmanlike. Althea listened, absorbed, but distressed. It was +Gerald who caught and interpreted the expression of her large, gentle +eyes.</p> + +<p>'I don't believe you like fox-hunting, Miss Jakes,' he said.</p> + +<p>'No, indeed, I do not,' said Althea, shaking her head.</p> + +<p>'You mean you think it cruel?'</p> + +<p>'Very cruel.'</p> + +<p>'Yet where would we be without it?' said Gerald. 'And where would the +foxes be? After all, while they live, their lives are particularly +pleasant.'</p> + +<p>'With possible intervals of torture? Don't you think that, if they could +choose, they would rather not live at all?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, a canny old fox doesn't mind the run so much, you know—enjoys it +after a fashion, no doubt.'</p> + +<p>'Don't salve your conscience by that sophism,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Gerald; the fox is canny +because he has been terrified so often,' said Helen. 'Let us own that it +is barbarous, but such glorious sport that one tries to forget the fox.'</p> + +<p>It required some effort for Althea to testify against her and Mr. Digby, +but she felt so strongly on the subject of animals, foxes in particular, +that her courage did not fail her. 'I think it is when we forget, that +the dreadful things in life, the sins and cruelties, happen,' she said.</p> + +<p>Gerald's gay eyes were cogitatingly fixed on her, and Helen continued to +look out of the window; but she thought that they both liked her the +better for her frankness, and she felt in the little ensuing silence +that it had brought them nearer—bright, alien creatures that they were.</p> + +<p>Her first view of Merriston House hardly confirmed her hopes of it, +though she would not have owned to herself that this was so. It was +neither so beautiful nor so imposing as she had expected; it was even, +perhaps, rather commonplace; but in a moment she was able to +overcome this slight disloyalty and to love it the more for its +unpretentiousness. A short, winding avenue of limes led to it, and it +stood high among lawns that fell away to lower shrubberies and woods. It +was a square stone house, covered with creepers, a white rose clustering +over the doorway and a group of trees over-topping its chimneys.</p> + +<p>Inside, where the housekeeper welcomed them and tea waited for them, was +the same homely brightness. Hunting prints hung in the hall; rows of +mediocre, though pleasing, family portraits in the dining-room. The long +drawing-room at the back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> of the house, overlooking the lawns and a far +prospect, was a much inhabited room, cheerful and shabby. There were +old-fashioned water-colour landscapes, porcelain in cabinets and on +shelves, and many tables crowded with ivory and silver bric-à-brac; +things from India and things from China, that Digbys in the Army and +Digbys in the Navy had brought home.</p> + +<p>'What a Philistine room it is,' said Gerald, smiling as he looked around +him; 'but I must say I like it just as it is. It has never made an +æsthetic effort.'</p> + +<p>Gerald's smile irradiated the whole house for Althea, and lit up, in +especial, the big, sunny school-room where he and Helen found most +memories of all. 'The same old table, Helen,' he said, 'and other +children have spilled ink on it and scratched their initials just as we +used to; here are yours and mine. Do you remember the day we did them +under Fräulein's very nose? And here are all our old books, too. Look, +Helen, the Roman history with your wicked drawings on the fly-leaves: +Tullia driving over her poor old father, and Cornelia—ironic little +wretch you were even then—what a prig she is with her jewels! And what +splendid butter-scotch you used to make over the fire on winter +evenings.'</p> + +<p>Helen remembered everything, smiling as she followed Gerald about the +room and looked at ruthless Tullia; and Althea, watching them, was +touched—for them, and then, with a little counter-stroke of memory, for +herself. She remembered her old home too—the dignified old house in +steep Chestnut Street, and the little house on the blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> Massachusetts +coast where she had often passed long days playing by herself, for she +had been an only child. She loved it here, for it was like a home, +peaceful and sheltering; but where in all the world had she really a +home? Where in all the world did she belong? The thought brought tears +to her eyes as she looked out of the schoolroom window and listened to +Gerald and Helen. It had ended, of course, for of course it had really +begun, in Althea's decision to take Merriston House. It was quite fixed +now, and on the way back she had made her new friends promise to be +often together with her in the home of their youth. She had made them +promise this so prettily and with such gentle warmth that it was very +natural that Gerald, in talking over the event with Helen that evening, +should say, strolling round Helen's little sitting-room, 'She's rather a +dear, that little friend of yours.'</p> + +<p>Helen was tired and lay extended on the divan in the grey dress she had +not had time to change. She had doffed her hat and, thrusting its +hatpins through it, had laid it on her knees, so that, as Gerald had +remarked, she looked rather like Brünhilde on her rocky couch. But, +unlike Brünhilde, her hands were clasped behind her neck, and she looked +up at the ceiling. 'A perfect little dear,' she assented.</p> + +<p>'Did you notice her eyes when she was talking about the foxes? They were +as sorrowful and piteous as a Mater Dolorosa's. She is definite enough +about some things, isn't she? Things like right and wrong, I mean, as +she sees them.'</p> + +<p>'Yes; she is clear about outside things, like right and wrong.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> + +<p>'It's a good deal to be clear about, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>'I suppose so,' Helen reflected. 'I don't feel that I really understand +Althea. People who aren't clear about themselves are difficult to +understand, I think.'</p> + +<p>'It's that that really gives them a mystery. I feel that she really is a +little mysterious,' said Gerald. 'One wonders what she would do in +certain cases, and feel in certain situations, and one can't remotely +imagine. She is a sealed book.'</p> + +<p>'<i>She</i> wonders,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'And you suspect that her pages are empty?'</p> + +<p>Helen reflected, but nothing seemed to come. She closed her eyes, +smiling, and said, 'Be off, please. I'm getting too sleepy to have +suspicions. We have plenty of time to find out whether anything is +written on Althea's pages.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + + +<p>But, when Gerald was gone, Helen found that she was no longer sleepy. +She lay, her eyes closed, straight and still, like an effigy on a tomb, +and she thought, intently and quietly. It was more a series of pictures +than a linking of ideas with which her mind was occupied—pictures of +her childhood and girlhood in Scotland and at Merriston House. It was +dispassionately that she watched the little figure, lonely, violent, +walking over the moors, hiding in the thickets of the garden, choking +with tears of fury, clenching teeth over fierce resentments. She almost +smiled at the sight of her. What constant resentments, what frequent +furies! They centred, of course, about the figure of her mother, lovely, +vindictive, and stony-hearted, as she had been and was. Helen's life had +dawned in the consciousness of love for this beautiful mother, whom she +had worshipped with the ardent humility of a little dog. Afterwards, +with a vehemence as great, she had grown to hate her. All her girlhood +had been filled with struggles against her mother. Sometimes for weeks +they had not spoken to each other, epochs during which, completely +indifferent though she was, Mrs. Buchanan had given herself the +satisfaction of smartly boxing her daughter's ears when her mute, +hostile presence too much exas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>perated her. There had been no refuge for +Helen with her father, a gloomy man, immersed in sport and study, nor in +her brother Nigel, gay and pleasant though he was. When once Nigel got +away to school and college, he spent as little time at home as possible. +Helen was as solitary as a sea-bird, blown far inland and snared. Then +came the visits to Merriston House—the cheerful, chattering houseful of +happy girls, the kind father and mother, and Gerald. Gerald! From the +time that he came into her life all the pictures were full of him, so +full that she hardly saw herself any longer; she was only some one who +watched and felt.</p> + +<p>Her violent nature, undisciplined except by its own pride, did not +submit easily to the taming processes of a wholesome family life; she +dominated the girl cousins, and they only counted as chorus in the drama +of her youth. It was Gerald who counted, at once, counted for everything +else. She cared so much for him that, feeling her independence slipping +from her, she at first quarrelled with him constantly, as far as he +would let her quarrel with him. Her brooding bitterness amazed and +amused him. While she stormed, he would laugh at her, gaily and +ironically, and tell her that she was an absurd little savage. And, +after she had burst into a frenzy of tears and fled from him, he would +seek her out, find her hidden in some corner of the garden or +shrubberies, and, grieved and alarmed, put his arms around her, kiss her +and say: 'Look here, I'm awfully sorry. I can't bear to have you take +things like this. Please make up.'</p> + +<p>He could not bear to see her suffering, ludicrous though he thought her +suffering to be. And it was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> this sweetness, this comprehension and +tenderness, like sunlight flooding her gloomy and petrified young heart, +that filled Helen with astonished bliss. She was tamed at last to the +extent of laughing with Gerald at herself; and, though the force of her +nature led him, the sweetness of his nature controlled her. They became +the dearest of friends.</p> + +<p>Yes, so it had always been; so it had always looked—to all the rest of +the world, and to Gerald. Helen, lying on her divan, saw the pictures of +comradeship filling the years. It was her consciousness of what the real +meaning of the pictures was that supplied something else, something +hidden and desperate that pulsed in them all. How she remembered the +first time that she had drawn away when Gerald kissed her, putting up +between them the shield of a lightly yet decisively accepted +conventionality. They were 'growing up'; this was her justification. How +she remembered what it had cost her to keep up the lightness of her +smile so that he should not guess what lay beneath. Her nature was all +passion, and enclosing this passion, like a steady hand held round a +flame, was a fierce purity, a fierce pride. Gerald had never guessed. No +one had ever guessed. It seemed to Helen that the pain of it had broken +her heart in the very spring of her years; that it was only a maimed and +cautious creature that the world had ever known.</p> + +<p>She lay, and drew long quiet breaths in looking at it all. The day of +reawakened memories had been like a sword in her heart, and now she +seemed to draw it out slowly, and let the blood come with a sense of +peace. She could even, as often, lend to the contemplation of her +tragedy the bitter little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> grimace of mockery with which she met so much +of life. She could tell herself, as often, that she had never outgrown +love-sick girlhood, and that she was merely in love with Gerald's smile. +Yet Gerald was all in his smile; and Gerald, it seemed, was made to be +loved, all of him, helplessly and hopelessly, by unfortunate her. She +felt her love as a misfortune; it was too strong and too unsatisfied to +be felt in any sense as joy, though it strung her nature to a painful +appreciation of joy. She saw life with a cold, appraising eye; it was +like a landscape robbed of all sunlight, and, so robbed, so bleak, and +so bereft, it was easy to appraise it, to see, since one could have no +warmth or light, what were the next best things to have. She had missed +the next best things again and again, when the moment had come for +taking them; she had drawn back sick, blanched, shaken with the throes +of desperate hope. Only in these last years, when next best things were +no longer so plentiful, had hope really died. Her heart still beat, but +it seemed to beat thinly, among all the heaped-up ashes of dead hopes. +She was free to go forth into the sunless world and choose what place +should be hers. She did not care much for anything that world had to +give her. But she intended to choose carefully and calmly. She was aware +in herself of firm, well-knit faculty, of tastes, sharp and sensitive, +demanding only an opportunity to express themselves in significant and +finished forms of life; and though Helen did not think of it in these +terms, saying merely to herself that she wanted money and power, the +background of her intention was a consciousness of capacity for power. +Reflecting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> on this power, and on the paths to its realisation, she was +led far, indeed, from any thought of Althea; and Althea was not at all +in her mind as, sleepy at last, and very weary, she remembered Gerald's +last words. It was the thought of Gerald that brought the thought of +Althea, and of Althea's pages. Fair and empty they were, she felt sure, +adorned only here and there with careful and becoming maxims. She smiled +a little, not untenderly, as she thought of Althea. But, just before +sinking to deeper drowsiness, and deciding that she must rouse herself +and go upstairs to bed, a further consciousness came to her. The sunny +day at Merriston had not, in her thoughts, brought them near to one +another—Gerald, and Althea, and her; yet something significant ran +through her sudden memory of it. She had moments of her race's sense of +second-sight, and it never came without making her aware of a pause—a +strange, forced pause—where she had to look at something, touch +something, in the dark, as it were. It was there as she roused herself +from her half-somnolent state; it was there in the consciousness of a +turning-point in her life—in Gerald's, in Althea's. 'We may write +something on Althea's pages,' was the thought with which, smiling over +its inappropriateness, she went upstairs. And the fancy faded from her +memory, as if it had been a bird's wing that brushed her cheek in the +darkness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2> + + +<p>Althea went down to Merriston House in the middle of July. Helen +accompanied her to see her safely installed and to set the very torpid +social ball rolling. There were not many neighbours, but Helen assembled +them all. She herself could stay only a few days. She was bound, until +the middle of August, in a rush of engagements, and meanwhile Althea, +rather ruefully, was forced to fall back on Miss Buckston for +companionship. She had always, till now, found Miss Buckston's cheerful +dogmatism fortifying, and, even when it irritated her, instructive; but +she had now new standards of interest, and new sources of refreshment, +and, shut up with Miss Buckston for a rainy week, she felt as never +before the defects of this excellent person's many qualities.</p> + +<p>She had fires lighted, much to Miss Buckston's amusement, and sat a good +deal by the blaze in the drawing-room, controlling her displeasure when +Miss Buckston, dressed in muddy tweed and with a tweed cap pulled down +over her brows, came striding in from a ten-mile tramp and said, pulling +open all the windows, 'You are frightfully frusty in here.'</p> + +<p>It was not 'frusty.' Althea had a scientific regard for ventilation, and +a damp breeze from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> garden blew in at the furthest window. She had +quite enough air.</p> + +<p>Miss Buckston was also very critical of Merriston House, and pointed out +the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said, +was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could +bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack +creature, Gerald Digby, I've heard.'</p> + +<p>Althea coldly explained that Mr. Digby was too poor to live at Merriston +and to keep it up. She did not herself in the least mind the shabbiness.</p> + +<p>'Oh, I don't mind it,' said Miss Buckston. 'I only think he's done +himself very well in getting you to take the place in this condition. +How much do you give for it?'</p> + +<p>Althea, more coldly, named the sum. It was moderate; Miss Buckston had +to grant that, though but half-satisfied that there was no intention to +'do' her friend. 'When once you get into the hands of hard-up +fashionable folk,' she said, 'it's as well to look sharp.'</p> + +<p>Althea did not quite know what to say to this. She had never in the past +opposed Miss Buckston, and it would be difficult to tell her now that +she took too much upon herself. At a hint of hesitancy, she knew, Miss +Buckston would pass to and fro over her like a steam-roller, nearly as +noisy, and to her own mind as composedly efficient. Hesitancy or +contradiction she flattened and left behind her.</p> + +<p>She had an air of owning Bach that became peculiarly vexatious to +Althea, who, in silence, but armed with new standards, was assembling +her own forces and observed, in casting an eye over them,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> that she had +heard five times as much music as Miss Buckston and might be granted the +right of an opinion on it. She took satisfaction in a memory of Miss +Buckston's face singing in the Bach choir—even at the time it had +struck her as funny—at a concert to which Althea had gone with her some +years ago in London. It was to see, for her own private delectation, a +weak point in Miss Buckston's iron-clad personality to remember how very +funny she could look. Among the serried ranks of singing heads hers had +stood out with its rubicund energy, its air of mastery, the shining of +its eye-glasses and of its large white teeth; and while she sang Miss +Buckston had jerked her head rhythmically to one side and beaten time +with her hand as if to encourage and direct her less competent +companions. Sometimes, now, she looked almost as funny, when she sat +down to the piano and gave forth a recitative.</p> + +<p>After Bach, Woman's Suffrage was Miss Buckston's special theme, and, +suspecting a new hint of uncertainty in Althea, whose conviction she had +always taken for granted, she attacked her frequently and mercilessly.</p> + +<p>'Pooh, my dear,' she would say, 'don't quote your frothy American women +to me. Americans have no social conscience. That's the trouble with you +all; rank individualists, every one of you. When the political attitude +of the average citizen is that of the ostrich keeping his head in the +sand so that he shan't see what the country's coming to, what can you +expect of the women? Your arguments don't affect the suffrage question, +they merely dismiss America. I shall lose my temper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> if you trot them +out to me.' Miss Buckston never lost her temper, however; other people's +opinions counted too little with her for that.</p> + +<p>At the end of the first week Althea felt distinctly that though the +country, even under these dismal climatic conditions, might be +delightful if shared with some people, it was not delightful shared with +Miss Buckston. She did not like walking in the rain; she was a creature +of houses, cabs and carriages. The sober beauty of blotted silhouettes, +and misty, rolling hills at evening when the clouds lifted over the +sunset, did not appeal to her. She wished that she had stayed in London; +she wished that Helen and Mr. Digby were with her; she was even glad +that Aunt Julia and the girls were coming.</p> + +<p>There was a welcome diversion afforded for her, when Aunt Julia came, by +the prompt hostility that declared itself between her and Miss Buckston. +Aunt Julia was not a person to allow a steam-roller to pass over her +without protest, and Althea felt that she herself had been cowardly when +she saw how Aunt Julia resented, for them both, Miss Buckston's methods. +Miss Buckston had a manner of saying rude things in sincere +unconsciousness that they could offend anybody. She herself did not take +offence easily; she was, as she would have said, 'tough.' But Mrs. +Pepperell had all the sensitiveness—for herself and for others—of her +race, the British race, highly strung with several centuries of +transplantation to an electric climate. If she was rude it was never +unconsciously so. After her first talk with Miss Buckston, in which the +latter, as was her wont, told her a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> number of unpleasant facts about +America and the Americans, Mrs. Pepperell said to her niece, 'What an +intolerable woman!'</p> + +<p>'She doesn't mean it,' said Althea feebly.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps not,' said Aunt Julia; 'but I intend that she shall see what I +mean.'</p> + +<p>Althea's feeling was of mingled discomfort and satisfaction. Her +sympathies were with Aunt Julia, yet she felt a little guilty towards +Miss Buckston, for whom her affection was indeed wavering. Inner loyalty +having failed she did not wish outer loyalty to be suspected, and in all +the combats that took place she kept in the background and only hoped to +see Aunt Julia worst Miss Buckston. But the trouble was that Aunt Julia +never did worst her. Even when, passing beyond the bounds of what she +considered decency, she became nearly as outspoken as Miss Buckston, +that lady maintained her air of cheerful yet impatient tolerance. She +continued to tell them that the American wife and mother was the most +narrow, the most selfish, the most complacent of all wives and mothers; +and, indeed, to Miss Buckston's vigorous virginity, all wives and +mothers, though sociologically necessary, belonged to a slightly +inferior, more rudimentary species. The American variety, she said, were +immersed in mere domesticity or social schemes and squabbles. 'Oh, they +talked. I never heard so much talk in all my life as when I was over +there,' said Miss Buckston; 'but I couldn't see that they got anything +done with it. They had debates about health, and yet one could hardly +for love or money get a window open in a train; and they had debates on +the ethics of citizenship,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> and yet you are governed by bosses. Voluble +and inefficient creatures, I call them.'</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia, conscious of her own honourable career, with its +achievements in enlightened philanthropy and its background of careful +study, heard this with inexpressible ire; but when she was dragged to +the execrable taste of a retaliation, and pointed to the British +countryside matron, as they saw her at Merriston—a creature, said Aunt +Julia, hardly credible in her complacency and narrowness, Miss Buckston +rejoined with an unruffled smile: 'Ah, we'll wake them up. They've good +stuff in them—good, staying stuff; and they do a lot of useful work in +keeping down Radicalism and keeping up the sentiment of our imperial +responsibilities and traditions. They are solid, at all events, not +hollow.' And to this poor Aunt Julia, whose traditions did not allow her +the retort of sheer brutality, could find no answer.</p> + +<p>The absurd outcome of the situation was that Althea and Aunt Julia came +to look for succour to the girls. The girls were able—astonishingly so, +to cope with Miss Buckston. In the first place, they found her +inexpressibly funny, and neither Althea nor Aunt Julia quite succeeded +at that; and in the second, they rather liked her; they did not argue +with her, they did not take her seriously for a moment; they only played +buoyantly about her. A few months before, Althea would have been gravely +disturbed by their lack of reverence; she saw it now with guilty +satisfaction. Miss Buckston, among the nets they spread for her, plunged +and floundered like a good-tempered bull—at first with guileless +acquiescence in the game, and then with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> growing bewilderment. They +flouted gay cloaks before her dizzy eyes, and planted ribboned darts in +her quivering shoulders. Even Althea could not accuse them of +aggressiveness or rudeness. They never put themselves forward; they were +there already. They never twisted the tail of the British lion; they +never squeezed the eagle; they were far too secure under his wings for +that. The bird, indeed, had grown since Althea's youth, and could no +longer be carried about as a hostile trophy. They took it for granted, +gaily and kindly, that America was 'God's country,' and that all others +were schools or playgrounds for her children. They were filled with a +confident faith in her future and in their own part in making that +future better. And something in the faith was infectious. Even Miss +Buckston felt it. Miss Buckston felt it, indeed, more than Althea, whose +attitude towards her own native land had always been one of affectionate +apology.</p> + +<p>'Nice creatures,' said Miss Buckston, 'undisciplined and mannerless as +they are; but that's a failing they share with our younger generation. I +see more hope for your country in that type than in anything else you +can show me. They are solid, and don't ape anything.'</p> + +<p>So by degrees a species of friendship grew up between Miss Buckston and +the girls, who said that she was a jolly old thing, and more fun than a +goat, especially when she sang Bach. Mildred and Dorothy sang +exceptionally well and were highly equipped musicians.</p> + +<p>Althea could not have said why it was, but this progress to friendliness +between her cousins and Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> Buckston made her feel, as she had felt in +the Paris hotel drawing-room over a month ago, jaded and unsuccessful. +So did the fact that the vicar's eldest son, a handsome young soldier +with a low forehead and a loud laugh, fell in love with Dorothy. That +young men should fall in love with them was another of the pleasant +things that Mildred and Dorothy took for granted. Their love affairs, +frank and rather infantile, were of a very different calibre from the +earnest passions that Althea had aroused—passions usually initiated by +intellectual sympathy and nourished on introspection and a constant +interchange of serious literature.</p> + +<p>It was soon evident that Dorothy, though she and Captain Merton became +the best of friends, had no intention of accepting him. Mrs. Merton, the +vicar's wife, had at first been afraid lest she should, not having then +ascertained what Mrs. Pepperell's fortune might be; but after satisfying +herself on this point by a direct cross-examination of Althea, she was +as much amazed as incensed when her boy told her ruefully that he had +been refused three times. Althea was very indignant when she realised +that Mrs. Merton, bland and determined in her latest London hat, was +trying to find out whether Dorothy was a good enough match for Captain +Merton, and it was pleasant to watch Mrs. Merton's subsequent +discomfiture. At the same time, she felt that to follow in Mildred and +Dorothy's triumphant wake was hardly what she had expected to do at +Merriston House.</p> + +<p>Other things, too, were discouraging. Helen had hardly written at all. +She had sent a postcard from Scotland to say that she would have to put +off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> coming till later in August. She had sent another, in answer to a +long letter of Althea's, in which Gerald had been asked to come with +her, to say that Gerald was yachting, and that she was sure he would +love to come some time in the autumn, if his plans allowed it; and +Althea, on reading this, felt certain that if she counted for little +with Helen, she counted for nothing with Mr. Digby. Whom did she count +with? That was the question that once more assailed her as she saw +herself sink into insignificance beside Mildred and Dorothy. If Mildred +and Dorothy counted for more than she, where was she to look for +response and sympathy? And now, once again, as if in answer to these +dismal questionings, came a steamer letter from Franklin Winslow Kane, +announcing his immediate arrival. Althea had thought very little about +Franklin in these last weeks; her mind had been filled with those +foreground figures that now seemed to have become uncertain and +vanishing. And it was not so much that Franklin came forward as that +there was nothing else to look at; not so much that he counted, as that +to count so much, in every way, for him might almost atone for counting +with no one else. Physically, mentally, morally, Franklin's +appreciations of her were deep; they were implied all through his +letter, which was at once sober and eager. He said that he would stay at +Merriston House for 'just as long as ever she would let him.' Merely to +be near her was to him, separated as he was from her for so much of his +life, an unspeakable boon. Franklin rarely dealt in demonstrative +speeches, but, in this letter, after a half-shy prelude to his own +daring, he went on to say: 'Perhaps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> considering how long it's been +since I saw you, you'll let me kiss your beautiful hands when we meet.'</p> + +<p>Franklin had only once kissed her beautiful hands, years ago, on the +occasion of her first touched refusal of him. She had severe scruples as +to encouraging, by such graciousness, a person you didn't intend to +marry; but she really thought, thrilling a little as she read the +sentence, that this time, perhaps, Franklin might. Franklin himself +never thrilled her; but the words he wrote renewed in her suddenly a +happy self-confidence. Who, after all, was Franklin's superior in +insight? Wrapped in the garment of his affection, could she not see with +equanimity Helen's vagueness and Gerald's indifference? Why, when one +came to look at it from the point of view of the soul, wasn't Franklin +their superior in every way? It needed some moral effort to brace +herself to the inquiry. She couldn't deny that Franklin hadn't their +charm; but charm was a very superficial thing compared to moral beauty.</p> + +<p>Althea could not have faced the perturbing fact that charm, to her, +counted for more than goodness. She clung to her ethical valuations of +life, feeling, instinctively, that only in this category lay her own +significance. To abandon the obvious weights and measures was to find +herself buffeted and astray in a chaotic and menacing universe. Goodness +was her guide, and she could cling to it if the enchanting +will-o'-the-wisp did not float into sight to beckon and bewilder her. +She indignantly repudiated the conception of a social order founded on +charm rather than on solid worth; yet, like other frail mortals, she +found herself following what allured her nature rather than what +responded to the neatly tabulated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> theories of her mind. It was her +beliefs and her instincts that couldn't be made to tally, and in her +refusal to see that they did not tally lay her danger, as now, when with +an artificially simplified attitude she waited eagerly for the coming of +somebody who would restore to her her own sense of significance.</p> + +<p>Franklin Winslow Kane arrived late one afternoon, and Althea arranged +that she should greet him alone. Miss Buckston, Aunt Julia, the girls, +and Herbert Vaughan had driven over to a neighbouring garden-party, and +Althea alleged the arrival of her old friend as a very valid excuse. She +walked up and down the drawing-room, dressed in one of her prettiest +dresses; the soft warmth and light of the low sun filled the air, and +her heart expanded with it. She wondered if—ah, if only!—Franklin +would himself be able to thrill her, and her deep expectation almost +amounted to a thrill. Expectation culminated in a wave of excitement and +emotion as the door opened and her faithful lover stood before her.</p> + +<p>Franklin Winslow Kane (he signed himself more expeditiously as Franklin +W. Kane) was a small, lean man. He had an air of tension, constant, yet +under such perfect control, that it counted as placidity rather than as +strain. His face was sallow and clean-shaven, and the features seemed +neatly drawn on a flat surface rather than modelled, so discreet and so +meagre were the sallies and shadows. His lips were calm and firmly +closed, and had always the appearance of smiling; of his eyes one felt +the bright, benignant beam rather than the shape or colour. His straight +stiff hair was shorn in rather odd and rather ugly lines along his +forehead and temples, and of his clothes the kindest thing to say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> was +that they were unobtrusive. Franklin had once said of himself, with +comic dispassionateness, that he looked like a cheap cigar, and the +comparison was apt. He seemed to have been dried, pressed, and moulded, +neatly and expeditiously, by some mechanical process that turned out +thousands more just like him. A great many things, during this process, +had been done to him, but they were commonplace, though complicated +things, and they left him, while curiously finished, curiously +undifferentiated. The hurrying streets of any large town in his native +land would, one felt, be full of others like him: good-tempered, shrewd, +alert, yet with an air of placidity, too, as though it were a world that +required effort and vigilance of one, and yet, these conditions +fulfilled, would always justify one's expectations. If differences there +were in Franklin Kane, they were to be sought for, they did not present +themselves; and he himself would have been the last to be conscious of +them. He didn't think of himself as differentiated; he didn't desire +differentiation.</p> + +<p>He advanced now towards his beloved, after a slight hesitation, for the +sunlight in which she stood as well as her own radiant appearance seemed +to have dazzled him a little. Althea held out her hands, and the tears +came into her eyes; it was as if she hadn't known, until then, how +lonely she was. 'O Franklin, I'm so glad to see you,' she said.</p> + +<p>He held her hands, gazing at her with a gentle yet intent rapture, and +he forgot, in a daring greater than any he had ever known, to kiss them. +Franklin never took anything for granted, and Althea knew that it was +because he saw her tears and saw her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> emotion that he could ask her now, +hesitatingly, yet with sudden confidence: 'Althea, it's been so +long—you are so lovely—it will mean nothing to you, I know; so may I +kiss you?'</p> + +<p>Put like that, why shouldn't he? Conscience had not a qualm, and +Franklin had never seemed so dear to her. She smiled a sisterly benison +upon his request, and, still holding her hands, he leaned to her and +kissed her. Closing her eyes she wondered intently for a moment, able, +in the midst of her motion, to analyse it; for, yes, it had thrilled +her. She needed to be kissed, were it only Franklin who kissed her.</p> + +<p>They went, hand in hand, to a sofa, and there she was able to show him +only the sisterly benignity that he knew so well. She questioned him +sweetly about his voyage, his health, his relatives—his only near +relative was a sister who taught in a college—and about their mutual +friends and his work. To all he replied carefully and calmly, though +looking at her delightedly while he spoke. He had a very deliberate, +even way of speaking, and in certain words so broadened the a's that, +almost doubled in length by this treatment, they sounded like little +bleats. His 'yes' was on two notes and became a dissyllable.</p> + +<p>After he had answered all her questions he took up the thread himself. +He had tactfully relinquished her hand at a certain moment in her talk. +Althea well remembered his sensitiveness to any slightest mood in +herself; he was wonderfully imaginative when it came to any human +relation. He did not wait for her to feel consciously that it was not +quite fitting that her hand should be held for so long.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span></p> + +<p>'This is a nice old place you've got, Althea,' he said, looking about. +'Homelike and welcoming. I liked the look of it as I drove up. Have you +a lot of English people with you?'</p> + +<p>'Only one; Miss Buckston, you know. Aunt Julia and the girls are here, +and Herbert Vaughan, their friend. You know Herbert Vaughan; such a nice +young creature; his mother is a Bostonian.'</p> + +<p>'I know about him; I don't know him,' said Franklin, who indeed, as she +reflected, would not be likely to have met the fashionable Herbert. 'And +where is that attractive new friend of yours you wrote to me about—the +one you took care of in Paris—the Scotch lady?'</p> + +<p>'Helen Buchanan? She is coming; she is in Scotland now.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, she's coming. I am to see her, I hope.'</p> + +<p>'You are to see everybody, dear Franklin,' said Althea, smiling upon +him. 'You are to stay, you know, for as long as you will.'</p> + +<p>'That's sweet of you, Althea.' He looked at her. Her kindness still +buoyed him above his wonted level. He had never allowed himself to +become utterly hopeless, yet he had become almost resigned to hope +deferred; a pressing, present hope grew in him now. 'But it's ambiguous, +you know,' he went on, smiling back. 'If I'm to stay as long as I will, +I'm never to leave you, you know.'</p> + +<p>Hope was becoming to Franklin. Althea felt herself colouring a little +under his eyes. 'You still feel that?' she said rather feebly.</p> + +<p>'I'll always feel that.'</p> + +<p>'It's very wonderful of you, Franklin. It makes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> me, sometimes, feel +guilty, as though I kept you from fuller happiness.'</p> + +<p>'You can't do that. You are the only person who can give me fuller +happiness.'</p> + +<p>'And I give you happiness, like this—even like this?—really?'</p> + +<p>'Of course; but,' he smiled a little forcedly, 'I can't pretend it's +anything like what I want. I want a great deal.'</p> + +<p>Althea's eyes fell before the intent and gentle gaze.</p> + +<p>'Dear Franklin—I wish——'</p> + +<p>'You wish you could? I wonder—I wonder, Althea, if you feel a little +nearer to it just now. I seem to feel, myself, that you are.'</p> + +<p>Was she? How she wished she were. Yet the wish was mixed with fear. She +said, faltering, 'Don't ask me now. I'm so glad to see you—so glad; but +that's not the same thing, is it?'</p> + +<p>'It may be on the way to it.'</p> + +<p>'May it?' she sighed tremblingly.</p> + +<p>There was a silence; and then, taking her hand again, he again kissed +it, and holding it for an insistent moment said, 'Althea, won't you try +being engaged to me?'</p> + +<p>She said nothing, turning away her face.</p> + +<p>'You might make a habit of loving me, you know,' he went on half +whimsically. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our +secret, our little experiment. If only you'd try it. Dearest, I do love +you so deeply.'</p> + +<p>And then—how it was she did not know, but it was again Franklin's words +rather than Franklin that moved her, so that he must have seen the +yielding to his love, if not to him, in her face—she was in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> his arms, +and he was kissing her and saying, 'O Althea, won't you try?'</p> + +<p>Althea's mind whirled. She needed to be kissed; that alone was evident; +for she did not draw away; but the tears came, of perplexity and pathos, +and she said, 'Franklin, dear Franklin, I'll try—I mean, I'll try to be +in love with you—I can't be engaged, not really engaged—but I will +try.'</p> + +<p>'Darling—you are nearer it——'</p> + +<p>'Yes—I don't know, Franklin—I mustn't bind myself. I can't marry you +unless I am in love with you—can I, Franklin?'</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin, his voice a little +shaken. 'You can't expect me to give you an impartial answer to that +now—can you, dear? I feel as if I wanted you to marry me on the chance +you'd come to love me. And you do care for me enough for this, don't +you? That in itself is such an incredible gift.'</p> + +<p>Yes, she evidently cared for him enough for this; and 'this' meant his +arm about her, her hand in his, his eyes of devotion upon her, centre of +his universe as she was. And 'this' had, after years of formality, +incredibly indeed altered all their relation. But—to marry him—it +meant all sorts of other things; it meant definitely giving up; it meant +definitely taking on. What it meant taking on was Franklin's +raylessness, Franklin's obscurity, Franklin's dun-colour—could a wife +escape the infection? What it meant giving up was more vague, but it +floated before her as the rose-coloured dream of her youth—the hero, +the earnest, ardent hero, who was to light all life to rapture and +significance. And, absurdly, while the drift of glamour and regret<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> +floated by, and while she sat with Franklin's arm about her, her hand in +his, it seemed to shape itself for a moment into the gay, irresponsible +face of Gerald Digby. Absurd, indeed; he was neither earnest nor ardent, +and if he were he would never feel earnestness or ardour on her account. +Franklin certainly responded, in that respect, to the requirements of +her dream. Yet—ah, yet—he responded in no other. It was not enough to +have eyes only for her. A hero should draw others' eyes upon him; should +have rays that others could recognise. Althea was troubled, and she was +also ashamed of herself, but whether because of that vision of Gerald +Digby, or whether because she was allowing Franklin privileges never +allowed before, she did not know. Only the profundity of reverence that +beamed upon her from Franklin's eyes enabled her to regain her +self-respect.</p> + +<p>Smiling a little constrainedly, she drew her hand from his and rose. 'I +mustn't bind myself,' she repeated, standing with downcast eyes before +him, 'but I'll try; indeed, I'll try.'</p> + +<p>'You want to be in love with me, if only you can manage it, don't you, +dear?' he questioned; and to this she could truthfully reply, 'Yes, dear +Franklin, I want to be in love with you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2> + + +<p>Althea found, as she had hoped, that her whole situation was altered by +the arrival of her suitor. A woman boasting the possession of even the +most rayless of that species is in a very different category from the +woman as mere unsought unit. As unit she sinks easily into the +background, is merged with other unemphatic things, but as sought she is +always in the foreground, not only in her own, but in others' eyes. Be +she ever so unnoticeable, she then gains, at least, the compliment of +conjecture. The significance of her personal drama has a universal +interest; the issues of her situation are those that appeal forcibly to +all.</p> + +<p>Althea and her steady, sallow satellite, became the centre of a watchful +circle; watchful and kindly. Even to others her charms became more +apparent, as, indeed, they were more actual. To be loved and to live in +the presence of the adorer is the most beautifying of circumstances. +Althea bloomed under it. Her eyes became larger, sweeter, sadder; her +lips softer; the mild fever of her indecision and of her sense of power +burned dimly in her cheeks. As the centre of watchfulness she gained the +grace of self-confidence.</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia, observant and shrewd, smiled with half-ironic satisfaction. +She had felt sure that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> Althea must come to this, and 'this,' she +considered as on the whole fortunate for Althea. Anything, Aunt Julia +thought, was better than to become a wandering old maid, and she had, +moreover, the highest respect for Franklin Winslow Kane. As a suitor for +one of her own girls he would, of course, have been impossible; but her +girls she placed in a different category from Althea; they had the +rights of youth, charm, and beauty.</p> + +<p>The girls, for their part, though seeing Franklin as a fair object for +chaff, conceived of him as wholly suitable. Though they chaffed him, +they never did so to his disadvantage, and they were respectful +spectators of his enterprise. They had the nicest sense of loyalty for +serious situations.</p> + +<p>And Miss Buckston was of all the most satisfactory in her attitude. Her +contempt for the disillusions and impediments of marriage could not +prevent her from feeling an altogether new regard for a person to whom +marriage was so obviously open; moreover, she thought Mr. Kane highly +interesting. She at once informed Althea that she always found American +men vastly the superior in achievement and energy to the much-vaunted +American woman, and Althea was not displeased. She was amused but +gratified, when Miss Buckston told her what were Franklin's good +qualities, and said that though he had many foolish democratic notions, +he was more worth while talking to than any man she had met for a long +time. She took every opportunity for talking to him about sociology, +science, and international themes, and Althea even became a little irked +by the frequency of these colloquies and tempted sometimes to withdraw<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> +Franklin from them; but the subtle flattery that Miss Buckston's +interest in Franklin offered to herself was too acceptable for her to +yield to such impulses. Yes, Franklin had a right to his air of careful +elation; she had never been so near it. She had not again allowed him to +kiss her—she was still rather ashamed when she remembered how often she +had, on that one occasion, allowed him to kiss her; yet, in spite of her +swift stepping back to discretion, she had never in all her life been so +near to saying 'yes' to Franklin as during the eight or ten days after +his arrival. And the fact that a third postcard from Helen expressed +even further vagueness as to the chance of Gerald's being able to be +with them that autumn at Merriston, added to the sense of inevitability. +Althea had been for this time so absorbed in Franklin, his effect on +others and on herself, that she had not felt, as she would otherwise +have done, Helen's unsatisfactory attitude. Helen was at last coming, +and she was fluttered at the thought of her coming, but she was far more +able to cope with Helen; there was more self to do it with; she was +stronger, more independent of Helen's opinion and of Helen's affection. +But dimly she felt also—hardly aware she felt it—that she was a more +effective self as the undecided recipient of Franklin's devotion than as +his affianced wife. A rayless person, it seemed, could crown one with +beams as long as one maintained one's distance from him; merged with him +one shared his insignificance. To accept Franklin might be to shear them +both of all the radiance they borrowed from each other.</p> + +<p>Helen arrived on a very hot evening in mid-August. She had lost the best +train, which brought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> one to Merriston at tea-time—Althea felt that +Helen was the sort of person who would always lose the best train—and +after a tedious journey, with waits and changes at hot stations, she +received her friend's kisses just as the dressing-bell for dinner +sounded. Helen, standing among her boxes, while Amélie hurriedly got out +her evening things, looked extremely tired, and felt, Althea was sure, +extremely ill-tempered. It was characteristic of Helen, she knew it +intuitively, to feel ill-temper, and yet to have it so perfectly under +control that it made her manner sweeter than usual. Her sense of social +duty never failed her, and it did not in the least fail her now as she +smiled at Althea, and, while she drank the cup of tea that had been +brought to her, gave an account of her misfortunes. She had arrived in +London from Scotland the night before, spent two hours of the morning in +frantic shopping—the shops like ovens and the London pavements exhaling +a torrid heat; had found, on getting back to Aunt Grizel's—Aunt Grizel +was away—that the silly maid had muddled all her packing; then, late +already, had hurled herself into a cab, and observed, half-way to the +station, that the horse was on the point of collapse; had changed cabs +and had arrived at the station to see her train just going out. 'So +there I paced up and down like a caged, suffocating lioness for over an +hour, had a loathsome lunch, and read half a dozen papers before my +train started, I came third class with a weary mother and two babies, +the sun beat in all the way, and I had three changes. I'm hardly fit to +be seen, and not fit to speak. But, yes, I'll have a bath and come down +in time for something to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> eat. I'd rather come down; please don't wait +for me.'</p> + +<p>They did, however, and she was very late. The windows in the +drawing-room were widely open to the evening air, and the lamps had not +yet been lit; and when Helen came she made Althea think a little of a +beautiful grey moth, hovering vaguely in the dusk.</p> + +<p>Captain Merton dined with them that evening, and young Harry Evans, son +of a neighbouring squire; and Herbert Vaughan was still at Merriston, +the masculine equivalent of Mildred and Dorothy, an exquisitely +appointed youth, frank and boisterous, with charming, candid eyes, and +the figure of an Adonis. These young men's eyes were fixed upon Helen as +they took their places at the dinner-table, though not altogether, +Althea perceived, with admiration. Helen, wherever she was, would always +be centre; things and people grouped themselves about her; she made the +picture, and she was the focus of interest. 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> her +attention to anything put before her. One never could tell in the least +what she really thought of it. She smiled with pale lips and weary eyes +upon Franklin, listened to him gravely and with concentration, and, when +she did speak, it was, once or twice, with gaiety, as though he had +amused and surprised her. Yet Althea felt that her thoughts were far +from Franklin, far from everybody in the room. And meanwhile, of +everybody in the room, it was the lean, sallow young man beside her who +seemed at once the least impressed and the most interested. But that was +so like Franklin; no one could outdo him in interest, and no one could +outdo him in placidity. That he could examine Helen with his calm, +careful eye, as though she were an object for mental and moral +appraisement only; that he could see her so acutely, and yet remain so +unmoved by her rarity, at once pleased and displeased Althea. It showed +him as so safe, but it showed him as so narrow. She found herself +thinking almost impatiently that Franklin simply had no sense of charm +at all. Helen interested him, but she did not stir in him the least +wistfulness or wonder, as charm should do. Miss Buckston interested him, +too. And she was very sure that Franklin while liking Helen as a human +creature—so he liked Miss Buckston—disapproved of her as a type. Of +course, he must disapprove of her. Didn't she contradict all the things +he approved of—all the laboriousness, the earnestness, the tolerant +bias towards the views and feelings of the majority? And Althea felt, +with a rather sharp satisfaction, that it would give her some pleasure +to show Franklin that she differed from him; that she had other tastes +than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> his, other needs—needs which Helen more than satisfied.</p> + +<p>She had no opportunity that night for fathoming Helen's impressions of +Franklin, and indeed felt that the task was a delicate one to undertake. +If Helen didn't volunteer them she could hardly ask for them. Loyalty to +Franklin and to the old bond between them, to say nothing of the new, +made it unfit that Helen should know that her impressions of Franklin +were of any weight with her friend. But the next morning Helen did not +come down to breakfast, and there was no reason why, in a stroll round +the garden with Franklin afterwards, she should not be point blank; the +only unfairness here was that in his opinion of Helen it would not be +Helen he judged, but himself.</p> + +<p>'How do you like her, my new friend?' she asked.</p> + +<p>Franklin was very willing to talk and had already clear impressions. The +clearest was the one he put at once before her in the vernacular he had +never taken the least pains to modify. 'She looks sick; I'd be worried +about her if I were you. Can't you rouse her?'</p> + +<p>'Rouse her? She is always like that. Only she was particularly tired +last night.'</p> + +<p>'A healthy young woman oughtn't to get so tired. If she's always like +that she always needs rousing.'</p> + +<p>'Don't be ridiculous, Franklin. What do you mean?'</p> + +<p>'Why, I'm perfectly serious. I think she looks sick. She ought to take +tonics and a lot of outdoor exercise.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Is that all that you can find to say about her?' Althea asked, half +amused and half indignant.</p> + +<p>'Why no,' Franklin replied. 'I think she's very attractive; she has a +great deal of poise. Only she's half alive. I'd like to see her doing +something.'</p> + +<p>'It's enough for her to be, I think.'</p> + +<p>'Enough for you, perhaps; but is it enough for her? She'd be a mighty +lot happier if she had some work.'</p> + +<p>'Really, Franklin, you are absurd,' said Althea laughing. 'There is room +in the world, thank goodness, for other people besides people who work.'</p> + +<p>'Oh no, there isn't; not really. The trouble with the world is that +they're here and have to be taken care of; there's not room for them. +It's lovely of you to care so much about her,' he went on, turning his +bright gaze upon her. 'I see how you care for her. It's because of +that—for her sake, you know—what it can mean to her—that I emphasise +the side that needs looking after. You look after her, Althea; that'll +be the best thing that can happen to her.'</p> + +<p>With all his acuteness, how guileless he was, the dear! She saw herself +'looking after' Helen!</p> + +<p>'You might have a great deal of influence on her,' Franklin added.</p> + +<p>Althea struggled for a moment with her pride. She liked Franklin to have +this high opinion of her ministering powers, and yet she liked even more +to have the comfort of confiding in him; and she was willing to add to +Helen's impressiveness at the expense of her own. 'I've no influence +with her,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> she said. 'I never shall have. I don't believe that any one +could influence Helen.'</p> + +<p>Franklin looked fixedly at her for some time as though probing what +there must be of pain for her in this avowal. Then he said, 'That's too +bad. Too bad for her, I mean. You're all right, dear. She doesn't know +what she misses.'</p> + +<p>They sat out on the lawn that afternoon in the shade of the great trees. +Mildred and Dorothy, glittering in white, played lawn-tennis +indefatigably with Herbert Vaughan and Captain Merton. Aunt Julia +embroidered, and Miss Buckston read a review with a concentrated brow +and an occasional ejaculation of disapproval. Helen was lying prone in a +green linen chair; her garden hat was bent over her eyes and she seemed +to doze. Franklin sat on the grass in front of Althea, just outside the +radius of shadow, clasping his thin knees with his thin hands. He looked +at his worst out of doors, on a lawn and under trees. He was typically +civic. Even with his attempts to adapt his clothes to rural +requirements, he was out of place. His shoes seemed to demand a +pavement, and his thin grey coat and trousers an office stool. Althea +also eyed his tie with uncertainty. He wasn't right; he didn't in the +least look like Herbert Vaughan, who was elegant, or like Captain +Merton, who was easy. He sat out in the sunlight, undisturbed by it, +though he screwed up his features in a very unbecoming way while he +talked, the sun in his eyes. In her cool green shadow, Helen now and +then opened her eyes and looked at him, and Althea wished that he would +not remain in so resolutely disadvantageous a situation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>'See here, Althea,' he was saying, 'if you've gone so much into this +matter'—the topic was that of sweated industries—'I don't see how you +can avoid feeling responsible—making some use of all you know. I don't +ask you to come home to do it, though we need you and your kind badly +there, but you ought to lend a hand here.'</p> + +<p>'I don't really think I could be of any use,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'With all your knowledge of political economy? Why, Miss Buckston could +set you to something at once. Knowledge is always of use, isn't it, Miss +Buckston?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, if one cares enough about things to put them through,' said Miss +Buckston. 'I always tell Althea that she might make herself very useful +to me.'</p> + +<p>'Exactly,' said Franklin. 'And she does care. All you need do, Althea, +is to harness yourself. You mustn't drift.'</p> + +<p>'The number of drifting American women one sees over here!' Miss +Buckston ejaculated; to which Franklin cheerfully replied: 'Oh, we'll +work them all in; they are of use to us in their own way, though they +often don't know it. They are learning a lot; they are getting equipped. +The country will get the good of it some day. Look at Althea, for +instance. You might say she drifted, but she's been a hard scholar; I +know it; all she needs now is to get harnessed.'</p> + +<p>It was not lover-like talk; yet what talk, in its very impartiality, +could from a lover be more gratifying? Althea again glanced at Helen, +but Helen again seemed to slumber. Her face in repose<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> had a look of +discontent and sorrow, and Franklin's eyes, following her own, no doubt +recognised what she did. He observed Helen for some moments before +returning to the theme of efficiency.</p> + +<p>It was a little later on that Althea's opportunity—and crisis—came. +Aunt Julia had gone in and Miss Buckston suggested to Franklin that he +should take a turn with her before tea. Franklin got up at once and +walked away beside her, and Althea knew that his alacrity was the +greater because he felt that by going with Miss Buckston he left her +alone with her cherished friend. As he and Miss Buckston disappeared in +the shrubberies, Helen opened her eyes and looked at them.</p> + +<p>'How do you like Miss Buckston now that you see her at closer quarters?' +Althea asked, hoping to approach the subject that preoccupied her by a +circuitous method.</p> + +<p>Helen smiled. 'One hardly likes her better at closer quarters, does one? +She is like a gun going off every few moments.'</p> + +<p>Althea smiled too; she no longer felt many qualms of loyalty on Miss +Buckston's behalf.</p> + +<p>Helen said no more, and the subject was still unapproached. 'And how do +you like Mr. Kane?' Althea now felt herself forced to add.</p> + +<p>She had not intended to use that casual tone, nearly the same tone that +she had used for Miss Buckston. But she had a dimly apprehended and +strongly felt wish not to forestall any verdict of Helen's; to make sure +that Helen should have an open field for pronouncing her verdict +candidly. Yet she was hardly prepared for the candour of Helen's reply, +though in the shock that attended it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> she knew in a moment that she had +brought it upon herself. One didn't question people about one's near +friends in that casual tone.</p> + +<p>'Funny little man,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>After the shock of it—her worst suspicions confirmed—it was a deep +qualm that Althea felt, a qualm in which she knew that something +definite and final had happened to her; something sharp yet vague, all +blurred by the balmy softness of the day, the sense of physical +well-being, the beauty of green branches and bays of deep blue sky +above. It was difficult to know, for a moment, just what had happened, +for it was not as if she had ever definitely told herself that she +intended to marry Franklin. The clearest contrast between the moment of +revelation and that which had gone before lay in the fact that not until +Helen spoke those idle, innocent words had she ever definitely told +herself that she could never marry him. And there was a pang in the +knowledge, and with it a drowsy lassitude, as of relief and certainty. +The reason now was there; it gazed at her. Not that she couldn't have +seen it for herself, but pity, loneliness, the craving for love had +blinded her. Franklin was a funny little man, and that was why she could +not marry him. And now, with the lassitude, the relief from long +tension, came a feeling of cold and sickness.</p> + +<p>Helen, baleful in her unconsciousness, had again closed her eyes. Althea +looked at her, and she was aware of being angry with Helen. She was +further aware that, since all was over for Franklin, she owed him +something. She owed it to him at least to make clear to Helen that she +didn't place him with Miss Buckston.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Yes,' she said, 'Franklin is funny in his way. He is very quaint and +original and simple; but he is a dear, too, you know.'</p> + +<p>Helen did not open her eyes. 'I'm sure he is,' she acquiesced. Her +placid acceptance of whatever interpretation of Mr. Kane Althea should +choose to set before her, made Althea still angrier—with herself and +with Helen.</p> + +<p>'He is quite a noted scientist,' she went on, keeping her voice smooth, +'and has a very interesting new theory about atoms that's exciting a +good deal of attention.'</p> + +<p>Her voice was too successful; Helen still suspected nothing. 'Yes,' she +said. 'Really.'</p> + +<p>'You mustn't judge him from his appearance,' said Althea, smiling, for +Helen had now opened her eyes and was looking dreamily at the +lawn-tennis players.' His clothes are odd, of course; he doesn't know +how to dress; but his eyes are fine; one sees the thinker in them.' She +hoped by sacrificing Franklin's clothes to elicit some appreciation of +his eyes. But Helen merely acquiesced again with: 'Yes; he doesn't know +how to dress.'</p> + +<p>'He isn't at all well off, you know,' said Althea. 'Indeed, he is quite +poor. He spends most of his money on research and philanthropy.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, well!' Helen commented, 'it's extraordinary how little difference +money makes if a man knows how to dress.'</p> + +<p>The thought of Gerald Digby went like a dart through Althea's mind. He +was poor. She remembered his socks and ties, his general rightness. She +wondered how much he spent on his clothes. She was silent for a moment, +struggling with her trivial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and with her deep discomfitures, and she +saw the figures of Miss Buckston and of Franklin—both so funny, both so +earnest—appear at the farther edge of the lawn engaged in strenuous +converse. Helen looked at them too, kindly and indifferently. 'That +would be quite an appropriate attachment, wouldn't it?' she remarked. +'They seem very much interested in each other, those two.'</p> + +<p>Althea grew very red. Her mind knew a horrid wrench. She did not know +whether it was in pride of possessorship, or shame of it, or merely in +helpless loyalty that, after a pause, she said: 'Perhaps I ought to have +told you, Helen, that Franklin has wanted to marry me for fifteen years. +I've no intention of accepting him; but no one can judge as I can of how +big and dear a person he is—in spite of his funniness.' As she spoke +she remembered—it was with a gush of undiluted dismay—that to Helen +she had in Paris spoken of the 'delightful' suitor, the 'only one.' Did +Helen remember? And how could Helen connect that delightful 'one' with +Franklin, and with her own attitude towards Franklin?</p> + +<p>But Helen now had turned her eyes upon her, opening them—it always +seemed to be with difficulty that she did it—widely. 'My dear,' she +said, 'I do beg your pardon. You never gave me a hint.'</p> + +<p>How, indeed, could the Paris memory have been one?</p> + +<p>'There wasn't any hint to give, exactly,' said Althea, blushing more +deeply and trying to prevent the tears from rising. 'I'm not in the +least in love with Franklin. I never shall be.'</p> + +<p>'No, of course not,' Helen replied, full of solici<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>tude. 'Only, as you +say, you must know him so well;—to have him talked over, quite idly and +ignorantly, as I've been talking.—Really, you ought to have stopped +me.'</p> + +<p>'There was no reason for stopping you. I can see Franklin with perfect +detachment. I see him just as you do, only I see so much more. His +devotion to me is a rare thing; it has always made me feel unworthy.'</p> + +<p>'Dear me, yes. Fifteen years, you say; it's quite extraordinary,' said +Helen.</p> + +<p>To Althea it seemed that Helen's candour was merciless, and revealed her +to herself as uncandid, crooked, and devious. It was with a stronger +wish than ever to atone to Franklin that she persisted: '<i>He</i> is +extraordinary; that's what I mean about him. I am devoted to him. And my +consolation is that since I can't give him love he finds my friendship +the next best thing in life.'</p> + +<p>'Really?' Helen repeated. She was silent then, evidently not considering +herself privileged to ask questions; and the silence was fraught for +Althea with keenest discomfort. It was only after a long pause that at +last, tentatively and delicately, as though she guessed that Althea +perhaps was resenting something, and perhaps wanted her to ask +questions, Helen said: 'And—you don't think you can ever take him?'</p> + +<p>'My dear Helen! How can you ask me? He isn't a man to fall in love with, +is he?'</p> + +<p>'No, certainly not,' said Helen, smiling a little constrainedly, as +though her friend's vehemence struck her as slightly excessive. 'But he +might, from what you tell me, be a man to marry.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I couldn't marry a man I was not in love with.'</p> + +<p>'Not if he were sufficiently in love with you? Such faithful and devoted +people are rare.'</p> + +<p>'You know, Helen, that, however faithful and devoted he were, you +couldn't fancy yourself marrying Franklin.'</p> + +<p>Helen, at this turning of the tables, looked slightly disconcerted. +'Well, as you say, I hardly know him,' she suggested.</p> + +<p>'However well you knew him, you do know that under no circumstances +could you marry him.'</p> + +<p>'No, I suppose not.'</p> + +<p>Her look of readjustment was inflicting further and subtler wounds.</p> + +<p>'Can't I feel in the same way?' said Althea.</p> + +<p>Helen, a little troubled by the feeling she could not interpret in her +friend's voice, hesitated before saying—as though in atonement to Mr. +Kane she felt bound to put his case as favourably as possible: 'It +doesn't quite follow, does it, that somebody who would suit you would +suit me? We are so different, aren't we?'</p> + +<p>'Different? How?'</p> + +<p>'Well, I could put up with a very inferior, frivolous sort of person. +You'd have higher ideas altogether.'</p> + +<p>Althea still tried to smile. 'You mean that Franklin is too high an idea +for you?'</p> + +<p>'Far, far too high,' said Helen, smiling back.</p> + +<p>Franklin and Miss Buckston were now approaching them, and Althea had to +accept this ambiguous result of the conversation. One result, however, +was not ambiguous. She seemed to see Franklin, as he came towards her +over the thick sward, in a new light, a light that diminished and +removed him;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> so that while her heart ached over him as it had never +ached, it yet, strangely, was hardened towards him, and almost hostile. +How had she not seen for herself, clearly and finally, that she and +Helen were alike, and that whether it was that Franklin was too high, or +whether it was that Franklin was merely funny—for either or for both +reasons, Franklin could never be for her.</p> + +<p>Her heart was hard and aching; but above everything else one hot feeling +pulsed: Helen should not have said that he was funny and then glided to +the point where she left him as too high for herself, yet not too high +for her friend. She should not have withdrawn from her friend and +stranded her with Franklin Winslow Kane.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2> + + +<p>In the course of the next few days Miss Buckston went back to her Surrey +cottage, and two friends of Helen's arrived. Helen was fulfilling her +promise of giving Althea all the people she wanted. Lady Pickering was +widowed, young, coquettish, and pretty; Sir Charles Brewster a lively +young bachelor with high eyebrows, upturned tips to his moustache, and +an air of surprise and competence. They made great friends at once with +Mildred, Dorothy and Herbert Vaughan, who shared in all Sir Charles's +hunting and yachting interests. Lady Pickering, after a day of tennis +and flirtation, would drift at night into Dorothy and Mildred's rooms to +talk of dresses, and for some days wore her hair tied in a large black +bow behind, reverting, however, to her usual dishevelled +picturesqueness. 'One needs to look as innocent as a pony to have that +bow really suit one,' she said.</p> + +<p>Althea, in this accession of new life, again felt relegated to the +background. Helen did not join in the revels, but there was no air of +being relegated about her; she might have been the jaded and kindly +queen before whom they were enacted. 'Dear Helen,' said Lady Pickering +to Mildred and Althea, 'I can see that she's down on her luck and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> very +bored with life. But it's always nice having her about, isn't it? Always +nice to have her to look at.'</p> + +<p>Althea felt that her guests found no such decorative uses for herself, +and that they took it for granted that, with a suitor to engage her +attention, she would be quite satisfied to remain outside, even if +above, the gayer circle. She could not deny that her acceptance of +Franklin's devotion before Helen's arrival, their air of happy +withdrawal—a withdrawal that had then made them conspicuous, not +negligible—absolutely justified her guests in their over-tactfulness. +They still took it for granted that she and Franklin wanted to be alone +together; they still left them in an isolation almost bridal; but now +Althea did not want to be left alone with Franklin, and above all wished +to detach herself from any bridal association; and she tormented herself +with accusations concerning her former graciousness, responsible as it +was for her present discomfort. She knew that she was very fond of dear +Franklin, and that she always would be fond of him, but, with these +accusations crowding thickly upon her, she was ill at ease and unhappy +in his presence. What could she say to Franklin? 'I did, indeed, deceive +myself into thinking that I might be able to marry you, and I let you +see that I thought it; and then my friend's chance words showed me that +I never could. What am I to think of myself, Franklin? And what can you +think of me?' For though she could no longer feel pride in Franklin's +love; though it had ceased, since Helen's words, to have any decorative +value in her eyes, its practical value was still great; she could not +think of herself as not loved by Franklin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> Her world would have rocked +without that foundation beneath it; and the fear that Franklin might, +reading her perplexed, unstable heart, feel her a person no longer to be +loved, was now an added complication.</p> + +<p>'O Franklin, dear Franklin!' she said to him suddenly one day, turning +upon him eyes enlarged by tears, 'I feel as if I were guilty towards +you.'</p> + +<p>She almost longed to put her head on his shoulder, to pour out all her +grief, and be understood and comforted. Franklin had not been slow to +recognise the change in his beloved's attitude towards him. He had shown +no sign of grievance or reproach; he seemed quite prepared for her +reaction from the moment of only dubious hope, and, though quite without +humility, to find it natural, however painful to himself, that Althea +should be rather bored after so much of him. But the gentle lighting of +his face now showed her, too, that her reticence and withdrawal had hurt +more than the new loss of hope.</p> + +<p>'You mean,' he said, trying to smile a little as he said it, 'you mean +that you've found out that you can't, dear?'</p> + +<p>She stood, stricken by the words and their finality, and she slowly +nodded, while two large tears rolled down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Franklin Kane controlled the signs of his own emotion, which was deep. +'That's all right, dear,' he said. 'You're not guilty of anything. +You've been a little too kind—more than you can keep up, I mean. It's +been beautiful of you to be kind at all and to think you might be +kinder. Would you rather I went away? Perhaps it's painful to have me +about just now. I've got a good many places I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> can go to while I'm over +here, you know. You mustn't have me on your mind.'</p> + +<p>'O Franklin!' Althea almost sobbed; 'you are an angel. Of course I want +you to stay for as long as you will; of course I love to have you here.' +He was an angel, indeed, she felt, and another dart of hostility towards +Helen went through her—Helen, cynical, unspiritual, blind to angels.</p> + +<p>So Franklin stayed on, and the next day another guest arrived. It was at +breakfast that Althea found at her place a little note from Gerald Digby +asking her very prettily if she could take him in that evening. He was +in town and would start at once if she could wire that he might come. +Althea controlled, as best she could, her shock of delight. He had, +then, intended to come; he had not forgotten all about her. Even if she +counted only in his memory as tenant, it was good, she felt it +helplessly and blissfully, to count in any way with Gerald Digby. She +did not analyse and hardly recognised these sentiments, yet she strongly +felt the need for composure, and it was only with an air of soft +exhilaration that she made the announcement over the table to Helen. +'Isn't it nice, Helen? Mr. Digby is coming this evening.' The soft +exhilaration could not be noticeable, for everybody seemed in some +degree to share it.</p> + +<p>'Dear Gerald, how delightful!' said Lady Pickering, with, to Althea's +consciousness, too much an air of possessorship. 'Gerald is a splendid +actor, Miss Pepperell,' Sir Charles said to Dorothy. 'Miss Buchanan, you +and he must do some of your best parts together.' The girls were full of +expectancy. It was Helen herself who looked least illuminated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> by the +news; but then, as Althea realised, to Helen Gerald must be the most +matter-of-fact thing in life.</p> + +<p>They were all sitting under the trees on the lawn when Gerald arrived; +he had not lost the best train. Every one was in white, except Helen who +wore black, and Franklin who wore grey; every one was lolling on the +grass or extended on chairs, except Aunt Julia, erect and embroidering, +and Althea who was giving her attention to tea. It had just been poured +out when Gerald came strolling over the lawn towards them.</p> + +<p>He carried his Panama hat doubled in his hand; he looked exquisitely +cool, and he glanced about him as he came, well pleased, apparently, to +find himself again in his old home. Althea felt his manner of +approaching them to be characteristic; it was at once so desultory and +so pleasant.</p> + +<p>'You look like a flock of doves,' he said, as, smiling, he took Althea's +welcoming hand and surveyed the group. 'Hello, Helen, how are you? +Hello, Charlie; and how nice to find you, Frances.'</p> + +<p>He was introduced to the others, continuing to smile with marked +approbation, Althea felt, upon Mildred and Dorothy, who certainly looked +charming, and then he dropped on the grass beside Lady Pickering's +chair.</p> + +<p>Althea knew that if she looked like a dove, she felt like a very +fluttering one. She was much moved by this welcoming of Mr. Digby to his +home, and she wondered if the quickened beating of her heart manifested +itself in any change of glance or colour. She soon felt, however, as she +distributed teacups and looked about her circle, that if she were +visibly moved Mr. Digby would not be aware of the fact.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> The fact, +obviously, that he was most aware of was Lady Pickering's presence, and +he was talking to her with a lightness and gaiety that she could +presently only define, for her own discomfort, as flirtation. Althea had +had little experience of flirting, and the little had not been personal. +It had remained for her always a rather tasteless, rather ludicrous +spectacle; yet Mr. Digby's manner of flirting, if flirting it was, was +neither. It was graceful, unemphatic, composed of playful repartee and +merry glances. It was Lady Pickering who overdid her side of the +dialogue and brought to it a significance that Mr. Digby's eyes and +smile disowned even while they evoked it. One of the things of which Mr. +Digby had shown himself most completely unaware was Franklin Kane, who +sat, as usual, just outside the circle in the sun, balancing his tea-cup +on his raised knees and 'Fletcherising' a slice of cake. Gerald had +glanced at him as one might glance—Althea had felt it keenly—at some +nice little insect on one's path, a pleasant insect, but too small to +warrant any attention beyond a casual recognition of type. But Franklin, +who had a casual interest in nobody, was very much aware of the +newcomer, and he gazed attentively at Gerald Digby as he had gazed at +Helen on the first evening of their meeting, with less of interest +perhaps, but with much the same dispassionate intentness; and Althea +felt sure that he already did not approve of Gerald Digby.</p> + +<p>She asked Helen that evening, lightly, as Helen had asked an equivalent +question about Franklin and Miss Buckston, whether Mr. Digby and Lady +Pickering were in love; she felt sure that they were not in love, which +made the question easier.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Oh no; not at all, I fancy,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'I only asked,' said Althea, 'because it seemed the obvious +explanation.'</p> + +<p>'You mean their way of flirting.'</p> + +<p>'Yes. I suppose I'm not used to flirtation, not to such extreme +flirtation. I don't like it, do you?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know that I do; but Gerald is only a flirt through sympathy and +good nature. It's Frances who leads him on; she is a flirt by +temperament.'</p> + +<p>'I'm glad of that,' said Althea. 'I'm sure he is too nice to be one by +temperament.'</p> + +<p>'After all, it's a very harmless diversion.'</p> + +<p>'Do you think it harmless? It pains me to see a sacred thing being +mimicked.'</p> + +<p>'I hardly think it's a sacred thing Frances and Gerald are mimicking,' +Helen smiled.</p> + +<p>'It's love, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>'Love of such a trivial order that I can't feel anything is being taken +in vain.'</p> + +<p>Helen was amused, yet touched by her friend's standards. Such distaste +was not unknown to her, and Gerald's sympathetic propensities had caused +her qualms with which she could not have imagined that Althea's had any +analogy. Yet it was not her own taste she was considering that evening +after dinner when, in walking up and down with Gerald on the gravelled +terrace outside the drawing-room, she told him of Althea's standards. +She felt responsible for Gerald, and that she owed it to Althea that he +should not be allowed to displease her. It had struck her more than +once, immersed in self-centred cogitations as she was, that Althea was +altogether too much relegated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I wish you and Frances would not go on as you do, Gerald,' she said. +'It disturbs Althea, I am sure. She is not used to seeing people +behaving like that.'</p> + +<p>'Behaving?' asked the innocent Gerald. 'How have I been behaving?'</p> + +<p>'Very foolishly. You have been flirting, and rather flagrantly, with +Frances, ever since you came.'</p> + +<p>'But, my dear, you know perfectly well that one can't talk to Frances +without flirting with her. All conversation becomes flirtation. The most +guileless glance, in meeting her eye, is transmuted, like a straight +stick looking crooked when you put it into water, you know. Frances has +a charmingly deviating quality that I defy the straightest of intentions +to evade.'</p> + +<p>'Are yours so straight?'</p> + +<p>'Well—she is pretty and pleasant, and perfectly superficial, as you +know. I own that I do rather like to put the stick in the water and see +what happens to it.'</p> + +<p>'Well, don't put it in too often before Althea. After all, you are all +of you here because of her friendship with me, and it makes me feel +guilty if I see her having a bad time because of your misbehaviour.'</p> + +<p>'A bad time?'</p> + +<p>'Really. She takes things hard. She said it was mimicking a sacred +thing.'</p> + +<p>'Oh! but, I say, how awfully funny, Helen. You must own that it's +funny.'</p> + +<p>'Funny, but sweet, too.'</p> + +<p>'She is a sweet creature, of course, one can see that; and her moral +approvals and disapprovals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> are firmly fixed, however funny; one likes +that in her. I'll try to be good, if Frances will let me. She looked +quite pretty this evening, Miss Jakes; only she dresses too stiffly. +What's the matter? Couldn't you give her a hint? She is like a +satin-box, and a woman ought to be like a flower; ought to look as if +they'd bend if a breeze went over them. Now you can't imagine Miss Jakes +bending; she'd have to stoop.'</p> + +<p>Helen, in the darkness, smiled half bitterly, half affectionately. +Gerald's nonsense always pleased her, even when she was most exasperated +with him. She was not exasperated with Gerald in particular just now, +but with everything and everybody, herself included, and the fact that +he liked to flirt flagrantly with Lady Pickering did not move her more +than usual. It was not a particular but a general irritation that edged +her voice a little as she said, drawing her black scarf more closely +round her shoulders, 'Frances must satisfy you there. Your tastes, I +think, are becoming more and more dishevelled.'</p> + +<p>But innocent Gerald answered with a coal of fire: 'No, she is too +dishevelled. You satisfy my tastes there entirely; you flow, but you +don't flop. Now if Miss Jakes would only try to dress like you she'd be +immensely improved. You are perfect.' And he lightly touched her scarf +as he spoke with a fraternal and appreciative hand.</p> + +<p>Helen continued to smile in the darkness, but it was over an almost +irresistible impulse to sob. The impulse was so strong that it +frightened her, and it was with immense relief that she saw Althea's +figure—her 'box-like' figure—appear in the lighted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> window. She did +not want to talk to Althea, and she could not, just now, go on talking +to Gerald. From their corner of the terrace she indicated the vaguely +gazing Althea. 'There she is,' she said. 'Go and talk to her. Be nice to +her. I'm tired and am going to have a stroll in the shrubberies before +bed.'</p> + +<p>She left Gerald obediently, if not eagerly, moving towards the window, +and slipping into the obscurity of the shrubberies she threw back her +scarf and drew long breaths. She was becoming terribly overwrought. It +had been, since so long, a second nature to live two lives that any +danger of their merging affected her with a dreadful feeling of +disintegration. There was the life of comradeship, the secure little +compartment where Gerald was at home, so at home that he could tell her +she was perfect and touch her scarf with an approving hand, and from +this familiar shelter she had looked for so long, with the calmest eye, +upon his flirtations, and in it had heard, unmoved, his encomiums upon +herself. The other life, the real life, was all outdoors in comparison; +it was all her real self, passionate, untamed, desolate; it was like a +bleak, wild moorland, and the social, the comrade self only a strongly +built little lodge erected, through stress of wind and weather, in the +midst of it. Since girlhood it had been a second nature to her to keep +comradeship shut in and reality shut out. And to-night reality seemed to +shake and batter at the doors.</p> + +<p>She had come to Merriston House to rest, to drink <i>eau rougie</i> and to +rest. She wanted to lapse into apathy and to recover, as far as might +be, from her recent unpleasant experiments and experiences.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Had she +allowed herself any illusions about the experiment, the experience would +have been humiliating; but Helen was not humiliated, she had not +deceived herself for a moment. She had, open-eyed, been trying for the +'other things,' and she had only just missed them. She had intended to +marry a very important person who much admired her. She had been almost +sure that she could marry him if she wanted to, and she had found out +that she couldn't. It had not been, as in her youth, her own shrinking +and her own recoil at the last decisive moment. She had been resolved +and unwavering; her discomfiture had been sudden and its cause the quite +grotesque one of her admirer having fallen head over heels in love with +a child of eighteen—a foolish, affected little child, who giggled and +glanced and blushed opportunely, and who, beside these assets, had a +skilful and determined mother. Without the mother to waylay, pounce, and +fix, Helen did not believe that her sober, solid friend would have +yielded to the momentary beguilement, and Helen herself deigned not one +hint of contest; she had been resolved, but only to accept; she could +never have waylaid or pounced. And now, apathetic, yet irritated, +exhausted and sick at heart, she had been telling herself, as she lay in +the garden-chairs at Merriston House, that it was more than probable +that the time was over, even for the 'other things.' The prospect made +her weary. What—with Aunt Grizel's one hundred and fifty a year—was +she to do with herself in the future? What was to become of her? She +didn't feel that she much cared, and yet it was all that there was left +to care about, for Aunt Grizel's sake<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> if not for her own, and she felt +only fit to rest from the pressure of the question. To-night, as she +turned and wandered among the trees, she said to herself that it hadn't +been a propitious time to come for rest to Merriston House. Gerald had +been the last person she desired to see just now. She had never been so +near to feeling danger as to-night. If Gerald were nice to her—he +always was—but nice in a certain way, the way that expressed so clearly +his tenderness and his dreadful, his merciful unawareness, she might +break down before him and sob. This would be too horrible, and when she +thought that it might happen she felt, rising with the longing for +tears, an old resentment against Gerald, fierce, absurd, and +unconquerable. After making the round of the lawns and looking up hard +and unseeingly at the stars, she came back to the terrace. Gerald and +Althea were gone, and she surmised that Gerald had not taken much +trouble to be nice. She was passing along an unillumined corner when she +came suddenly upon a figure seated there—so suddenly that she almost +fell against it. She murmured a hasty apology as Mr. Kane rose from a +chair where, with folded arms, he had been seated, apparently in +contemplation of the night.</p> + +<p>'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Helen. 'It's so dark here. I didn't see +you.'</p> + +<p>'And I didn't hear you coming,' said Mr. Kane. 'I beg your pardon. I'm +afraid you hurt your foot.'</p> + +<p>'Not at all,' Helen assured him. She had stepped into the light from the +windows and, Mr. Kane being beside her, she could see his face clearly +and see that he looked very tired. She had been aware,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> in these days of +somnolent retirement, that one other member of the party seemed, though +not in her sense retired from it, to wander rather aimlessly on its +outskirts. That his removal to this ambiguous limbo had been the result +of her own arrival Helen had no means of knowing, since she had never +seen Mr. Kane in his brief moment of hope when he and Althea had been +centre and everybody else outskirts. She had found him, during her few +conversations with him, so tamely funny as to be hardly odd, though his +manner of speaking and the way in which his hair was cut struck her as +expressing oddity to an unfortunate degree; but though only dimly aware +of him, and aware mainly in this sense of amusement, she had, since +Althea had informed her of his status, seen him with some +compassionateness. It didn't make him less funny to her that he should +have been in love with Althea for fifteen years, rather it made him more +so. Helen found it difficult to take either the devotion or its object +very seriously. She thought hopeless passions rather ridiculous, her own +included, but Gerald she did consider a possible object of passion; and +how Althea could be an object of passion for anybody, even for funny +little Mr. Kane, surpassed her comprehension, so that the only way to +understand the situation was to decide that Mr. Kane was incapable of +passion altogether. But to-night she received a new impression; looking +at Mr. Kane's face, thin, jaded, and kindly attentive to herself, it +suddenly became apparent to her that whatever his feeling might be it +was serious. He might not know passion, but his heart was aching, +perhaps quite as fiercely as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> her own. She felt sorry for Mr. Kane, and +her step lingered on her way to the house.</p> + +<p>'Isn't it a lovely night,' she said, in order to say something. 'Do you +like sitting in the dark? It's very restful, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>Franklin saw the alien Miss Buchanan's eyes bent kindly and observantly +upon him.</p> + +<p>'Yes, it's very restful,' he said. 'It smooths you out and straightens +you out when you get crumpled, you know, and impatient.'</p> + +<p>'I should not imagine you as ever very impatient,' smiled Helen. +'Perhaps you do sit a great deal in the dark.'</p> + +<p>He took her whimsical suggestion with careful humour. 'Why, no, it's not +a habit of mine; and it's not a recipe that it would be a good thing to +overdo, is it?'</p> + +<p>'Why not?' she asked.</p> + +<p>'There are worse things than impatience, aren't there?' said Franklin. +'Gloominess, for instance. You might get gloomy if you sat out in the +dark a great deal.'</p> + +<p>It amused her a little to wonder, as they went in together, whether Mr. +Kane disciplined his emotions and withdrew from restful influences +before they had time to become discouraging ones. She imagined that he +would have a recipe for everything.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2> + + +<p>It was after this little nocturnal encounter that Helen found herself +watching Mr. Kane with a dim, speculative sympathy. There was nothing +else of much interest to watch, as far as she was aware, for Helen's +powers of observation were not sharpened by much imaginativeness. Her +sympathy must be aroused for her to care to see, and just now she felt +no sympathy for any one but Mr. Kane.</p> + +<p>Gerald, flirting far less flagrantly and sketching assiduously, was in +no need of sympathy; nor Althea, despite the fact that Helen felt her to +be a little reserved and melancholy. Althea, on the whole, seemed +placidly enough absorbed in her duties of hostess, and her state of +mind, at no time much preoccupying Helen, preoccupied her now less than +ever. The person who really interested her, now that she had come to +look at him and to realise that he was suffering, was Mr. Kane. He was +puzzling to her, not mystifying; there was no element of depth or shadow +about him; even his suffering—it was odd to think that a person with +such a small, flat nose should suffer—even his suffering was pellucid. +He puzzled her because he was different from anything she had ever +encountered, and he made her think of a page of trite phrases printed in +a half-comprehended dialect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> If it was puzzling that any man should be +sufficiently in love with Althea to suffer over it, it was yet more +puzzling that, neglected as he so obviously was by his beloved, he +should show no dejection or consciousness of diminution. He seemed a +little aimless, it is true, but not in the least injured; and Helen, as +she watched him, found herself liking Mr. Kane.</p> + +<p>He had an air, pleasant to her, of finding no one beneath him, and at +the same time he seemed as unaware of superiority—unless it were +definitely moral or intellectual. A general indiscriminating goodwill +was expressed in his manner towards everybody, and when he did +discriminate—which was always on moral issues—his goodwill seemed +unperturbed by any amount of reprobation. He remained blandly humane +under the most disconcerting circumstances. She overtook him one day in +a lane holding a drunkard by the shoulder and endeavouring to steer him +homeward, while he expounded to him in scientific tones the ill effects +of alcohol on the system, and the remarkable results to be attained by +steady self-suggestion. Mr. Kane's collar was awry and his coat dusty, +almost as dusty as the drunkard's, with whom he had evidently had to +grapple in raising him from the highway; and Helen, as she paused at the +turning of the road which brought her upon them, heard Franklin's words:</p> + +<p>'I've tried it myself for insomnia. I'm a nervous man, and I was in a +bad way at the time; over-pressure, you know, and worry. I guess it's +like that with you, too, isn't it? You get on edge. Well, there's +nothing better than self-suggestion,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> and if you'll give it a try you'll +be surprised by the results, I'm sure of it.'</p> + +<p>Helen joined them and offered her assistance, for the bewildered +proselyte seemed unable to move forward now that he was upon his feet.</p> + +<p>'Well, if you would be so kind. Just your hand on his other shoulder, +you know,' said Franklin, turning a grateful glance upon her. 'Our +friend here is in trouble, you see. It's not far to the village, and +what he wants is to get to bed, have a good sleep and then a wash. He'll +feel a different man then.'</p> + +<p>Helen, her hand at 'our friend's' left shoulder, helped to propel him +forward, and ten minutes took them to his door, where, surrounded by a +staring crowd of women and children, they delivered him into the keeping +of his wife, a thin and weary person, who looked upon his benefactors +with almost as much resentment as upon him.</p> + +<p>'What he really needs, I'm afraid I think,' Helen said, as she and Mr. +Kane walked away, 'is a good whipping.' She said it in order to see the +effect of the ruthlessness upon her humanitarian companion.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kane did not look shocked or grieved; he turned a cogitating glance +upon her, and she saw that he diagnosed the state of mind that could +make such a suggestion and could not take it seriously. He smiled, +though a little gravely, in answering: 'Why, no, I don't think so; and I +don't believe you think so, Miss Buchanan. What you want to give him is +a hold on himself, hope, and self-respect; it wouldn't give you +self-respect to be whipped, would it?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<p>'It might give me discretion,' said Helen, smiling back.</p> + +<p>'We don't want human beings to have the discretion of animals; we want +them to have the discretion of men,' said Franklin; 'that is, +self-mastery and wisdom.'</p> + +<p>Helen did not feel able to argue the point; indeed, it did not interest +her; but she asked Mr. Kane, some days later, how his roadside friend +was progressing towards the discretion of a man.</p> + +<p>'Oh, he'll be all right,' said Franklin. 'He'll pull round. +Self-suggestion will do it. It's not a bad case. He couldn't get hold of +the idea at first—he's not very bright; but I found out that he'd got +some very useful religious notions, and I work it in on these.'</p> + +<p>From the housekeeper, a friend of her youth, Helen learned that in the +village Mr. Kane's ministrations to Jim Betts were regarded with +surprise, yet not without admiration. He was supposed to be some strange +sort of foreign clergyman, not to be placed in any recognisable +category. 'He's a very kind gentleman, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Fielding.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kane was fond, Helen also observed, of entering into conversation +with the servants. The butler's political views—which were guarded—he +determinedly pursued, undeterred by Baines's cautious and deferential +retreats. He considered the footman as a potential friend, whatever the +footman might consider him. Their common manhood, in Franklin's eyes, +entirely outweighed the slight, extraneous accidents of fortune—nay, +these differences gave an additional interest. The foot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>man had, no +doubt, a point of view novel and valuable, if one could get at it. +Franklin did not attempt to get at it by any method subversive of order +or interfering with Thomas's duties; he observed all the conventions +demanded by varying function. But Helen, strolling one morning before +breakfast outside the dining-room windows, heard within and paused to +listen to Mr. Kane's monotonous and slightly nasal tones as he shared +the morning news with Thomas, who, with an air of bewildered if obedient +attention, continued his avocations between the sideboard and the +breakfast-table.</p> + +<p>'Now I should say,' Franklin remarked, 'that something of that +sort—Germany's doing wonders with it—could be worked here in England +if you set yourselves to it.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, sir,' said Thomas.</p> + +<p>'Berlin has eliminated the slums, you know,' said Franklin, looking +thoughtfully at Thomas over the top of the paper. 'What do you feel +about it, all of you over here? It's a big question, you know, that of +the housing of the poor.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I can't say, sir,' said Thomas, compelled to a guarded opinion. +'Things do look black for the lower horders.'</p> + +<p>'You're right, Thomas; and things will go on looking black for helpless +people until they determine to help themselves, or until people who +aren't helpless—like you and me—determine they shan't be so black.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, sir.'</p> + +<p>'Talk it over, you know. Get your friends interested in it. It's a +mighty big subject, of course,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> that of the State and its poor, but it's +wonderful what can be done by personal initiative.'</p> + +<p>Helen entered at this point, and Thomas turned a furtive eye upon her, +perhaps in appeal for protection against these unprovoked and +inexplicable attacks. 'One might think the gentleman thought I had a +vote and was canvassing me,' he said to Baines, condescending in this +their common perplexity. And Baines replied: 'I'm sure I don't know what +he's up to.'</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Franklin, in the dining-room, folded his paper and said: 'You +know, Miss Buchanan, that Thomas, though a nice fellow, is remarkably +ignorant. I can't make out that there's anything of a civic or national +nature that he's interested in. He doesn't seem to read anything in the +papers except the racing and betting news. He doesn't seem to feel that +he has any stake in this great country of yours, or any responsibility +towards it. It makes me believe in manhood suffrage as I've never +believed before. Our people may be politically corrupt, but at least +they're interested; they're alive—alive enough to want to understand +how to get the best of things—as they see best. I've rarely met an +American that I couldn't get to talk; now it's almost impossible to get +Thomas to talk. Yet he's a nice young fellow; he has a nice, open, +intelligent face.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, has he?' said Helen, who was looking over the envelopes at her +place. 'I hadn't noticed his face; very pink, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, he has a healthy colour,' said Franklin, still meditating on +Thomas's impenetrability. 'It's not that I don't perfectly understand +his being uncom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>municative when he's engaged in his work—it was rather +tactless of me to talk to him just now, only the subject came up. I'd +been talking to Baines about the Old Age Pensions yesterday. That's one +of my objections to domestic service; it creates an artificial barrier +between man and man; but I know that the barrier is part of the +business, while the business is going on, and I've no quarrel with +social convention, as such. But even when they are alone with me—and +I'm referring to Baines now as much as to Thomas—they are very +uncommunicative. I met Thomas on the road to the village the other day +and could hardly get a word out of him till I began to talk about +cricket and ask him about it.'</p> + +<p>'He is probably a stupid boy,' said Helen, 'and you frighten him.'</p> + +<p>'If you say that, it's an indictment on the whole system, you know,' +said Franklin very gravely.</p> + +<p>'What system?' Helen asked, opening her letters, but looking at Mr. +Kane.</p> + +<p>'The system that makes some people afraid of others,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>'It will always frighten inferior people to be talked to by their +superiors as if they were on a level. You probably talk to Thomas about +things he doesn't understand, and it bewilders him.' Helen, willing to +enlighten his idealism, smiled mildly at him, glancing down at her +letters as she spoke.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kane surveyed her with his bright, steady gaze. Her simple +elucidation evidently left him far from satisfied, either with her or +the system. 'In essentials, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'in the power of +effort, endurance, devotion, I've no doubt that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Thomas and I are +equals, and that's all that ought to matter.'</p> + +<p>The others now were coming in, and Helen only shook her head, smiling on +and quite unconvinced as she said, taking her chair, and reaching out +her hand to shake Althea's, 'I'm afraid the inessentials matter most, +then, in human intercourse.'</p> + +<p>From these fortuitous encounters Helen gathered the impression by +degrees that though Mr. Kane might not find her satisfactory, he found +her, in her incommunicativeness, quite as interesting as Thomas the +footman. He spent as much time in endeavouring to probe her as he did in +endeavouring to probe Baines, even more time. He would sit beside her +garden-chair looking over scientific papers, making a remark now and +then on their contents—contents as remote from Helen's comprehension as +was the housing of the Berlin poor from Thomas's; and sometimes he would +ask her a searching question, over the often frivolous answer to which +he would carefully reflect.</p> + +<p>'I gather, Miss Buchanan,' he said to her one afternoon, when they were +thus together under the trees, 'I gather that the state of your health +isn't good. Would it be inadmissible on my part to ask you if there is +anything really serious the matter with you?'</p> + +<p>'My state of health?' said Helen, startled. 'My health is perfectly +good. Who told you it wasn't?'</p> + +<p>'Why, nobody. But since you've been here—that's a fortnight now—I've +observed that you've led an invalid's life.'</p> + +<p>'I am lazy, that's all; and I'm in rather a bad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> temper,' Helen smiled; +'and it's very warm weather.'</p> + +<p>'Well, when you're not lazy; when you're not in a bad temper; when it's +cold weather—what do you do with yourself, anyway?' Franklin, now that +he had fairly come to his point, folded his papers, clasped his hands +around his knees and looked expectantly at her.</p> + +<p>Helen returned his gaze for some moments in silence; then she found that +she was quite willing to give Mr. Kane all he asked for—a detached +sincerity. 'I can't say that I do anything,' she replied.</p> + +<p>'Haven't you any occupation?'</p> + +<p>'Not unless staying about with people is an occupation,' Helen +suggested. 'I'm rather good at that—when I'm not too lazy and not too +out of temper.'</p> + +<p>'You don't consider society an occupation. It's only justifiable as a +recreation when work's done. Every one ought to have an occupation. +You're not alive at all unless you've a purpose that's organising your +life in some way. Now, it strikes me,' said Franklin, eyeing her +steadily, 'that you're hardly half alive.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, dear!' Helen laughed. 'Why, pray?'</p> + +<p>'Don't laugh at it, Miss Buchanan. It's a serious matter; the most +serious matter there is. No, don't laugh; you distress me.'</p> + +<p>'I beg your pardon,' said Helen, and she turned her head aside a little, +for the laugh was not quite genuine, and she was suddenly afraid of +those idiotic tears. 'Only it amuses me that any one should think me a +serious matter.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Don't be cynical, Miss Buchanan; that's what's the trouble with you; +you take refuge in cynicism rather than in thought. If you'd think about +it and not try to evade it, you'd know perfectly well that there is +nothing so serious to you in all the world as your own life.'</p> + +<p>'I don't know,' said Helen, after a little pause, sobered, though still +amused. 'I don't know that I feel anything very serious, except all the +unpleasant things that happen, or the pleasant things that don't.'</p> + +<p>'Well, what's more serious than suffering?' Mr. Kane inquired, and as +she could really find no answer to this he went on: 'And you ought to go +further; you ought to be able to take every human being seriously.'</p> + +<p>'Do you do that?' Helen asked.</p> + +<p>'Any one who thinks must do it; it's all a question of thinking things +out. Now I've thought a good deal about you, Miss Buchanan,' Franklin +continued, 'and I take you very seriously, very seriously indeed. I feel +that you are very much above the average in capacity. You have a great +deal in you; a great deal of power. I've been watching you very +carefully, and I've come to the conclusion that you are a woman of +power. That's why I take it upon myself to talk to you like this; that's +why it distresses me to see you going to waste—half alive.'</p> + +<p>Helen, her head still turned aside in her chair, looked up at the green +branches above her, no longer even pretending to smile. Mr. Kane at once +startled and steadied her. He made her feel vaguely ashamed of herself, +and he made her feel sorry for herself, too, so that, funny as he was, +his effect upon her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> was to soften and to calm her. Her temper felt less +bad and her nerves less on edge.</p> + +<p>'You are very kind,' she said, after a little while. 'It is very good of +you to have thought about me like that. And you do think, at all events, +that I am half alive. You think I have wants, even if I have no +purposes.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, that's it. Wants, not purposes; though what they are I can't find +out.'</p> + +<p>She was willing to satisfy his curiosity. 'What I want is money.'</p> + +<p>'Well, but what do you want to do with money?' Franklin inquired, +receiving the sordid avowal without a blink.</p> + +<p>'I really don't know,' said Helen; 'to use what you call my power, I +suppose.'</p> + +<p>'How would you use it? You haven't trained yourself for any use of +it—except enjoyment—as far as I can see.'</p> + +<p>'I think I could spend money well. I'd give the people I liked a good +time.'</p> + +<p>'You'd waste their time, and yours, you mean. Not that I object to the +spending of money—if it's in the right way.'</p> + +<p>'I think I could find the right way, if I had it.' She was speaking with +quite the seriousness she had disowned. 'I hate injustice, and I hate +ugliness. I think I could make things nicer if I had money.'</p> + +<p>Franklin now was silent for some time, considering her narrowly, and +since she had now looked down from the branches and back at him, their +eyes met in a long encounter. 'Yes,' he said at length, 'you'd be all +right—if only you weren't so wrong.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> If only you had a purpose—a +purpose directed towards the just and the beautiful; if only instead of +waiting for means to turn up, you'd created means yourself; if only +you'd kept yourself disciplined and steady of aim by some sort of hard +work, you'd be all right.'</p> + +<p>Helen, extended in her chair, an embodiment of lovely aimlessness, kept +her eyes fixed on him. 'But what work can I do?' she asked. She was well +aware that Mr. Kane could have no practical suggestions for her case, +yet she wanted to show him that she recognised it as a case, she wanted +to show him that she was grateful, and she was curious besides to hear +what he would suggest. 'What am I fit for? I couldn't earn a penny if I +tried. I was never taught anything.'</p> + +<p>But Mr. Kane was ready for her, as he had been ready for Jim Betts. +'It's not a question of earning that I mean,' he said, 'though it's a +mighty good thing to measure yourself up against the world and find out +just what your cash value is, but I'm not talking about that; it's the +question of getting your faculties into some sort of working order that +I'm up against. Why don't you study something systematically, something +you can grind at? Biology, if you like, or political economy, or charity +organisation. Begin at once. Master it.'</p> + +<p>'Would Dante do, for a beginning?' Helen inquired, smiling rather wanly. +'I brought him down, with an Italian dictionary. Shall I master Dante?'</p> + +<p>'I should feel more comfortable about you if it was political economy,' +said Franklin, now smiling back. 'But begin with Dante, by all means. +Per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>sonally I found his point of view depressing, but then I read him in +a translation and never got even as far as the Purgatory. Be sure you +get as far as the Paradise, Miss Buchanan, and with your dictionary.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2> + + +<p>Franklin had all his time free for sitting with Helen under the trees. +Althea's self-reproach, her self-doubt and melancholy, had been effaced +by the arrival of Gerald Digby, and, at that epoch of her life, did not +return at all. She had no time for self-doubt or self-reproach, no time +even for self-consciousness. Franklin had faded into the dimmest +possible distance; she was only just aware that he was there and that +Helen seemed, kindly, to let him talk a good deal to her. She could not +think of Franklin, she could not think of herself, she could think of +nobody but one person, for her whole being was absorbed in the thought +of Gerald Digby and in the consciousness of the situation that his +coming had created. From soft exhilaration she had passed to miserable +depression, yet a depression far different from the stagnant melancholy +of her former mood; this was a depression of frustrated feeling, not of +lack of feeling, and it was accompanied by the recognition of the fact +that she exceedingly disliked Lady Pickering and wished exceedingly that +she would go away. And with it went a brooding sense of delight in +Gerald's mere presence, a sense of delight in even the pain that his +indifference inflicted upon her.</p> + +<p>He charmed her unspeakably—his voice, his smile,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> his gestures—and she +knew that she did not charm him in any way, and that Lady Pickering, in +her very foolishness, did charm him, and the knowledge made her very +grave and careful when she was with him. Delight and pain were hidden +beneath this manner of careful gravity, but, as the excitement of +Franklin's presence had at first done—and in how much greater +degree—they subtly transformed her; made her look and speak and move +with a different languor and gentleness.</p> + +<p>Gerald himself was the first to feel a change, the first to become aware +of an aroma of mystery. He had been indifferent indeed, though he had +obeyed Helen and had tried not only to be very courteous but to be very +nice as well. Now, finding Althea's grave eyes upon him when he +sometimes yielded to Lady Pickering's allurements, finding them turned +away with that look of austere mildness, he ceased to be so indifferent, +he began to wonder how much the little Puritan disapproved and how much +she really minded; he began to make surmises about the state of mind +that could be so aloof, so gentle, and so inflexible.</p> + +<p>He met Althea one afternoon in the garden and walked up and down with +her while she filled her basket with roses. She was very gentle, and +immeasurably distant. The sense of her withdrawal roused his masculine +instinct of pursuit. How different she was from Frances Pickering! How +charmingly different. Yes, in her elaborate little dress of embroidered +lawn, with her elaborate garden hat pinned so neatly on her thick fair +hair, she pleased him by the sense of contrast. There was charm in her +lack of charm, attraction in her indifference.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> How impossible to +imagine those grave eyes smiling an alluring smile—he was getting tired +of alluring smiles—how impossible to imagine Miss Jakes flirting.</p> + +<p>'It's very nice to see you here,' he said. 'I have so many nice memories +about this old garden. You don't mind my cigarette?'</p> + +<p>Althea said that she liked it.</p> + +<p>'There is a beautiful spray, Miss Jakes. Let me reach it for you.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, thank you so much.'</p> + +<p>'You are fond of flowers?'</p> + +<p>'Very fond.'</p> + +<p>'Which are your favourites?'</p> + +<p>'Lilies of the valley.' Althea spoke kindly, as she might have spoken to +a rather importunate child; his questions, indeed, were not original.</p> + +<p>Gerald tried to mend the tameness of the effect that he was making. +'Yes, only the florists have rather spoiled them, haven't they? My +favourites are the wilder ones—honeysuckle, grass of Parnassus, +bell-heather. Helen always makes me think of grass of Parnassus and +bell-heather, she is so solitary and delicate and strong.' He wanted +Althea to realise that his real appreciation was for types very +different from Lady Pickering. She smiled kindly, as if pleased with his +simile, and he went on. 'You are like pansies, white and purple +pansies.'</p> + +<p>It was then that Althea blushed. Gerald noticed it at once. Experienced +flirt as he was he was quick to perceive such symptoms. And, suddenly, +it occurred to him that perhaps the reason she disapproved so much was +the wish—unknown to herself, poor little innocent—that some one would +flirt a little with her. He felt quite sure that no one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> had ever +flirted with Althea. Helen had told him of Mr. Kane's hopeless suit, and +they had wandered in rather helpless conjecture about the outside of a +case that didn't, from their experience of cases, seem to offer any +possibilities of an inside. Gerald had indeed loudly laughed at the idea +of Mr. Kane as a wooer and Helen had smiled, while assuring him that +wooing wasn't the only test of worth. Gerald was rather inclined to +think it was. He was quite sure, though, that however worthy Mr. Kane +might be he had never made any one blush. He was quite sure that Mr. +Kane was incapable of flirting, and it pleased him now to observe the +sign of susceptibility in Althea. It was good for women, he felt sure, +to be made to blush sometimes, and he promised himself that he would +renew the experiment with Althea. All the same it must be very +unemphatically done; there would be something singularly graceless in +venturing too far with this nice pansy, for though she might, all +unaware, want to be made to blush, she would never want it to be because +of his light motives.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Althea was in dread lest he should see her discomposure and +her bliss. He did not see further than her discomposure.</p> + +<p>They rehearsed theatricals all the next day—he, Helen, Lady Pickering, +and the girls—and Lady Pickering was very naughty. Gerald, more than +once, had caught Althea's eye fixed, repudiating in its calm, upon her. +It had been especially repudiating when Frances, at tea, had thrown a +bun at him.</p> + +<p>'Do you know, Miss Jakes,' he said to her after dinner, when, to Lady +Pickering's discomfiture, as he saw, he joined Althea on her little +sofa, 'do you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> know, I suspect you of being dreadfully bored by all of +us. We behave like a lot of children, don't we?' He was thinking of the +bun.</p> + +<p>'Indeed! I think it charming to be able to behave like a child, if one +feels like one,' said Althea, coldly and mildly.</p> + +<p>'Don't you ever feel like one? Do you always behave like a gentle muse?'</p> + +<p>'Do I seem to behave like a muse? How tiresome I must be,' smiled +Althea.</p> + +<p>'Not tiresome, rather impressive. It's like looking up suddenly from +some nocturnal <i>fête</i>—all Japanese lanterns and fireworks—and seeing +the moon gazing down serenely and unseeingly upon one; it startles and +sobers one a little, you know.'</p> + +<p>'I suppose you are sober sometimes,' said Althea, continuing to smile.</p> + +<p>'Lord, yes!' Gerald laughed. 'Really and truly, Miss Jakes, I'm only +playing at being a child, you know. I'm quite a serious person. I like +to look at the moon.'</p> + +<p>And again Althea blushed. She looked down, sitting straightly in the +corner of their sofa and turning her fan slowly between her fingers, +and, feeling the sense of gracelessness in this too easy success, Gerald +went on in a graver tone. 'I wish you would let me be serious with you +sometimes, Miss Jakes; you'd see I'd quite redeem myself in your eyes.'</p> + +<p>'Redeem yourself? From what?'</p> + +<p>'Oh! from all your impression of my frivolity and folly. I can talk +about art and literature and the condition of the labouring classes as +wisely as anybody, I assure you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> + +<p>He said it so prettily that Althea had to laugh. 'But what makes you +think I can?' she asked, and, delighted with the happy result of his +appeal, he said that Helen had told him all about her wisdoms.</p> + +<p>He sounded these wisdoms next day when he asked her to walk with him to +the village. He told her, as they walked, of the various projects for +using his life to some advantage that he had used to make—projects for +improved agricultural methods and the bettering of the conditions of +life in the country. Althea had read a great deal of political economy. +She had, indeed, ground at it and mastered it in the manner advised by +Franklin to Helen. Gerald found her quiet comments and criticisms very +illuminating, not only of his theme, but of his own comparative +ignorance. 'But, Miss Jakes, how did you come to understand all this?' +he ejaculated; and she said, laughing a little at the impression she had +made, that she had only read, gone to a few courses of lectures, and had +a master for one winter in Boston. Gerald looked at her with new +interest. It impressed him that an unprofessional woman should take +anything so seriously. 'Have you gone into other profound things like +this?' he asked; and, still laughing, Althea said that she supposed she +had.</p> + +<p>Her sympathy for those old plans of his, based on such understanding, +was really inspiring. 'Ah, if only I had the money,' he sighed.</p> + +<p>'But you wouldn't care to live in the country?' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'There's nowhere else I really care to live. Nothing would please me so +much as to spend the rest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> of my life at Merriston, dabbling at my +painting and going in seriously for farming.'</p> + +<p>'Why don't you do it?'</p> + +<p>'Why, money! I've got no money. It's expensive work to educate oneself +by experience, and I'm ignorant. You show me how ignorant. No; I'm +afraid I'm to go on drifting, and never lead the life I best like.'</p> + +<p>Althea was silent. She hardly knew what she was feeling, but it pressed +upon her so, that she was afraid lest a breath would stir some +consciousness in him. She had money, a good deal. What a pity that he +had none.</p> + +<p>'Now you,' Gerald went on, 'have all sorts of big, wise plans for life, +I've no doubt. It would interest me to hear about them.'</p> + +<p>'No; I drift too,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'You can't call it drifting when you read and study such a lot.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, I can, when there is no real aim in the work. You should hear +Mr. Kane scold me about that.'</p> + +<p>Gerald was not interested in Mr. Kane. 'I should think, after all you've +done, you might rest on your oars for a bit,' he remarked. 'It's quite +enough, I should think, for a woman to know so much. If you liked to do +anything, you'd do it awfully well, I'm sure.'</p> + +<p>Ah, what would she not like to do! Help you to steer to any port you +wanted was the half-articulate cry of her heart.</p> + +<p>'She really is an interesting little person, your Althea,' Gerald said +to Helen. 'You were wrong not to find her interesting. She is so wise +and calm and she knows such a lot.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I'm too ignorant to be interested in knowledge,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'It's not mere knowledge, it's the gentle temperateness and independence +one feels in her.'</p> + +<p>Helen, somehow, did not feel them, or, at all events, felt other +things too much to feel them preeminently. It was part of her +unselfconsciousness not to guess why Althea's relation to her had +slightly changed. She could hardly have followed with comprehension the +suffering instability of her friend's character, nor dream that her own +power over her was so great, yet so resented; but something in their +talk about Mr. Kane had made Helen uncomfortable, and she said no more +now, not wishing to emphasise any negative aspect of her attitude to +Althea at a time when their relation seemed to have become a little +strained. And she was pleased that Gerald should talk about political +economy with Althea—it was so much better than flirting with Frances +Pickering.</p> + +<p>No one, indeed, unless it were Franklin Kane, gave much conjecture to +Gerald's talks with his hostess. Lady Pickering noticed; but she was +vexed, rather than jealous. She couldn't imagine that Gerald felt +anything but a purely intellectual interest in such talks. It was rather +as if a worshipper in some highly ritualistic shrine, filled with +appeals to sight and hearing, had unaccountably wandered off into a +wayside chapel. Lady Pickering felt convinced that this was mere vagrant +curiosity on Gerald's part. She felt convinced that he couldn't care for +chapels. She was so convinced that, moved to emphatic measures, she came +into the open as it were, marched processions and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> waved banners before +him, in order to remind him what the veritable church was for a person +of taste. Sometimes Gerald joined her, but sometimes he waved a friendly +greeting and went into the chapel again.</p> + +<p>So it was that Althea suddenly found herself involved in that mute and +sinister warfare—an unavowed contest with another woman for possession +of a man. How it could be a real contest she did not know; she felt sure +that Lady Pickering did not love Gerald Digby, that she herself loved +him she had not yet told herself, and that he loved neither of them was +obvious. It seemed a mere struggle for supremacy, in which Lady +Pickering's role was active and her own passive. For when she saw that +Lady Pickering looked upon Gerald as a prey between them, that she +seized, threatened and allured, she herself, full of a proud disdain, +drew away, relinquished any hold, any faintest claim she had, handed +Gerald over, as it were, to his pursuer; and as she did this, coldly, +gravely, proudly, she was not aware that no tactics could have been more +effective. For Gerald, when he found himself pursued, and then dropped +by Althea at the feet of the pursuer, became more and more averse to +being seized. And what had been a gracefully amorous dialogue with Lady +Pickering, became a slightly malicious discussion. 'Well, what <i>do</i> you +want of me?' he seemed to demand of her, under all his grace. Lady +Pickering did not want anything except to keep him, and to show Althea +that she kept him. And she was willing to go to great lengths if this +might be effected.</p> + +<p>Gerald and Althea, walking one afternoon in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> little wood that lay at +the foot of the lawn, came upon Lady Pickering seated romantically upon +a stone, her head in her hands. She said, looking up at them, with +pathetic eyes of suffering, that she had wrenched her ankle and was in +agony. 'I think it is sprained, perhaps broken,' she said.</p> + +<p>Now both Althea and Gerald felt convinced that she was not in agony, and +had perhaps not hurt her ankle at all. They were both a little +embarrassed and a little ashamed for her.</p> + +<p>'Take my arm, take Miss Jakes's,' said Gerald. 'We will help you back to +the house.'</p> + +<p>'Oh no. I must sit still for a little while,' said Lady Pickering.' I +couldn't bear to stir yet. It must be only a wrench; yes, there, I can +feel that it is a bad wrench. It's only that the pain has been so +horrible, and I feel a little faint. Please sit down here for a moment, +Gerald, beside me, and console me for my sufferings.'</p> + +<p>It was really very shameless. Without a word Althea walked away.</p> + +<p>'Miss Jakes—we'll—I'll follow in a moment,' Gerald called after her, +while, irritated and at a loss, he stood over Lady Pickering. 'Have you +really hurt it?' was his first inquiry, as Althea disappeared.</p> + +<p>'Why does she go?' Lady Pickering inquired. 'I didn't mean that she was +to go. Stiff, <i>guindée</i> little person. One would really think that she +was jealous of me.'</p> + +<p>'No, I don't think that one would think that at all,' Gerald returned.</p> + +<p>Lady Pickering was pushed beyond the bounds of calculation, and when +quite sincere she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> really charming. 'O Gerald,' she said, looking up +at him and full of roguish contrition, 'how unkind you are! And how +horribly clear sighted. It's I who am jealous! Yes, I really am. I can't +bear being neglected.'</p> + +<p>'I don't see why you should,' said Gerald laughing, 'and I certainly +shouldn't show such bad taste as to neglect you. So that it is jealousy, +pure and simple. Is your ankle in the least hurt?'</p> + +<p>'Really, I don't know. I did tumble a little, and then I saw you coming, +and felt that I wanted to be talked to, that it was my turn.'</p> + +<p>'What an absurd woman you are.'</p> + +<p>'But do say that you like absurd women better than solemn ones.'</p> + +<p>'I shall say nothing of the sort. Sometimes absurdity is delightful, and +sometimes solemnity—not that I find Miss Jakes in the least solemn. It +would do you a world of good to let her inform your mind a little.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, please, I don't want to be informed, it might make my back look +like that. My foot really is a little hurt, you know. Is it swollen?'</p> + +<p>Gerald looked down, laughing, but very unsympathetic, at the perilous +heel and pinched, distorted toe. 'Really, I can't say.'</p> + +<p>'Do sit down, there is plenty of room, and tell me you aren't cross with +me.'</p> + +<p>'I'm not at all cross with you, but I'm not going to sit down beside +you,' said Gerald. 'I'm going to take you and your ankle back to the +house and then find Miss Jakes and go on talking.'</p> + +<p>'You may make <i>me</i> cross,' said Lady Pickering, rising and leaning her +arm on his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I don't believe I shall. You really respect me for my strength of +character.'</p> + +<p>'Wily creature!'</p> + +<p>'Foolish child!' They were standing in the path, laughing at each other, +far from displeased with each other, and it was fortunate that neither +of them perceived among the trees Althea, passing again at a little +distance, and glancing round irrepressibly to see if Gerald had indeed +followed her; even Lady Pickering might have been slightly discomposed, +for when Gerald said 'Foolish child!' he completed the part expected of +him by lightly stooping his head and kissing her.</p> + +<p>He then took Lady Pickering back to the house, established her in a +hammock, and set off to find Althea. He knew that he had kept her +waiting—if she had indeed waited. And he knew that he really was a +little cross with Frances Pickering; he didn't care to carry flirtation +as far as kissing.</p> + +<p>Althea, however, was nowhere to be found. He looked in the house, heard +that she had been there but had gone out again; he looked in the garden; +he finally went back to the woods, an uncomfortable surmise rising; and +finding her nowhere there, he strolled on into the meadows. Then, +suddenly, he saw her, sitting on a rustic bench at a bend of the little +brook. Her eyes were bent upon the running water, and she did not look +up as he approached her. When he was beside her, her eyes met his, +reluctantly and resentfully, and he was startled to observe that she had +wept. His surmise returned. She must have seen him kiss Frances. Yet +even then Gerald did not know why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> it should make Miss Jakes weep that +he should behave like a donkey.</p> + +<p>'May I sit down here?' he asked, genuinely grieved and genuinely anxious +to find out what the matter was.</p> + +<p>'Certainly,' said Althea in chilly tones.</p> + +<p>He was a little confused. It had something to do with the kissing, he +felt sure. 'Miss Jakes, I'm afraid you'll never believe me a serious +person,' he said.</p> + +<p>'Why should you be serious?' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'You are angry with me,' Gerald remarked dismally.</p> + +<p>'Why should I be angry?'</p> + +<p>He raised his eyebrows, detached a bit of loosened wood from the seat, +and skipped it over the water. 'Well, to find me behaving like a child +again.'</p> + +<p>'I should reserve my anger for more important matters,' said Althea. She +was angry, or she hoped she was, for, far more than anger, it was misery +and a passion of shame that surged in her. She knew now, and she could +not hide from herself that she knew; and yet he cared so little that he +had not even kept his promise; so little that he had stayed behind to +kiss that most indecorous woman. If only she could make him think that +it was only anger.</p> + +<p>'Ah, but you are angry, and rather unjustly,' said Gerald. His eyes were +seeking hers, rallying, pleading, perhaps laughing a little at her. 'And +really, you know, you are a little unkind; I thought we were +friends—what?'</p> + +<p>She forced herself to meet those charming eyes, and then to smile back +at him. It would have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> absurd not to smile, but the effort was +disastrous; her lips quivered; the tears ran down her cheeks. She rose, +trembling and aghast. 'I am very foolish. I have such a headache. Please +don't pay any attention to me—it's the heat, I think.'</p> + +<p>She turned blindly towards the house.</p> + +<p>The pretence of the headache was, he knew it in the flash of revelation +that came to him, on a par with Frances's ankle—but with what a +difference in motive! Grave, a little pale, Gerald walked silently +beside her to the woods. He did not know what to say. He was a little +frightened and a great deal touched.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Digby,' Althea said, when they were among the trees again—and it +hurt him to see the courage of her smile—'you must forgive me for being +so silly. It is the heat, you know; and this headache—it puts one so on +edge. I didn't mean to speak as I did. Of course I'm not angry.'</p> + +<p>He was ready to help her out with the most radiant tact. 'Of course I +knew it couldn't make any real difference to you—the way I behaved. +Only I don't like you to be even a little cross with me.'</p> + +<p>'I'm not—not even a little,' she said.</p> + +<p>'We are friends then, really friends?'</p> + +<p>His smile sustained and reassured her. Surely he had not seen—if he +could smile like that—ever so lightly, so merrily, and so gravely too. +Courage came back to her. She could find a smile as light as his in +replying: 'Really friends.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2> + + +<p>Gerald, after Althea had gone in, walked for some time in the garden, +taking counsel with himself. The expression of his face was still half +touched and half alarmed. He smoked two cigarettes and then came to the +conclusion that, until he could have a talk with Helen, there was no +conclusion to be come to. He never came to important conclusions +unaided. He would sleep on it and then have a talk with Helen.</p> + +<p>He sought her out next morning on the first opportunity. She was in the +library writing letters. She looked, as was usual with her at early +morning hours, odd to the verge of ugliness. It always took her some +time to recover from the drowsy influences of the night. She was dimmed, +as it were, with eyelids half awake, and small lips pouting, and she +seemed at once more childlike and more worn than later in the day. +Gerald looked at her with satisfaction. To his observant and +appreciative eye, Helen was often at her most charming when at her +ugliest.</p> + +<p>'I've something to talk over,' he said. 'Can you give me half an hour or +so?'</p> + +<p>She answered, 'Certainly,' laying down her pen, and leaning back in her +chair.</p> + +<p>'Your letters aren't important? I may keep<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> you for a longish time. +Perhaps we might put it off till the afternoon?'</p> + +<p>'They aren't in the least important. You may keep me as long as you +like.'</p> + +<p>'Thanks. Have a cigarette?' He offered his case, and Helen took one and +lighted it at the match he held for her, and then Gerald, lighting his +own, proceeded to stroll up and down the room reflecting.</p> + +<p>'Helen,' he began, 'I've been thinking things over.' His tone was +serene, yet a little inquiring. He might have been thinking over some +rather uncertain investment, or the planning of a rather exacting trip +abroad. Yet Helen's intuition leaped at once to deeper significances. +Looking out of the window at the lawn, bleached with dew, the trees, the +distant autumnal uplands, while she quietly smoked her cigarette, it was +as if her sub-consciousness, aroused and vigilant, held its breath, +waiting.</p> + +<p>'You know,' said Gerald, 'what I've always really wanted to do more than +anything else. As I get older, I want it more and more, and get more and +more tired of my shambling sort of existence. I love this old place and +I love the country. I'd like nothing so much as to be able to live here, +try my hand at farming, paint a little, read a little, and get as much +hunting as I could.'</p> + +<p>Helen, blowing a ring of smoke and watching it softly hover, made no +comment on these prefatory remarks.</p> + +<p>'Well, as you know,' said Gerald, 'to do that needs money; and I've +none. And you know that the only solution we could ever find was that I +should marry money. And you know that I never<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> found a woman with money +whom I liked well enough.' He was not looking at Helen as he said this; +his eyes were on the shabby old carpet that he was pacing. And in the +pause that followed Helen did not speak. She knew—it was all that she +had time to know—that her silence was expectant only, not ominous. +Consciousness, now, as well as sub-consciousness, seemed rushing to the +bolts and bars and windows of the little lodge of friendship, making it +secure—if still it might be made secure—against the storm that +gathered. She could not even wonder who Gerald had found. She had only +time for the dreadful task of defence, so that no blast of reality +should rush in upon them.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Gerald, and it was now with a little more inquiry and with +less serenity, 'I think, perhaps, I've found her. I think, Helen, that +your nice Althea cares about me, you know, and would have me.'</p> + +<p>Helen sat still, and did not move her eyes from the sky and trees. There +was a long white cloud in the sky, an island floating in a sea of blue. +She noted its bays and peninsulas, the azure rivers that interlaced it, +its soft depressions and radiant uplands. She never forgot it. She could +have drawn the snowy island, from memory, for years. All her life long +she had waited for this moment; all her life long she had lived with the +sword of its acceptance in her heart. She had thought that she had +accepted; but now the sword turned—horribly turned—round and round in +her heart, and she did not know what she should do.</p> + +<p>'Well,' Gerald repeated, standing still, and, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> she knew, looking at +the back of her head in a little perplexity.</p> + +<p>Helen looked cautiously down at the cigarette she held; it still smoked +languidly. She raised it to her lips and drew a whiff. Then, after that, +she dared a further effort. 'Well?' she repeated.</p> + +<p>Gerald laughed a trifle nervously. 'I asked you,' he reminded her.</p> + +<p>She was able, testing her strength, as a tight-rope walker slides a +careful foot along the rope, to go on. 'Oh, I see. And do you care about +her?'</p> + +<p>Gerald was silent for another moment, and she guessed that he had run +his hand through his hair and rumpled it on end.</p> + +<p>'She really is a little dear, isn't she?' he then said. 'You mayn't find +her interesting—though I really do; and she may be like <i>eau rougie</i>; +but, as you said, it's a pleasant draught to have beside one. She is +gentle and wise and good, and she seems to take her place here very +sweetly, doesn't she? She seems really to belong here, don't you think +so?'</p> + +<p>Helen could not answer that question. 'Do you want me to tell you +whether you care for her?' she asked.</p> + +<p>He laughed. 'I suppose I do.'</p> + +<p>'And, on the whole, you hope I'll tell you that you do.'</p> + +<p>'Well, yes,' he assented.</p> + +<p>The dreadful steeling of her will at the very verge of swooning abysses +gave an edge to her voice. She tried to dull it, to speak very quietly +and mildly, as she said: 'I must have all the facts of the case before +me, then. I confess I hadn't suspected it was a case.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Which means that you'd never dreamed I could fall in love with Miss +Jakes.' Gerald's tone was a little rueful.</p> + +<p>'Oh—you have fallen in love with her?'</p> + +<p>'Why, that's just what I'm asking you!' he laughed again. 'Or, at least, +not that exactly, for of course it's not a question of being in love. +But I think her wise and good and gentle, and she cares for me—I think; +and it seems almost like the finger of destiny—finding her here. Have +you any idea how much money she has? It must be quite a lot,' said +Gerald.</p> + +<p>Helen was ready with her facts. 'A very safe three thousand a year, I +believe. Not much, of course, but quite enough for what you want to do. +But,' she added, after the pause in which he reflected on this sum—it +was a good deal less than he had taken for granted—'I don't think that +Althea would marry you on that basis. She is very proud and very +romantic. If you want her to marry you, you will have to make her feel +that you care for her in herself.' It was her own pride that now +steadied her pulses and steeled her nerves. She would be as fair to +Gerald's case as though he were her brother; she would be too fair, +perhaps. Here was the pitfall of her pride that she did not clearly see. +Perhaps it was with a grim touch of retribution that she promised +herself that since he could think of Althea Jakes, he most certainly +should have her.</p> + +<p>'Yes, she is proud,' said Gerald. 'That's one of the things one so likes +in her. She'd never hold out a finger, however much she cared.'</p> + +<p>'You will have to hold out both hands,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'You think she won't have me unless I can pre<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>tend to be in love with +her? I'm afraid I can't take that on.'</p> + +<p>'I'm glad you can't. She is too good for such usage. No,' said Helen, +holding her scales steadily, 'perfect frankness is the only way. If she +knows that you really care for her—even if you are not romantic—if you +can make her feel that the money—though a necessity—is secondary, and +wouldn't have counted at all unless you had come to care, I should say +that your chances are good—since you have reason to believe that she +has fallen in love with you.'</p> + +<p>'It's not as if I denied her anything I had to give, is it?' Gerald +pondered on the point of conscience she put before him.</p> + +<p>'You mean that you're incapable of caring more for any woman than for +Althea?'</p> + +<p>'Of course not. I care a great deal more for you,' said Gerald, again +rather rueful under her probes. 'I only mean that I'm not likely to fall +in love again, or anything of that sort. She can be quite secure about +me. I'll be her devoted and faithful husband.'</p> + +<p>'I think you care,' said Helen. 'I think you can make her happy.'</p> + +<p>But Gerald now came and sat on the corner of the writing-table beside +her, facing her, his back to the window. 'It's a tremendous thing to +decide on, isn't it, Helen?'</p> + +<p>She turned her eyes on him, and he looked at her with a gaze troubled +and a little groping, as though he sought in her further elucidations; +as though, for the first time, she had disappointed him a little.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Is it?' she asked. 'Is marriage really a tremendous thing?'</p> + +<p>'Well, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>'I'm not sure. In one way, of course, it is. But people, perhaps, +exaggerate the influence of their own choice on the results. You can't +be sure of results, choose as carefully as you will; it's what comes +after that decides them, I imagine—the devotion, the fidelity you speak +of. And since you've found some one to whom you can promise those, some +one wise and good and gentle, isn't that all that you need be sure of?'</p> + +<p>Gerald continued to study her face. 'You're not pleased, Helen,' he now +said. It was a curious form of torture that Helen must smile under.</p> + +<p>'Well, it's not a case for enthusiasm, is it?' she said. 'I'm certainly +not displeased.'</p> + +<p>'You'd rather I married her than Frances Pickering?'</p> + +<p>'Would Frances have you, too, irresistible one?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, I don't think so; pretty sure not. She would want a lot of things I +can't give. I was only wondering which you'd prefer.'</p> + +<p>Helen heard the clamour of her own heart. Frances! Frances! She is +trivial; she will not take your place: she will not count in his life at +all. Althea will count; she will count more and more. She will be his +habit, his <i>haus-frau</i>, the mother of his children. He is not in love +with her; but he will come to love her, and there will be no place for +friendship in his life. Hearing that clamour she dragged herself +together, hating herself for having heard it, and answered: 'Althea, of +course; she is worth three of Frances.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>Gerald gave a little sigh. 'Well, I'm glad we agree there,' he said. +'I'm glad you see that Althea is worth three of her. What I do wish is +that you cared more about Althea.'</p> + +<p>What he was telling her was that if she would care more about Althea, he +would too, and she wondered if this, also, were a part of pride; should +she help him to care more for Althea? A better pride sustained her; she +felt the danger in these subtleties of her torment. 'I like Althea,' she +said. 'I, too, think that she is wise and good and gentle. I think that +she will be the best of wives, the best of wives and mothers. But, as I +said, I don't feel enthusiasm; I don't feel it a case for enthusiasm.'</p> + +<p>'Of course it's not a case for enthusiasm,' said Gerald, who was +evidently eager to range himself completely with her. 'I'm fond, and +I'll grow fonder; and I believe you will too. Don't you, Helen?'</p> + +<p>'No doubt I shall,' said Helen. She got up now and tossed her cigarette +into the waste-paper basket, and stood for a moment looking past +Gerald's head at the snowy island, now half dissolved in blue, as though +its rivers had engulfed it. They were parting, he and she, she knew it, +and yet there was no word that she could say to him, no warning or +appeal that she could utter. If he could see that it was the end he +would, she knew, start back from his shallow project. But he did not +know that it was the end and he might never know. Did he not really +understand that an adoring wife could not be fitted into their +friendship? His innocent unconsciousness of inevitable change made +Helen's heart, in its deeper knowledge of human character,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> sink to a +bitterness that felt like a hatred of him, and she wondered, looking +forward, whether Gerald would ever miss anything, or ever know that +anything was gone.</p> + +<p>Gerald sat still looking up at her as though expecting some further +suggestion, and as her eyes came back to him, she smiled to him with +deliberate sweetness, showing him thus that her conclusions were all +friendly. And he rose, smiling back, reassured and fortified. 'Well,' he +said, 'since you approve, I suppose it's settled. I shan't ask her at +once, you know. She might think it was because of what I'd guessed. I'll +lead up to it for a day or two. And, Helen, you might, if you've a +chance, put in a good word for me.'</p> + +<p>'I will, if I've a chance,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>Gerald, as if aware that he had taken up really too much of her time, +now moved towards the door. But he went slowly, and at the door he +paused. He turned to her smiling. 'And you give me your blessing?' he +asked.</p> + +<p>He was most endearing when he smiled so. It was a smile like a child's, +that caressed and cajoled, and that saw through its own cajolery and +pleaded, with a little wistfulness, that there was more than could show +itself, behind. Helen knew what was behind—the sense of strangeness, +the affection and the touch of fear. She had never refused that smile +anything; she seemed to refuse it nothing now, as she answered with a +maternal acquiescence, 'I give you my blessing, dear Gerald.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2> + + +<p>It was still early. When he had left her, Helen looked at her watch; +only half-past ten. She stood thinking. Should she go out, as usual, +take her place in a long chair under the limes, close her eyes and +pretend to sleep? No, she could not do that. Should she sit down in her +room with Dante and a dictionary? No, that she would not do. Should she +walk far away into the woods and lie upon the ground and weep? That +would be a singularly foolish plan, and at lunch everybody would see +that she had been crying. Yet it was impossible to remain here, to +remain still, and thinking. She must move quickly, and make her body +tired. She went to her room, pinned on her hat, drew on her gloves, and, +choosing a stick as she went through the hall, passed from the grounds +and through the meadow walk to a long road, climbing and winding, whose +walls, at either side, seemed to hold back the billows of the woodland. +The day was hot and dusty. The sky was like a blue stone, the green +monotonous, the road glared white. Helen, with the superficial +fretfulness of an agony controlled, said to herself that nothing more +like a bad water-colour landscape could be imagined; there were the +unskilful blots of heavy foliage, the sleekly painted sky, and the sunny +road was like the whiteness of the paper,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> picked out, for shadows, in +niggling cobalt. A stupid, bland, heartless day.</p> + +<p>She walked along this road for several miles and left it to cross a +crisp, grassy slope from where, standing still and turning to see, she +looked down over all the country and saw, far away, the roofs of +Merriston House. She stood for a long time looking down at it, the hot +wind ruffling her skirts and hair. It was a heartless day and she +herself felt heartless. She felt herself as something silent, swift, and +raging. For now she was to taste to the full the bitter difference +between the finality of personal decision and a finality imposed, +fatefully and irrevocably, from without. She had thought herself +prepared for this ending of hope. She had even, imagining herself +hardened and indifferent, gone in advance of it and had sought to put +the past under her feet and to build up a new life. But she had not been +prepared; that she now knew. The imagination of the fact was not its +realisation in her very blood and bones, nor the standing ready, armed +for the blow, this feel of the blade between her ribs. And looking down +at the only home she had ever had, in moments long, sharp, dream-like, +her strength was drained from her as if by a fever, and she felt that +she was changed all through and that each atom of her being was set, as +it were, a little differently, making of her a new personality, through +this shock of sudden hopelessness.</p> + +<p>She felt her knees weak beneath her and she moved on slowly, away from +the sun, to a lonely little wood that bordered the hill-top. In her +sudden weakness she climbed the paling that enclosed it with some +difficulty, wondering if she were most inconveniently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> going to faint, +and walking blindly along a narrow path, in the sudden cool and +darkness, she dropped down on the moss at the first turning of the way.</p> + +<p>Here, at last, was beauty. The light, among the fanlike branches, looked +like sea-water streaked with gold; the tall boles of the beeches were +like the pillars of a temple sunken in the sea. Helen lay back, folded +her arms behind her head, and stared up at the chinks of far brightness +in the green roof overhead. It was like being drowned, deep beneath the +surface of things. If only she could be at peace, like a drowned thing. +Lying there, she longed to die, to dissolve away into the moss, the +earth, the cool, green air. And feeling this, in the sudden beauty, +tears, for the first time, came to her eyes. She turned over on her +face, burying it in her arms and muttering in childish language, 'I'm +sick of it; sick to death of it.'</p> + +<p>As she spoke she was aware that some one was near her. A sudden +footfall, a sudden pause, followed her words. She lifted her head, then +she sat up. The tears had flowed and her cheeks were wet with them, but +of that she was not conscious, so great was her surprise at finding +Franklin Winslow Kane standing before her on the mossy path.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kane carried his straw hat in his hand. He was very warm, his hair +was untidy on his moist brow, his boots were white with dust, his +trousers were turned up from them and displayed an inch or so of thin +ankle encased in oatmeal-coloured socks. His tie—Helen noted the one +salient detail among the many dull ones that made up a whole so +incongruous with the magic scene—was of a peculiarly harsh and ugly +shade of blue. He had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> only just climbed over a low wall near by and +that was why he had come upon her so inaudibly and had, so +inadvertently, been a witness of her grief.</p> + +<p>He did not, however, show embarrassment, but looked at her with the +hesitant yet sympathetic attentiveness of a vagrant dog.</p> + +<p>Helen sat on the moss, her feet extended before her, and she returned +his look from her tearful eyes, making no attempt to soften the oddity +of the situation. She found, indeed, a gloomy amusement in it, and was +aware of wondering what Mr. Kane, who made so much of everything, would +make of their mutual predicament.</p> + +<p>'Have you been having a long walk, too?' she asked.</p> + +<p>He looked at her, smiling now a little, as if he wagged a responsive +tail; but he was not an ingratiating dog, only a friendly and a troubled +one.</p> + +<p>'Yes, I have,' he said. 'We have got rather a long way off, Miss +Buchanan.'</p> + +<p>'That's a comfort sometimes, isn't it,' said Helen. She took out her +handkerchief and dried her eyes, drawing herself, then, into a more +comfortable position against the trunk of a beech-tree.</p> + +<p>'You'd rather I went away, wouldn't you,' said Mr. Kane; 'but let me say +first that I'm very sorry to have intruded, and very sorry indeed to see +that you're unhappy.'</p> + +<p>She now felt that she did not want him to go, indeed she felt that she +would rather he stayed. After the loneliness of her despair, she liked +the presence of the friendly, wandering dog. It would be comforting to +have it sit down beside you and to have it thud its tail when you +chanced to look<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> at it. Mr. Kane would not intrude, he would be a +consolation.</p> + +<p>'No, don't go,' she said. 'Do sit down and rest. It's frightfully hot, +isn't it.'</p> + +<p>He sat down in front of her, clasping his knees about, as was his wont, +and exposing thereby not only the entire oatmeal sock, but a section of +leg nearly matching it in tint.</p> + +<p>'Well, I am rather tired,' he said. 'I've lost my way, I guess.' And, +looking about him, he went on: 'Very peaceful things aren't they, the +woods. Trees are very peaceful things, pacifying things, I mean.'</p> + +<p>Helen looked up at them. 'Yes, they are peaceful. I don't know that I +find them pacifying.'</p> + +<p>His eyes came back to her and he considered her again for a moment +before he said, smiling gently, 'I've been crying too.'</p> + +<p>In the little pause that followed this announcement they continued to +look at each other, and it was not so much that their eyes sounded the +other's eyes as that they deepened for each other and, without effort or +surprise, granted to each other the quiet avowal of complete sincerity.</p> + +<p>'I'm very sorry that you are unhappy, too,' said Helen. She noticed now +that his eyes were jaded and that all his clear, terse little face was +softened and relaxed.</p> + +<p>'Yes, I'm unhappy,' said Franklin. 'It's queer, isn't it, that we should +find each other like this. I'm glad I've found you: two unhappy people +are better together, I think, than alone. It eases things a little, +don't you think so?'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps it does,' said Helen. 'That is, it does<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> if one of them is so +kind and so pacifying as you are; you do remind me of the trees,' she +smiled.</p> + +<p>'Ah, well, that's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed,' said Franklin, +looking about him at the limpid green. 'It makes me feel I'm not +intruding, to have you say that to me. It didn't follow, of course, +because I'm glad to find you that you would be glad I'd come. You don't +show it much, Miss Buchanan'—he was looking at her again—'your +crying.'</p> + +<p>'I'm always afraid that I show it dreadfully. That's the worst of it, I +don't dare indulge in it often.'</p> + +<p>'No, you don't show it much. You sometimes look as though you had been +crying when I'm sure you haven't—early in the morning, for instance.'</p> + +<p>Helen could but smile again. 'You are very observant. You really noticed +that?'</p> + +<p>'I don't know that I'm so very observant, Miss Buchanan, but I'm +interested in everybody, and I'm particularly interested in you, so that +of course I notice things like that. Now you aren't particularly +interested in me—though you are so kind—are you?' and again Mr. Kane +smiled his weary, gentle smile.</p> + +<p>It seemed very natural to sit under peaceful trees and talk to Mr. Kane, +and it was easy to be perfectly frank with him. Helen answered his +smile. 'No, I'm not. I'm quite absorbed in my own affairs. I'm +interested in hardly anybody. I'm very selfish.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, you would find that you wouldn't suffer so—in just your way, I +mean—if you were less selfish,' Franklin Kane remarked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> + +<p>'What other way is there?' Helen asked. 'What is your way?'</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't know that I've found a much better one, our ways seem to +have brought us to pretty much the same place, haven't they,' he almost +mused. 'That's the worst of suffering, it's pretty much alike, at all +times and in all ways. I'm not unselfish either, you know, a mighty long +way from it. But I'm not sick of it, you know, not sick to death of it. +Forgive me if I offend in repeating your words.'</p> + +<p>'You are unselfish, I'm sure of that,' said Helen. 'And so you must have +other things to live for. My life is very narrow, and when things I care +about are ruined I see nothing further.'</p> + +<p>'Things are never ruined in life, Miss Buchanan. As long as there is +life there is hope and action and love. As long as you can love you +can't be sick to death of it.' Mr. Kane spoke in his deliberate, +monotonous tones.</p> + +<p>Helen was silent for a little while. She was wondering; not about Mr. +Kane, nor about his suffering, nor about the oddity of thus talking with +him about her own. It was no more odd to talk to him than if he had been +the warm-hearted dog, dowered for her benefit with speech; she was +wondering about what he said and about that love to which he alluded. +'Perhaps I don't know much about love,' she said, and more to herself +than to Mr. Kane.</p> + +<p>'I've inferred that since knowing you,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>'I mean, of course,' Helen defined, 'the selfless love you are talking +of.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Yes, I understand,' said Franklin. 'Now, you see, the other sort of +love, the sort that makes people go away and cry in the woods—for I've +been crying because I'm hopelessly in love, Miss Buchanan, and I presume +that you are too—well, that sort of love can't escape ruin sometimes. +That side of life may go to pieces and then there's nothing left for it +but to cry. But that side isn't all life, Miss Buchanan.'</p> + +<p>Helen did not repudiate his interpretation of her grief. She was quite +willing that Mr. Kane should know why she had been crying, but she did +not care to talk about that side to him. It had been always, and it +would always be, she feared, all life to her. She looked sombrely before +her into the green vistas.</p> + +<p>'Of course,' Franklin went on, 'I don't know anything about your +hopeless love affair. I'm only sure that your tragedy is a noble one and +that you are up to it, you know—as big as it is. If it's hopeless, it's +not, I'm sure, because of anything in you. It's because of fate, or +circumstance, or some unworthiness in the person you care for. Now with +me one of the hardest things to bear is the fact that I've nothing to +blame but myself. I'm not adequate, that's the trouble; no charm, you +see,' Mr. Kane again almost mused, 'no charm. Charm is the great thing, +and it means more than it seems to mean, all evolution, the survival of +the fittest—natural selection—is in it, when you come to think of it. +If I'd had charm, personality, or, well, greatness of some sort, I'd +have probably won Althea long ago. You know, of course, that it's Althea +I'm in love with, and have been for years and years. Well, there it is,' +Franklin was picking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> tall blades of grass that grew in a little tuft +near by and putting them neatly together as he spoke. 'There it is, but +even with the pain of just that sort of failure to bear, I don't intend +that my life shall be ruined. It can't be, by the loss of that hope. I'm +not good enough for Althea. I've got to accept that; natural selection +rejects me,' looking up from his grass blades he smiled gravely at his +companion; 'but I'm good enough for other beautiful things that need +serving. And I'm good enough to go on being Althea's friend, to be of +some value to her in that capacity. So my life isn't ruined, not by a +long way, and I wish you'd try to feel the same about yours.'</p> + +<p>Helen didn't feel in the least inclined to try, but she found herself +deeply interested in Mr. Kane's attitude; for the first time Mr. Kane +had roused her intent interest. She looked hard at him while he sat +there, demonstrating to her the justice of life's dealings with him and +laying one blade of grass so accurately against another, and she was +wondering now about him. It was not because she thought her own feelings +sacred that she preferred them to be concealed, but she saw that Mr. +Kane's were no less sacred to him for being thus unconcealed. She even +guessed that his revelation of feeling was less for his personal relief +than for her personal benefit; that he was carrying out, in all the +depths of his sincerity, a wish to comfort her, to take her out of +herself. Well, he had taken her out of herself, and after having heard +that morning what Althea's significance could be in the life of another +man, she was curious to find what her so different significance could be +in the life of this one,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> as alien from Gerald in type and temperament +as it was possible to imagine. Why did Althea mean anything at all to +Gerald, and why did she mean everything to Mr. Kane? And through what +intuition of the truth had Mr. Kane come to his present hopelessness?</p> + +<p>'Do you think women always fall in love with the adequate man, and <i>vice +versa</i>?' she asked, and her eyes were gentle as they mused on him. 'Why +should you say that it's because you're not adequate that Althea isn't +in love with you?'</p> + +<p>Franklin fixed his eye upon her and it had now a new light, it deepened +for other problems than Helen's and his own. 'Not adequate for her—not +what she wants—that's my point,' he said. 'But there are other sorts of +mistakes to make, of course. If Althea falls in love with a man equipped +as I'm not equipped, that does prove that I lack something that would +have won her; but it doesn't prove that she's found the right man. We've +got beyond natural selection when it comes to life as a whole. He may be +the man for her to fall in love with, but is he the man to make her +happy? That's just the question for me, Miss Buchanan, and I wish you'd +help me with it.'</p> + +<p>'Help you?' Helen rather faltered.</p> + +<p>'Yes, please try. You must see—I see it plainly enough—that Mr. Digby +is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' +Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald +had seen, and what she had not seen at all?</p> + +<p>'You think it's Gerald who is in love with her?' she asked.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again Franklin's eye was on her, and she now saw in it his deep +perplexity. She couldn't bear to add to it. 'I've guessed nothing,' she +said. 'You must enlighten me.'</p> + +<p>'I wasn't sure at first,' said Franklin, groping his way. 'He seemed so +devoted to Lady Pickering; but for some days it's been obvious, hasn't +it, that that wasn't in the least serious?'</p> + +<p>'Not in the least.'</p> + +<p>'I couldn't have reconciled myself,' said Franklin, 'to the idea of a +man, who could take Lady Pickering seriously, marrying Althea. I can't +quite reconcile myself to the idea of a man who could, well, be so +devoted to Lady Pickering, marrying Althea. He's your friend, I know, +Miss Buchanan, as well as your relative, but you know what I feel for +Althea, and you'll forgive my saying that if I'm not big enough for her +he isn't big enough either; no, upon my soul, he isn't.'</p> + +<p>Helen's eyes dwelt on him. She knew that, with all the forces of +concealment at her command, she wanted to keep from Mr. Kane the +blighting irony of her own inner comments; above everything, now, she +dreaded lest her irony should touch one of Mr. Kane's ideals. It was so +beautiful of him to think himself not big enough for Althea, that she +was well content that he should see Gerald in the same category of +unfitness. Perhaps Gerald was not big enough for Althea; Gerald's +bigness didn't interest Helen; the great point for her was that Mr. Kane +should not guess that she considered Althea not big enough for him. 'If +Gerald is the lucky man,' she said, after the pause in which she gazed +at him; 'if she cares enough for Gerald to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> marry him, then I think he +will make her happy; and that's the chief thing, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>Mr. Kane could not deny that it was, and yet, evidently, he was not +satisfied. 'I believe you'll forgive me if I go on,' he said. 'You see +it's so tremendously important to me, and what I'm going to say isn't +really at all offensive—I mean, people of your world and Mr. Digby's +world wouldn't find it so. I'll tell you the root of my trouble, Miss +Buchanan. Your friend is a poor man, isn't he, and Althea is a fairly +rich woman. Can you satisfy me on this point? I can give Althea up; I +must give her up; but I can hardly bear it if I'm to give her up to a +mere fortune-hunter, however happy he may be able to make her.'</p> + +<p>Helen's cheeks had coloured slightly. 'Gerald isn't a mere +fortune-hunter,' she said. 'People of my world do think fortune-hunting +offensive.'</p> + +<p>'Forgive me then,' said Franklin, gazing at her, contrite but +unperturbed. 'I'm very ignorant of your world. May I put it a little +differently. Would Mr. Digby be likely to fall in love with a woman if +she hadn't a penny?'</p> + +<p>She had quite forgiven him. She smiled a little in answering. 'He has +often fallen in love with women without a penny, but he could hardly +marry a woman who hadn't one.'</p> + +<p>'He wouldn't wish to marry Althea, then, if she had no money?'</p> + +<p>'However much he would wish it, I don't think he would be so foolish as +to do it,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'Can't a man worth his salt work for the woman he loves?'</p> + +<p>'A man well worth his salt may not be trained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> for making money,' Helen +returned. She knew the question clamouring in his heart, the question he +must not ask, nor she answer: 'Is he in love with Althea?' Mr. Kane +could never accept nor understand what the qualified answer to such a +question would have to be, and she must leave him with his worst +perplexity unsolved. But one thing she could do for him, and she hoped +that it might soften a little the bitterness of his uncertainty. The +sunlight suddenly had failed, and a slight wind passed among the boughs +overhead. Helen got upon her feet, straightening her hat and putting +back her hair. It was time to be going homewards. They went down the +path and climbed over the palings, and it was on the hill-top that Helen +said, looking far ahead of her, far over the now visible roofs of +Merriston:</p> + +<p>'I've known Gerald Digby all my life, and I know Althea, now, quite +well. And if Gerald is to be the lucky man I'd like to say, for him, you +know—and I think it ought to set your mind at rest—that I think Althea +will be quite as lucky as he will be, and that I think that he is worthy +of her.'</p> + +<p>Franklin kept his eyes on her as she spoke, and though she did not meet +them, her far gaze, fixed ahead, seemed in its impersonal gravity to +commune with him, for his consolation, more than an answering glance +would have done. She was giving him her word for something, and the very +fact that she kept it impersonal, held it there before them both, made +it more weighty and more final. Franklin evidently found it so. He +presently heaved a sigh in which relief was mingled with +acceptance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>—acceptance of the fact that, from her, he must expect no +further relief. And presently, as they came out upon the winding road, +he said: 'Thanks, that's very helpful.'</p> + +<p>They walked on then in silence. The sun was gone and the wind blew +softly; the freshness of the coming rain was in the air. Helen lifted +her face to them as the first slow drops began to fall. In her heart, +too, the fierceness of her pain was overcast. Something infinitely sad, +yet infinitely peaceful, stilled her pulses. Infinitely sad, yet +infinitely funny too. How small, how insignificant, this tangle of the +whole-hearted and the half-hearted; what did it all come to, and how +feel suffering as tragic when farce grimaced so close beside it? Who +could take it seriously when, in life, the whole-hearted were so +deceived and based their loves on such illusion? To feel the irony was +to acquiesce, perhaps, and acquiescence, even if only momentary, like +the lull and softness in nature, was better than the beating fierceness +of rebellion. Everything was over. And here beside her went the dear +ungainly dog. She turned her head and smiled at him, the raindrops on +her lashes.</p> + +<p>'You don't mind the rain, Miss Buchanan?' said Franklin, who had looked +anxiously at the weather, and probably felt himself responsible for not +producing an umbrella for a lady's need.</p> + +<p>'I like it.' She continued to smile at him.</p> + +<p>'Miss Buchanan,' said Franklin, looking at her earnestly and not smiling +back, 'I want to say something. I've seemed egotistic and I've been +egotistic. I've talked only about my own troubles; but I don't believe +you wanted to talk about yours,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> did you?' Helen, smiling, slightly +shook her head. 'And at the same time you've not minded my knowing that +you have troubles to bear.' Again she shook her head. 'Well, that's what +I thought; that's all right, then. What I wanted to say was that if ever +I can help you in any way—if ever I can be of any use—will you please +remember that I'm your friend.'</p> + +<p>Helen, still looking at him, said nothing for some moments. And now, +once more, a slight colour rose in her cheeks. 'I can't imagine why you +should be my friend,' she said. 'I feel that I know a great deal about +you; but you know nothing about me, and please believe me when I say +that there's very little to know.'</p> + +<p>Already he knew her well enough to know that the slight colour, +lingering on her cheek, meant that she was moved. 'Ah, I can't believe +you there,' he said. 'And at all events, whatever there is to know, I'm +its friend. You don't know yourself, you see. You only know what you +feel, not at all what you are.'</p> + +<p>'Isn't that what I am?' She looked away, disquieted by this analysis of +her own personality.</p> + +<p>'By no means all,' said Franklin. 'You've hardly looked at the you that +can do things—the you that can think things.'</p> + +<p>She didn't want to look at them, poor, inert, imprisoned creatures. She +looked, instead, at the quaint, unexpected, and touching thing with +which she was presented—Mr. Kane's friendship. She would have liked to +have told him that she was grateful and that she, too, was his friend; +but such verbal definitions as these were difficult and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> alien to her, +as alien as discussion of her own character and its capacities. It +seemed to be claiming too much to claim a capacity for friendship. She +didn't know whether she was anybody's friend, really—as Mr. Kane would +have counted friendship. She thought him dear, she thought him good, and +yet she hardly wanted him, would hardly miss him if he were not there. +He touched her, more deeply than she perhaps quite knew, and yet she +seemed to have nothing for him. So she gave up any explicit declaration, +only turning her eyes on him and smiling at him again through her +rain-dimmed lashes, as they went down the winding road together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2> + + +<p>It was Althea who, during the next few days, while Gerald with the +greatest tact and composure made his approaches, was most unconscious of +what was approaching her. Everybody else now saw quite clearly what +Gerald's intentions were. Althea was dazed; she did not know what the +bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of +her. She had feared—sickeningly—with a stiffening of her whole nature +to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady +Pickering. Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was +going to be her friend, and then—this in the two or three days that +followed Gerald's talk with Helen—that he was going to be a dear one. +She had only adjusted her mind to this grave joy and wondered, with all +the perplexity of her own now recognised love, whether it could prove +more than a very tremulous joy, when the final revelation came upon her. +It came, and it was still unexpected, one afternoon when she and Gerald +sat in the drawing-room together. It was very warm, and they had come +into the cooler house after tea to look at a book that Gerald wanted to +show her. It had proved to be not much of a book after all, and even +while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> standing with him in the library, while he turned the musty +leaves for her and pointed out the funny old illustrations he had been +telling her of, Althea had felt that the book was only a pretext for +getting her away to himself. He had led her back to the drawing-room and +he had said, 'Don't let's go out again, it's much nicer here. Please sit +here and talk to me.'</p> + +<p>It was just the hour, just such an afternoon as that on which poor +Franklin had arrived; Althea thought of that as she and Gerald sat down +on the same little sofa where she and Franklin had sat. And, in a swift +flash of association, she remembered that Franklin had wanted to kiss +her, and had kissed her. They had left Franklin under the limes with +Helen; he had been reading something to Helen out of a pamphlet, and +Helen had looked, though rather sleepy, kindly acquiescent; but the +memory of the past could do no more than stir a faint pity for the +present Franklin; she was wishing—and it seemed the most irresistible +longing of all her life—that Gerald Digby wanted to kiss her too. The +memory and the wish threw her thoughts into confusion, but she was still +able to maintain her calm, to smile at him and say, 'Certainly, let us +talk.'</p> + +<p>'But not about politics and philanthropy to-day,' said Gerald, who +leaned his elbow on his knee and looked quietly yet intently at her; 'I +want to talk about ourselves, if I may.'</p> + +<p>'Do let us talk about ourselves,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't believe that what I'm going to say will surprise you. I'm +sure you've seen how much I've come to care about you,' said Gerald.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>Althea kept her eyes fixed calmly upon him; her self-command was great, +even in the midst of an overpowering hope.</p> + +<p>'I know that we are real friends,' she returned, smiling.</p> + +<p>Her calm, her cool, sweet smile, like the light in the shaded room, were +very pleasing to Gerald. 'Ah, yes, but that was only a step, you see,' +he smiled back. He did not let her guess his full confidence, he took +all the steps one after the other in their proper order. He couldn't +give her romance, but he could give her every grace, and her calm made +him feel, happily and securely, that grace would quite content her.</p> + +<p>'You must see,' he went on, still with his eyes on hers, 'that it's more +than that. You must see that you are dearer than that.' And then he +brought out his simple question, 'Will you be my wife?'</p> + +<p>Althea sat still and her mind whirled. Until then she had been +unprepared. Her own feeling, the feeling that she had refused for days +to look at, had been so strong that she had only known its strength and +its danger to her pride; she had had no time to wonder about Gerald's +feeling. And now, in its freedom, her feeling was so joyous that she +could know only its joy. She was dear to him. He asked her to marry him. +It seemed enough, more than enough, to make joy a permanent thing in her +life. She had not imagined it possible to marry a man who did not woo +and urge, who did not make her feel the ardour of his love. But, now, +breathlessly, she found that reality was quite different from her +imagination and yet so blissful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> that she could feel nothing wanting in +it. And she could say nothing. She looked at him with her large eyes, +gravely, and touched, a little abashed by their gaze, he took her hand, +kissed it, and murmured, 'Please say you'll have me.'</p> + +<p>'Do you love me?' Althea breathed out; it was not that she questioned or +hesitated; the words came to her lips in answer to the situation rather +than in questioning of him. And it was hardly a shock; it was, in a +subtle way, a further realisation of exquisiteness, when the situation, +in his reply, defined itself as a reality still further removed from her +imagination of what such a situation should be.</p> + +<p>Holding her hand, his gay brown eyes upon her, he said, after only the +very slightest pause, 'Miss Jakes, I'm not a romantic person, you see +that; you see the sort of person I am. I can't make pretty speeches, not +when I'm serious, as I am now. When I make pretty speeches, I'm only +flirting. I like you. I respect you. I've watched you here in my old +home and I've thought, "If only she would make it home again." I've +thought that you'd help me to make a new life. I want to come and live +here, with you, and do the things I told you about—the things that +needed money.'</p> + +<p>His eyes were on hers, so quietly and so gravely, now, that they seemed +to hold from her all ugly little interpretations; he trusted her with +the true one, he trusted her not to see it as ugly. 'You see, I'm not +romantic,' he went on, 'and I can only tell you the truth. I couldn't +have thought of marrying you if you hadn't had money, but I needn't tell +you that, if you'd had millions, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> wouldn't have thought of marrying +you unless I cared for you. So there it is, quite clear and simple. I +think I can make you happy; will you make me happy?'</p> + +<p>It was exquisite, the trust, the truth, the quiet gravity, and yet there +was pain in the exquisiteness. She could not look at it yet distinctly +for it seemed part of the beauty. It was rarer, more dignified, this +wooing, than commonplace protestations of devotion. It was a large and +beautiful life he opened to her and he needed her to make it real. They +needed each other. Yet—here the pain hovered—they needed each other so +differently. To her, he was the large and beautiful life; to him, she +was only a part of it, and a means to it. But she could not look at +pain. Pride was mounting in her, pride in him, her beloved and her +possession. Before all the world, henceforth, he would be hers. And the +greatness of that pride cast out lesser ones. He had discriminated, been +carefully sincere; her sincerity did not need to be careful, it was an +unqualified gift she had to make him. 'I love you,' she said. 'I will +make it your home.'</p> + +<p>And again Gerald was touched and a little confused. He kissed her hand +and then, her eyes of mute avowal drawing him, he leaned to her and +kissed her cheek. He felt it difficult to answer such a speech, and all +that he found to say at last was, 'You will make me romantic, dear +Althea.'</p> + +<p>That evening he sought Helen out again; but he need not have come with +his news, for it was none. Althea's blissful preoccupation and his +gaiety had all the evening proclaimed the happy event. But he had to +talk to Helen, and finding her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> on the terrace, he drew her hand through +his arm and paced to and fro with her. She was silent, and, suddenly and +oddly, he found it difficult to say anything. 'Well,' he ventured at +last.</p> + +<p>'Well,' Helen echoed in the darkness.</p> + +<p>'It's all settled,' said Gerald.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'And I'm very happy.'</p> + +<p>'I am so glad.'</p> + +<p>'And she is really a great dear. Anything more generously sweet I've +never encountered.'</p> + +<p>'I'm so glad,' Helen repeated.</p> + +<p>There seemed little more to say, but, before they went in, he squeezed +her hand and added: 'If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have met her. +Dear Helen, I have to thank you for my good fortune. I've always had to +thank you for the nice things that have happened to me.'</p> + +<p>But to this Helen demurred, though smiling apparently, as she answered, +going in, 'Oh no, I don't think you have this to thank me for.'</p> + +<p>After they had gone upstairs, Althea came to Helen's room, and putting +her arms around her she hid her face on her shoulder. She was too happy +to feel any sense of shyness. It was Helen who was shy. So shy that the +tears rose to her eyes as she stood there, embraced. And, strangely, she +felt, with all her disquiet at being so held by Althea, that the tears +were not only for shyness, but for her friend. Althea's happiness +touched her. It seemed greater than her situation warranted. Helen could +not see the situation as rapturous. It was not such a tempered, such a +reasonable joy that she could have accepted, had it been her part<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> to +accept or to decline. And, held by Althea, hot, shrinking, sorry, she +was aware of another anger against Gerald.</p> + +<p>'My dear Althea, I know. I do so heartily congratulate you and Gerald,' +she said.</p> + +<p>'He told you, dear Helen?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, he told me, but of course I saw.'</p> + +<p>'I feel now as if you were my sister,' said Althea, tightening her arms. +'We will always be very near each other, Helen. It is so beautiful to +think that you brought us together, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>Helen was forced to put the distasteful cup to her lips. 'Yes indeed,' +she said.</p> + +<p>'He is so dear, so wonderful,' said Althea. 'There is so much more in +him than he knows himself. I want him to be a great man, Helen. I +believe he can be, don't you?'</p> + +<p>'I've never thought of Gerald as great,' Helen replied, trying to smile.</p> + +<p>'Ah, well, wait; you will see! I suppose it is only a woman in love with +a man who sees all his capacities. We will live here, and in London.' +Althea, while she spoke her guileless assurance, raised her head and +threw back her unbound hair, looking her full trust into Helen's eyes. +'I wouldn't care to live for more than half the year in the country, and +it wouldn't be good for Gerald. I want to do so much, Helen, to make so +many people happy, if I can. And, Helen dear,' she smiled now through +her tears, 'if only you could be one of them; if only this could mean in +some way a new opening in your life, too. One can never tell; happiness +is such an infectious thing; if you are a great deal with two very happy +people, you may catch the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> habit. I can't bear to think that you aren't +happy, rare and lovely person that you are. I told Gerald so to-day. I +said to him that I felt life hadn't given you any of the joy we all so +need. Helen, dear, you must find your fairy-prince. You must, you shall +fall in love, too.'</p> + +<p>Helen controlled her face and gulped on. 'That's not so easily managed,' +she remarked. 'I've seen a good many fairy-princes in my life, and +either I haven't melted their hearts, or they haven't melted mine. We +can't all draw lucky numbers, you know; there are not enough to go +round.'</p> + +<p>'As if anybody wouldn't fall in love with you, if you gave them the +chance,' said Althea. 'You <i>are</i> the lucky number.'</p> + +<p>Althea felt next day a certain tameness in the public reception of her +news. She had not intended the news to be public yet for some time. +Franklin's presence seemed to make an announcement something of an +indelicacy, but, whether through her responsibility or whether through +Gerald's, or whether through the obviousness of the situation, she found +that everybody knew. It could not make commonplace to her her own inner +joy, but she saw that to Aunt Julia, to the girls, to Lady Pickering, +and Sir Charles, her position was commonplace. She was, to them, a nice +American who was being married as much because she had money as because +she was nice.</p> + +<p>Aunt Julia voiced this aspect to her on the first opportunity, drawing +her away after breakfast to walk with her along the terrace while she +said, very gravely, 'Althea, dear, do you really think you'll be happy +living in England?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Happier than anywhere else in the world,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'I didn't realise that you felt so completely expatriated.'</p> + +<p>'England has always seemed very homelike to me, and this already is more +of a home to me than any I have known for years,' said Althea, looking +up at Merriston House.</p> + +<p>'Poor child!' said Aunt Julia, 'what a comment on your rootless life. +You must forgive me, Althea,' she went on in a lower voice, 'but I feel +myself in a mother's place to you, and I do very much want to ask you to +consider more carefully before you make things final. Mr. Digby is a +charming man; but how little you have seen of him. I beg you to wait for +a year before you marry.'</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid I can't gratify you, Aunt Julia. I certainly can't ask +Gerald to wait for a year.'</p> + +<p>'My dear, why not!' Aunt Julia did not repress.</p> + +<p>Althea went on calmly. 'It is true, of course, that we are not in love +like two children, with no thought of responsibility or larger claims. +You see, one outgrows that rather naïve American idea about marriage. +Mine is, if you like, a <i>mariage de convenance</i>, in the sense that +Gerald is a poor man and cannot marry unless he marries money. And I am +proud to have the power to help him to build up a large and dignified +life, and we don't intend to postpone our marriage when we know, trust, +and love each other as we do.'</p> + +<p>'A large life, my dear,' said Aunt Julia. 'Don't deceive yourself into +thinking that. One needs a far larger fortune than your tiny one, +nowadays, if one is to build up a large life. What I fear more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> than +anything is that you don't in the least realise what English country +life is all the year round. Imagine, if you can, your winters here.'</p> + +<p>'I shan't spend many winters here,' said Althea smiling. She did not +divulge her vague, bright plans to Aunt Julia, but they filled the +future for her; she saw the London drawing-room where, when Gerald was +in Parliament, she would gather delightful people together. Among such +people, Lady Blair, Miss Buckston, her friends in Devonshire, and of +Grimshaw Rectory, seemed hardly more than onlookers; they did not fit +into the pictures of her new life.</p> + +<p>And if they did not fit, what of Franklin? Even in old unsophisticated +pictures of a <i>salon</i> he had been a figure adjusted with some +difficulty. It had, in days that seemed immeasurably remote—days when +she had wondered whether she could marry Franklin—it had been difficult +to see herself introducing him with any sense of achievement to Lady +Blair or to the Collings, and she knew now, clearly, why: in Lady +Blair's drawing-room, as in Devonshire and at Grimshaw Rectory, Franklin +would have looked a funny little man. How much more funny in the new +setting. What would he do in it? What was it to mean to him? What would +any setting mean to Franklin in which he was to see her as no longer +needing him? For, and this was the worst of it, and in spite of +happiness Althea felt it as a pang indeed, she no longer needed +Franklin; and knowing this she longed at once to avoid and to atone to +him.</p> + +<p>She found him after her walk with Aunt Julia sitting behind a newspaper +in the library. Franklin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> always read the newspapers every morning, and +it struck Althea as particularly touching that this good habit should be +persevered in under his present circumstances. She was so much touched +by Franklin, the habit of old intimacy was so strong, that her own +essential change of heart seemed effaced by the uprising of feeling for +him. 'O Franklin!' she said. He had risen as she entered, and he stood +looking at her with a smile. It seemed to receive her, to forgive, to +understand. Almost weeping, she went to him with outstretched hands, +faltering, 'I am so happy, and I am so sorry, dear Franklin. Oh, forgive +me if I have hurt your life.'</p> + +<p>He looked at her, no longer smiling, very gravely, holding her hands, +and she knew that he was not thinking of his life, but of hers. And, +with a further pang, she remembered that the last time they had stood +so—she and Franklin—she had given him more hope for his life than ever +before in all their histories. He must remember, too, and he must feel +her unworthy in remembering, and even though she did not need Franklin, +she could not bear him to think her unworthy. 'Forgive me,' she +repeated. And the tears rose to her eyes. 'I've been so tossed, so +unstable. I haven't known. I only know now, you see, dear Franklin. I've +really fallen in love at last. Can you ever forgive me?'</p> + +<p>'For not having fallen in love with me?' he asked gently.</p> + +<p>'No, dear,' she answered, forced into complete sincerity. What was it in +Franklin that compelled sincerity, and made it so easy to be sincere? +There, at least, was a quality for which one would always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> need him. +'No, not for that, but for having thought that I might, perhaps, fall in +love with you. It is the hope I gave you that must make this seem so +sudden and so cruel.'</p> + +<p>He had not felt her cruel, but he had felt something that was now giving +his eyes their melancholy directness of gaze. He was looking at his +Althea; he was not judging her; but he was wishing that she had been +able to think of him a little more as mere friend, a little more as the +man who, after all, had loved her all these years; wishing that she had +not so completely forgotten him, so completely relegated and put him +away when her new life was coming to her. But he understood, he did not +judge, and he answered, 'I don't think you've been cruel, Althea dear, +though it's been rather cruel of fortune, if you like, to arrange it in +just this way. As for hurting my life, you've been the most beautiful +thing in it.'</p> + +<p>Something in his voice, final acceptance, final resignation, as though, +seeing her go for ever, he bowed his head in silence, filled her with +intolerable sadness. Was it that she wanted still to need him, or was it +that she could not bear the thought that he might, some day, no longer +need her?</p> + +<p>The sense of an end of things, chill and penetrating like an autumnal +wind, made all life seem bleak and grey for the moment. 'But, Franklin, +you will always be my friend. That is not changed,' she said. 'Please +tell me that nothing of that side of things is changed, dear Franklin.'</p> + +<p>And now that sincerity in him, that truth-seeing and truth-speaking +quality that was his power,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> became suddenly direful. For though he +looked at her ever so gently and ever so tenderly, his eyes pierced her. +And, helplessly, he placed the truth before them both, saying: 'I'll +always be your friend, of course, dear Althea. You'll always be the most +beautiful thing I've had in my life; but what can I be in yours? I don't +belong over here, you know. I'll not be in your life any longer. How can +it not be changed? How will you stay my friend, dear Althea?'</p> + +<p>The tears rolled down her cheeks. That he should see, and accept, and +still love her, made him seem dearer than ever before, while, in her +heart, she knew that he spoke the truth. 'Don't—don't, dear Franklin,' +she pleaded. 'You will be often with us. Don't talk as if it were at an +end. How could our friendship have an end? Don't let me think that you +are leaving me.'</p> + +<p>He smiled a little, but it was a valorous smile. 'I'll never leave you +in that way.'</p> + +<p>'Don't speak, then, as if I were leaving you.'</p> + +<p>But Franklin, though he smiled the valorous smile, couldn't give her a +consolation not his to give. Did he see clearly, and for the first time, +that he had always counted for her as a solace, a substitute for the +things he couldn't be, and that now, when these things had come to her, +he counted really for nothing at all? If he did see it, he didn't resent +it; he would understand that, too, even though it left him with no +foothold in her life. But he couldn't pretend—to give her comfort—that +she needed him any longer. 'I want to count for anything you'll let me +count for,' he said; 'but—it isn't your fault, dear—I don't think I +will ever count<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> for much, now; I don't see how I can. If that's being +left, I guess I am left.'</p> + +<p>She gazed at him, and all that she had to offer was her longing that the +truth were not the truth, and for the moment of silent confrontation her +pain was so great that its pressure brought an involuntary cry—protest +or presage—it felt like both. 'You will—you will count—for much more, +dear Franklin.'</p> + +<p>She didn't know that it was the truth; his seemed to be the final truth; +but it came, and it had to be said, and he could accept it as her +confession and her atonement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2> + + +<p>Franklin was gone and Sir Charles was gone, and Lady Pickering soon +followed, not in the least discomfited by the unexpected turn of events. +Lady Pickering could hardly have borne to suspect that Gerald preferred +to flirt with Miss Jakes rather than with herself; that he preferred to +marry her was nothing of an affront. Althea herself was very soon to +return to America for a month with Aunt Julia and the girls, settle +business matters and see old friends before turning her face, this time +for good, to the country that was now to be her home.</p> + +<p>Franklin was gone, and Gerald and Helen were left, and all that Gerald +more and more meant, all that was bright and alien too—the things of +joy and the things of adjustment and of wonder—effaced poor Franklin +while it emphasised those painful truths that he had seen and shown her +and that she had only been able to protest against. The thought of +Franklin came hardly at all, though the truths he had put before her +lingered in a haunting sense of disappointment with herself; she had +failed Franklin in deeper, more subtle ways than in the mere shattering +of his hopes.</p> + +<p>Althea had never been a good business woman; her affairs were taken care +of for her in Boston by wise and careful cousins; but she found that +Gerald,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> in spite of his air of irresponsibility, was a very good +business man, and it was he who pointed out to her, with cheerful and +affectionate frankness, that her fortune was not as large as she, with +her heretofore unexacting demands on it, had imagined. It was only when +Althea took for granted that it could suffice for much larger, new +demands, that Gerald pointed out the facts of limitation; to himself, he +made this clear and sweet, the facts were amply sufficient; there was +more than enough for his sober wants. But Althea, sitting over the +papers with him in the library, and looking rather vague and wistful, +realised that if Gerald's wants were to be the chief consideration many +of her own must, indeed, go unsatisfied. Gerald evidently took it +perfectly for granted that her wants would be his. Looking up at the +flat and faded portraits of bygone Digbys, while this last one, his +charming eyes lifted so brightly and so intelligently upon her, made +things clear, looking up, over his head, at these ancestors of her +affianced, Althea saw in their aspect of happy composure that they, too, +had always taken it for granted that their wives' wants were just +that—just their own wants. She couldn't—not at first—lucidly +articulate to herself any marked divergence between her wants and +Gerald's; she, too, wanted to see Merriston House restored and made +again into a home for Digbys; but Merriston House had been seen by her +as a means, not as an end. She had seen it as a centre to a larger life; +he saw it as a boundary beyond which they could not care to stray. After +the golden bliss of the first days of her new life there, as Gerald's +promised wife, there came for her a pause of rather perplexed reaction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> +in this sense of limits, this sense of being placed in a position that +she must keep, this strange sense of slow but sure metamorphosis into +one of a succession of Mrs. Digbys whose wants were their husbands'.</p> + +<p>'Yes, yes, I quite see, dear,' she said at intervals, while Gerald +explained to her what it cost to keep up even such a small place. 'What +a pity that those stocks of mine you were telling me about don't yield +more. It isn't much we have, is it?'</p> + +<p>'I think it's a great deal,' laughed Gerald. 'It's quite enough to be +very happy on. And, first and foremost, when it's a question of +happiness, and since you are so dear and generous, I shall be able to +hunt at last and keep my own horses. I'm sick of being dependent on my +friends for a mount now and then. Not that you'll have much sympathy +with that particular form of happiness, I know,' he added, smiling, as +he put his hand on her shoulder and scanned the next document.</p> + +<p>Althea was silent for a moment. She hardly knew what the odd shock that +went through her meant; then she recognised that it was fear. To see it +as that gave her courage; at all events, love Gerald as she did, she +would not be a coward for love of him. The effort was in her voice, +making it tremulous, as she said: 'But, Gerald, you know I don't like +hunting; you know I think it cruel.'</p> + +<p>He looked at her; he smiled. 'So do I, you nice dear.'</p> + +<p>'But you won't pain me by doing it—you will give it up?'</p> + +<p>It was now his turn to look really a little fright<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>ened. 'But it's in my +blood and bones, the joy of it, Althea. You wouldn't, seriously, ask me +to give it up for a whim?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, it isn't a whim.'</p> + +<p>'A theory, then.'</p> + +<p>'I think you ought to give it up for a theory like that one. Yes, I even +think that you ought to give it up to please me.'</p> + +<p>'But why shouldn't you give up your theory to please me?' He had turned +his eyes on his papers now, and was feigning to scan them.</p> + +<p>'It is a question of right and wrong to me.'</p> + +<p>Gerald was silent for a moment. He was not irritated, she saw that; not +angry. He quite recognised her point, and he didn't like her the less +for holding to it; but he recognised his own point just as clearly, and, +after the little pause, she found that he was resolute in holding to it.</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid I can't give it up—even to please you, dear,' he said.</p> + +<p>Althea sat looking down at the papers that lay on the table; she saw +them through tears of helpless pain. There was nothing to be done and +nothing to be said. She could not tell him that, since he did not love +her sufficiently to give up a pleasure for her sake, she must give him +up; nor could she tell him that he must not use her money for pleasures +that she considered wrong. But it was this second impossible retort—the +first, evidently, did not cross his mind—that was occupying Gerald. He +was not slow in seeing delicacies, though he was slow indeed in seeing +what might have been solemnities. The position couldn't strike him as +solemn; he couldn't conceive that a woman might break off her +engage<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>ment for such a cause; but he did see his own position of +beneficiary as delicate.</p> + +<p>His next words showed it: 'Of course I won't hunt here, if you really +say not. I could go away to hunt. The difficulty is that we want to keep +horses, don't we? and if I have a hunter it will be rather funny never +to use him at home.'</p> + +<p>Althea saw that it would be rather funny. 'If you have a hunter I would +far rather you hunted here than that you went away to hunt.'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps you'd rather I had a horse that couldn't hunt. The hunter would +be your gift, of course. I could just go on depending on my friends for +a mount, though that would look funny, too, wouldn't it?'</p> + +<p>'If you will hunt, I want to give you your hunter.'</p> + +<p>'In a sense it will be using your money to do something you disapprove +of.' Gerald was smiling at her as though he felt that he was bringing +her round to reasonableness. 'Perhaps that's ugly.'</p> + +<p>'Please don't speak of the money; mine is yours.'</p> + +<p>'That makes me seem all the dingier, I know,' said Gerald, half +ruefully, yet still smiling at her. 'I do wish I could give it up, just +to please you, but really I can't. You must just shut your eyes and +pretend I'm not a brute.'</p> + +<p>After this little encounter, which left its mark on Althea's heart, she +felt that Gerald ought to be the more willing to yield in other things +and to enter into her projects. 'Don't you think, dear,' she said to him +a day or two after, when they were walking together, 'don't you think +that you ought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> soon to be thinking of a seat in Parliament? That will +be such a large, worthy life for you.'</p> + +<p>Gerald, as they walked, was looking from right to left, happily, +possessively, over the fields and woods. He brought his attention to her +suggestion with a little effort, and then he laughed. 'Good gracious, +no! I've no political views.'</p> + +<p>'But oughtn't you to have them?'</p> + +<p>'You shall provide me with them, dear.'</p> + +<p>'Gladly; and will you use them?'</p> + +<p>'Not in Parliament,' laughed Gerald.</p> + +<p>'But seriously, dear, I hope you will think of it.'</p> + +<p>He turned gay, protesting, and now astonished eyes upon her. 'But I +can't think of it seriously. Old Battersby is a member for these parts, +and his seat is as firm as a rock.'</p> + +<p>'Can't you find another seat?'</p> + +<p>'But, my dear, even if I had any leaning that way, which I haven't, +where am I to find the time and money?'</p> + +<p>'Give less time and money to hunting,' she could not repress.</p> + +<p>But, over the sinking of her heart, she kept her voice light, and +Gerald, all unsuspecting, answered, as if it were a harmless jest they +were bandying, 'What a horrid score! But, yes, it's quite true; I want +my time for hunting and farming and studying a bit, and then you mustn't +forget that I enjoy dabbling at my painting in my spare moments and have +the company of my wise and charming Althea to cultivate. I've quite +enough to fill my time with.'</p> + +<p>She was baffled, perplexed, and hurt. Her thoughts fixed with some irony +on his painting.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> Dabble at it indeed. Gerald had shown her some of his +sketches and they had hardly seemed to Althea to merit more than that +description. Her own tastes had grown up securely framed by books and +lectures. Her speciality was early Italian art. She liked pictures of +Madonnas surrounded by exquisite accessories—all of which she +accurately remembered. She didn't at all care for Japanese prints, and +Gerald's sketches looked to her rather like Japanese prints. She really +didn't imagine that he intended her to take them seriously, and when he +had brought them out and shown them to her she had said, 'Pretty, very +pretty indeed, dear; really you have talent, I'm sure of it. With hard +work, under a good master, you might have become quite a painter.' She +had then seen the little look of discomfiture on Gerald's face, though +he laughed good-humouredly as he put away his sketches, saying to Helen, +who was present, 'I'm put in my place, you see.'</p> + +<p>Althea had hastened to add, 'But, dear, really I think them very pretty. +They show quite a direct, simple feeling for colour. Don't they, Helen? +Don't you feel with me that they are very pretty?'</p> + +<p>Helen had said that she knew nothing about pictures, but liked Gerald's +very much.</p> + +<p>It was hard now to be asked to accept this vagrant artistry instead of +the large, political life she had seen for him. And what of the London +drawing-room?</p> + +<p>'You must keep in touch with people, Gerald,' she said. 'You mustn't +sink into the country squire for ever.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Oh, but that's just what I want to sink into,' said Gerald. 'Don't +bother about people, though, dear. We can have plenty of people to stay +with us, and go about a bit ourselves.'</p> + +<p>'But we must be in London for part of the year,' said Althea.</p> + +<p>'Oh, you will run up now and then for a week whenever you like,' said +Gerald.</p> + +<p>'A week! How can one keep in touch with what is going on in a week? +Can't we take a little house there? One of those nice little old houses +in Westminster, for example?'</p> + +<p>'A house, my dear! Why, you don't want to leave Merriston, do you? What +would become of Merriston if we had a house in London—and of all our +plans? We really couldn't manage that, dear—we really couldn't afford +it.'</p> + +<p>Yes, she saw the life very distinctly, now; that of the former Mrs. +Digbys—that of cheerful squiress and wise helpmate. And, charmed though +she was with her lover, Althea was not charmed with that prospect. She +promised herself that things should turn out rather differently. What +was uncomfortable already was to find that her promises were becoming +vague and tentative. There was a new sense of bondage. Bliss was in it, +but the bonds began to chafe.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2> + + +<p>On a chill day in late October, Franklin Winslow Kane walked slowly down +a narrow street near Eaton Square examining the numbers on the doors as +he passed. He held his umbrella open over his shoulder, for propitiation +rather than for shelter, since the white fog had not yet formed into a +drizzle. His trousers were turned up, and his feet, wisely, for the +streets were wet and slimy, encased in neat galoshes. After a little +puzzling at the end of the street, where the numbers became confusing, +he found the house he sought on the other side—a narrow house, painted +grey, a shining knocker upon its bright green door, and rows of evenly +clipped box in each window. Franklin picked his way over the road and +rang the bell. This was his first stay in London since his departure +from Merriston in August. He had been in Oxford, in Cambridge, in +Birmingham, and Edinburgh. He had made friends and found many interests. +The sense of scientific links between his own country and England had +much enlarged his consciousness of world-citizenship. He had ceased +altogether to feel like a tourist, he had almost ceased to feel like an +alien; how could he feel so when he had come to know so many people who +had exactly his own interests? This wider scope of understanding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> +sympathy was the main enlargement that had come to him, at least it was +the main enlargement for his own consciousness. Another enlargement +there was, but it seemed purely personal and occupied his thoughts far +less.</p> + +<p>He waited now upon the doorstep of old Miss Buchanan's London house, and +he had come there to call upon young Miss Buchanan. The memory of +Helen's unobtrusive, wonderfully understanding kindness to him during +his last days at Merriston, remained for him as the only bright spot in +a desolate blankness. He had not seen her again. She had been paying +visits, but she had written in return to a note of inquiry from +Cambridge, to say that she was settled, now, in London for a long time +and that she would be delighted to see him on the day he suggested—that +of his arrival in town.</p> + +<p>He was ushered by the most staid, most crisp of parlour-maids, not into +Helen's own little sanctum downstairs, but into the drawing-room. It was +a narrow room, running to the back of the house where a long window +showed a ghostly tree in the fog outside, and it was very much crowded +with over-large furniture gathered together from Miss Buchanan's past. +There were chintz-covered chairs and sofas that one had to make one's +way around, and there were cabinets filled with china, and there were +tables with reviews and book-cutters laid out on them. And it was the +most cheerful of rooms; three canaries sang loudly in a spacious gilt +cage that stood in a window, the tea-table was laid before the fire, and +the leaping firelight played on the massive form of the black cat, +dozing in his basket,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> on the gilt of the canaries' cage, on the china +in the cabinets, the polished surface of the chintz, and the copper +kettle on the tea-table.</p> + +<p>Franklin stood and looked about him, highly interested. He liked to +think that Helen had such a comfortable refuge to fall back upon, though +by the time that old Miss Buchanan appeared he had reflected that so +much comfort might be just the impediment that had prevented her from +taking to her wings as he felt persuaded she could and should do. Old +Miss Buchanan interested him even more than her room. She was a firm, +ample woman of over sixty, with plentiful grey hair brushed back +uncompromisingly from her brow, tight lips, small, attentive eyes with +projecting eyebrows over them, and an expression at once of reticence +and cordiality. She wore a black dress of an old-fashioned cut, and +round her neck was a heavy gold chain and a large gold locket.</p> + +<p>Helen would be in directly, she said, and expected him.</p> + +<p>Franklin saw at once that she took him for granted, and that she was +probably in the habit of taking all Helen's acquaintances for granted, +and of making them comfortable until Helen came and took them off her +hands. She had, he inferred, many interests of her own, and did not +waste much conjecture on stray callers. Franklin was quite content to +count as a stray caller, and he had always conjecture enough for two in +any encounter. He talked away in his even, deliberate tones, while they +drank tea and ate the hottest of muffins that stood in a covered dish on +a brass tripod before the fire, and, while they talked, Miss Buchanan +shot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> rather sharper glances at him from under her eyebrows.</p> + +<p>'So you were at Merriston with Helen's Miss Jakes,' she said, placing +him. 'It made a match, that party, didn't it? Quite a good thing for +Gerald Digby, too, I hear. Miss Jakes is soon to be back, Helen tells +me.'</p> + +<p>'Next week,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>'And the wedding for November.'</p> + +<p>'So I'm told.'</p> + +<p>'You've known Miss Jakes for some time?'</p> + +<p>'For almost all my life,' said Franklin, with his calm and candid smile.</p> + +<p>'Oh, old friends, then. You come from Boston, too, perhaps?'</p> + +<p>'Well, I come from the suburbs, in the first place, but I've been in the +hub itself for a long time now,' said Franklin. 'Yes, I'm a very old +friend of Miss Jakes's. I'm very much attached to her.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, and are you pleased with the match?'</p> + +<p>'It seems to please Althea, and that's the main thing. I think Mr. Digby +will make her happy; yes, I'm pleased.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Miss Buchanan meditatively. 'Yes, I suppose Gerald Digby +will make a pleasant husband. He's a pleasant creature. I've always +considered him very selfish, I confess; but women seem to fall in love +with selfish men.'</p> + +<p>Franklin received this ambiguous assurance with a moment or so of +silence, and then remarked that marriage might make Mr. Digby less +selfish.</p> + +<p>'You mean,' said Miss Buchanan, 'that she's selfish too, and won't let +him have it all his own way?'</p> + +<p>Franklin did not mean that at all. 'Life with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> high-minded, +true-hearted woman sometimes alters a man,' he commented.</p> + +<p>'Oh, she's that, is she?' said Miss Buchanan. 'I've not met her yet, you +see. Well, I don't know that I've much expectation of seeing Gerald +Digby alter. But he's a pleasant creature, as I said, and I don't think +he's a man to make any woman unhappy. In any case your friend is +probably better off married to a pleasant, selfish man than not married +at all,' and Miss Buchanan smiled a tight, kindly smile. 'I don't like +this modern plan of not getting married. I want all the nice young women +I know to get married, and the sooner the better; it gives them less +time to fuss over their feelings.'</p> + +<p>'Well, it's better to fuss before than after, isn't it?' Franklin +inquired.</p> + +<p>'Fussing after doesn't do much harm,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and there's +not so much time for fussing then. It's fussing before that leaves so +many of the nicest girls old maids. My niece Helen is the nicest girl I +know, and I sometimes think she'll never marry now. It vexes me very +much,' said Miss Buchanan.</p> + +<p>'She's a very nice girl,' said Franklin. 'And she's a very noble woman. +But she doesn't know it; she doesn't know her own capacities. I'm very +much attached to your niece, Miss Buchanan.'</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan shot him another glance and then laughed. 'Well, we can +shake hands over that,' she remarked. 'So am I. And you are quite right; +she is a fine creature and she's never had a chance.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, that's just my point,' said Franklin gravely. 'She ought to have a +chance; it ought to be made<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> for her, if she can't make it for herself. +And she's too big a person for that commonplace solution of yours, Miss +Buchanan. You're of the old ideas, I see; you don't think of women as +separate individuals, with their own worth and identity. You think of +them as borrowing worth and identity from some man. Now that may be good +enough for the nice girl who's only a nice girl, but it's not good +enough for your niece, not good enough for a noble woman. I'd ask a +happy marriage for her, of course, but I'd ask a great deal more. She +ought to put herself to some work, develop herself, find herself all +round.'</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan, while Franklin delivered himself of these convictions, +leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed on her bosom, and observed +him with amused intentness. When he had done, she thus continued to +observe him for some moments of silence. 'No, I'm of the old ideas,' she +said at last. 'I don't want work for Helen, or development, or anything +of that sort. I want happiness and the normal life. I don't care about +women doing things, in that sense, unless they've nothing better to do. +If Helen were married to a man of position and ability she would have +quite enough to occupy her. Women like Helen are made to hold and +decorate great positions; it's the ugly, the insignificant women, who +can do the work of the world.'</p> + +<p>Franklin heard her with a cheerful, unmoved countenance, and after a +moment of reflection observed, 'Well, that seems to me mighty hard on +the women who aren't ugly and insignificant—mighty hard,' and as Miss +Buchanan looked mysti<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>fied, he was going on to demonstrate to her that +to do the work of the world was every human creature's highest +privilege, when Helen entered.</p> + +<p>Franklin, as he rose and saw his friend again, had a new impression of +her and a rather perturbing one. Little versed as he was in the lore of +the world—the world in Miss Buchanan's sense—he felt that Helen, +perhaps, expressed what Miss Buchanan could not prove. It was true, her +lovely, recondite personality seemed to flash it before him, she didn't +fit easily into his theories of efficiency and self-development by +effort. Effort—other people's effort—seemed to have done long ago all +that was necessary for her. She was developed, she was finished, she +seemed to belong to quite another order of things from that which he +believed in, to an order framed for her production, as it were, and +justified, perhaps, by her mere existence. She was like a flower, and +ought a flower to be asked to do more than to show itself and bloom in +silence?</p> + +<p>Franklin hardly formulated these heresies; they hovered, only, as a sort +of atmosphere that had its charm and yet its sadness too, and that +seemed, in charm and sadness, to be part of Helen Buchanan's very being.</p> + +<p>She had taken his hand and was looking at him with those eyes of distant +kindness—so kind and yet so distant—and she said in the voice that was +so sincere and so decisive, a voice sweet and cold as a mountain brook, +that she was very glad to see him again.</p> + +<p>Yes, she was like a flower, a flower removed immeasurably from his +world; a flower in a crystal vase, set on a high and precious cabinet, +and to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> approached only over stretches of shining floor. What had he +to do with, or to think of, such a young woman who, though +poverty-stricken, looked like a princess, and who, though smiling, had +at her heart, he knew, a despair of life?</p> + +<p>'I'm very glad indeed to see you,' he said gravely, despite himself, and +scanning her face; 'it seems a very long time.'</p> + +<p>'Does that mean that you have been doing a great deal?'</p> + +<p>'Yes; and I suppose it means that I've missed you a great deal, too,' +said Franklin. 'I got into the habit of you at Merriston; I feel it's +queer not to find you in a chair under a tree every day.'</p> + +<p>'I know,' said Helen; 'one gets so used to people at country houses; +it's seeing them at breakfast that does it, I think. It was nice under +that tree, wasn't it? and how lazy I was. I'm much more energetic now; +I've got to the Purgatory, with the dictionary. Am I to have a fresh pot +of tea to myself, kind Aunt Grizel? You see how I am spoiled, Mr. Kane.'</p> + +<p>She had drawn off her gloves and tossed aside her long, soft coat—that +looked like nobody else's coat—and, thin and black and idle, she sat in +a low chair by the fire, and put out her hand for her cup. 'I've been to +a musical,' she said. And she told them how she had been wedged into a +corner for an interminable sonata and hadn't been able to get away. 'I +tried to, once, but my hostess saw me and made a most ominous hiss at +me; every one's eye was turned on me, and I sank back again, covered +with shame and confusion.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then she questioned him, and Franklin told her about his interesting +little tour, and the men he had met and the work they were doing. +'Splendid work, I can tell you,' said Franklin, 'and you have splendid +men. It's been a great time for me; it's done me a lot of good. I feel +as if I'd got hold of England; it's almost like being at home when you +find so many splendid people interested in the things that interest +you.'</p> + +<p>And presently, after a little pause, in which he contemplated the fire, +he added, lifting his eyes to Helen and smiling over the further idea: +'And see here, I'm forgetting another thing that's happened to me since +I saw you.'</p> + +<p>'Something nice, I hope.'</p> + +<p>'Well, that depends on how one looks at it,' said Franklin, considering. +'I can't say that it pleases me; it rather oppresses me, in fact. But +I'm going to get even with it, though that will take thought—thought +and training.'</p> + +<p>'It sounds as though you were going to be a jockey.'</p> + +<p>'No, I'm not going to be a jockey,' said Franklin. 'It's more solemn +than you think. What do you say to this? I'm a millionaire; I'm a +multi-millionaire. If that isn't solemn I don't know what is.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel Buchanan put down the long golf-stocking she was knitting, +and, over her spectacles, fixed her eyes on the strange young man who +had delayed till now the telling of this piece of news. She examined +him. In all her experience she had never come across anything like him. +Helen gave a little exclamation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>'My dear Mr. Kane, I do congratulate you,' she said.</p> + +<p>'Why?' asked Franklin.</p> + +<p>'Why, it's glorious news,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'I don't know about that,' said Franklin. 'I'm not a glorious person. +The mere fact of being a millionaire isn't glorious; it may be +lamentable.'</p> + +<p>'The mere fact of power is glorious. What shall you do?' asked Helen, +gazing thoughtfully at him as though to see in him all the far, new +possibilities.</p> + +<p>'Well, I shall do as much as I can for my own science of physics—that +is rather glorious, I own. I shall be able to help the first-rate men to +get at all sorts of problems, perhaps. Yes, that is rather glorious.'</p> + +<p>'And won't you build model villages and buy a castle and marry a +princess?'</p> + +<p>'I don't like castles and I don't know anything about princesses,' said +Franklin, smiling. 'As for philanthropy, I'll let people wiser than I am +at it think out plans for doing good with the money. I'll devote myself +to doing what I know something about. I do know something about physics, +and I believe I can do something in that direction.'</p> + +<p>'You take your good fortune very calmly, Mr. Kane,' Miss Grizel now +observed. 'How long have you known about it?'</p> + +<p>'Well, I heard a week ago, and news has been piling in ever since. I'm +fairly snowed up with cables,' said Franklin. 'It's an old uncle of +mine—my mother's brother—who's left it to me. He always liked me; we +were always great friends. He went out west and built railroads and made +a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> fortune—honestly, too; the money is clean—as clean as you can get +it nowadays, that is to say. I couldn't take it if it wasn't. The only +thing to do with money that isn't clean is to hand it over to the people +it's been wrongfully taken from—to the nation, you know. It's a pity +that isn't done; it would be a lot better than building universities and +hospitals with it—though it's a problem; yes, I know it's a problem.' +Franklin seemed to-day rather oppressed with a sense of problems. He +gave this one up after a thoughtful survey of the fire, and went on: 'He +was a fine old fellow, my uncle; I didn't see him often, but we +sometimes wrote, and he used to like to hear how I was getting on in my +work. He didn't know much about it; I don't think he ever got over +thinking that atoms were a sort of bug,' Franklin smiled, unaware of his +listeners' surprise; 'but he seemed to like to hear, so I always told +him everything I'd time to write about. It made me sad to hear he'd +gone; but it was a fine life, yes, it was a mighty big, fine, useful +life,' said Franklin Kane, looking thoughtfully into the fire. And while +he looked, musing over his memories, Miss Buchanan and her niece +exchanged glances. 'This is a very odd creature, and a very nice one,' +Miss Grizel's glance said; and Helen's replied, with playful eyebrows +and tender lips, 'Isn't he a funny dear?'</p> + +<p>'Now, see here,' said Franklin, looking up from his appreciative +retrospect and coming back to the present and its possibilities, 'now +that I've got all this money, you must let me spend a little of it on +having good times. You must let me take you to plays and +concerts—anything you've time for;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> and I hope, Miss Buchanan,' said +Franklin, turning his bright gaze upon the older lady, 'that I can +persuade you to come too.'</p> + +<p>Helen said that she would be delighted, and Miss Grizel avowed herself a +devoted playgoer, and Franklin, taking out his notebook, inscribed their +willingness to do a play on Wednesday night. 'Now,' he said, scanning +its pages, 'Althea lands on Friday and Mr. Digby goes to meet her, I +suppose. They must come in, too; we'll all have fun together.'</p> + +<p>'Gerald can't meet her,' said Helen; 'he has an engagement in the +country, and doesn't get back to London till Saturday. It's an old +standing engagement for a ball. I'm to welcome Althea back to London for +him.'</p> + +<p>Franklin paused, his notebook in his hand, and looked over it at Helen. +He seemed taken aback, though at once he mastered his surprise. 'Oh, is +that so?' was his only comment. Then he added, after a moment's +reflection: 'Well, I guess I'll run up and meet her myself, then. I've +always met and seen her off in America, and we'll keep up the old custom +on this side.'</p> + +<p>'That would be very nice of you,' said Helen. 'Of course she has that +invaluable Amélie to look after her, and, of course, Gerald knew that +she would be all right, or he would have managed it.'</p> + +<p>'Of course,' said Franklin. 'And we'll keep up the old custom.'</p> + +<p>That evening there arrived for Miss Buchanan and her niece two large +boxes—one for Miss Grizel, containing carnations and roses, and one for +Helen containing violets. Also, for the younger lady, was a smaller—yet +still a large box—of intricately packed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> and very sophisticated sweets. +Upon them Mr. Kane had laid a card which read: 'I don't approve of them, +but I'm sending them in the hope that you do.' Another box for Miss +Grizel contained fresh groundsel and chickweed for her canaries.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2> + + +<p>Althea was an excellent sailor and her voyage back to England was as +smooth and as swift as money could make it. She had been seen off by +many affectionate friends, and, since leaving America, the literature, +the flowers and the fruit with which they had provided her had helped to +pass the hours, tedious at best on ship-board. Two other friends, not so +near, but very pleasant—they were New York people—were also making the +voyage, but as they were all very sea-sick, intercourse with them +consisted mainly in looking in upon them as they lay, mute and enduring, +within their berths, and cheering them with the latest reports of +progress. Althea looked in upon them frequently, and she read all her +books, and much of her time, besides, had been spent in long, formless +meditations—her eyes fixed on the rippled, grey expanse of the Atlantic +while she lay encased in furs on her deck chair. These meditations were +not precisely melancholy, it was rather a brooding sense of vague +perplexity that filled the dream-like hours. She had left her native +land, and she was speeding towards her lover and towards her new life; +there might have been exhilaration as well as melancholy in these facts. +But though she was not melancholy, she was not exhilarated. It was a +confused regret that came over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> her in remembering Boston, and it was a +confused expectancy that filled her when she looked forward to Gerald. +Gerald had written to her punctually once a week while she had been in +America, short, but very vivid, very interesting and affectionate +letters. They told her about what he was doing, what he was reading, the +people he saw and his projects for their new life together. He took it +for granted that this was what she wanted, and of course it was what she +wanted, only—and it was here that the confused regrets arose in +remembering Boston—the letters received there, where she was so much of +a centre and so little of a satellite, had seemed, in some way, lacking +in certain elements that Boston supplied, but that Merriston House, she +more and more distinctly saw, would never offer. She was, for her own +little circle, quite important in Boston. At Merriston House she would +be important only as Gerald Digby's wife and as the mistress of his +home, and that indeed—this was another slightly confusing fact—would +not be great importance. Even in Boston, she had felt, her importance +was still entirely personal; she had gained none from her coming +marriage. Her friends were perfectly accustomed to the thought of +coronets and ancient estates in connection with foreign alliances, and +Althea was a little vexed in feeling that they really did not appreciate +at its full value the significance of a simple English gentleman with a +small country seat. 'I suppose you'll live quite quietly, Althea, dear,' +more than one old friend had said, with an approbation not altogether +grateful to her. 'Your aunt tells me that it's such a nice little place, +your future home. I'm so glad you are not making a great<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> worldly +match.' Althea had no wish to make a great worldly match, but she did +not care that her friends should see her upon such an over-emphatically +sober background.</p> + +<p>The report of Gerald's charm had been the really luminous fact in her +new situation, and it had been most generously spread by Aunt Julia. +Althea had felt warmed by the compensatory brightness it cast about her. +Althea Jakes was not going to make a great match, but she was, and +everybody knew it, going to marry a 'perfectly charming' man. This, +after all, was to be crowned with beams. It was upon the thought of that +charm that she dwelt when the long meditations became oppressively +confused. She might be giving up certain things—symbolised by the +books, the fruit, the flowers, that testified to her importance in +Boston; she might be going to accept certain difficulties and certain +disappointments, but the firm ground on which she stood was the fact +that Gerald was charming. At moments she felt herself yearn towards that +charm; it was a reviving radiance in which she must steep her rather +numbed and rather weary being. To see his eyes, to see his smile, to +hear his voice that made her think of bells and breezes, would be enough +to banish wistfulness, or, at all events, to put it in its proper place +as merely temporary and negligible.</p> + +<p>Althea's heart beat fast as the shores of Ireland stole softly into +sight on a pearly horizon, and it really fluttered, like that of any +love-sick girl, when her packet of letters was brought to her at +Queenstown. In Gerald's she would feel the central rays coming out to +greet her. But when she had read Gerald's letter it was as if a blank +curtain had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> fallen before her, shutting out all rays. He was not coming +to meet her at Liverpool. The sharpness of her dismay was like a box on +the ear, and it brought tears to her eyes and anger to her heart. Yes, +actually, with no contrition, or consciousness of the need for it, he +said quite gaily and simply that he would see her in London on Saturday; +he had a ball in the country for Friday night. He offered not the least +apology. He was perfectly unaware of guilt. And it was this innocence +that, after the first anger, filled poor Althea with fear. What did it +bode for the future? Meanwhile there was the humiliating fact to face +that she, the cherished and appreciated Althea, who had never returned +to America without at least three devoted friends to welcome her, was to +land on the dismal Liverpool docks and find no lover to greet her there. +What would Mrs. Peel and Sally Arlington think when they saw her so +bereft? It was the realisation of what they would think, the memory of +the American wonder at the Englishman's traditional indifference to what +the American woman considered her due in careful chivalry, that roused +her pride to the necessity of self-preservation. Mrs. Peel and Sally, at +all events, should not imagine her to be either angry or surprised. She +would show them the untroubled matter-of-fact of the English wife. And +she succeeded admirably in this. When Miss Arlington, sitting up and +dressed at last, said, in Mrs. Peel's cabin, where, leaning on Althea's +arm, she had feebly crept to tea, 'And what fun, Althea, to think that +we shall see him to-morrow morning,' Althea opened candidly surprised +eyes: 'See him? Who, dear?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Why, Mr. Digby, of course. Who else could be him?' said Miss Arlington.</p> + +<p>'But he isn't coming to Liverpool,' said Althea blandly.</p> + +<p>'Not coming to meet you?' Only tact controlled the amazement in Miss +Arlington's question.</p> + +<p>'Didn't you know? Gerald is a very busy man; he has had a long-standing +engagement for this week, and besides I shouldn't have liked him to +come. I'd far rather meet comfortably in London, where I shall see him +the first thing on Saturday. And then you'll see him too.'</p> + +<p>She only wished that she could really feel, what she showed them—such +calm, such reasonableness, and such detachment.</p> + +<p>It was with a gloomy eye that she surveyed the Liverpool docks in the +bleak dawn next morning, seated in her chair, Amélie beside her, a +competent Atlas, bearing a complicated assortment of bags, rugs, and +wraps. No, she had nothing to hope from these inhospitable shores; no +welcoming eyes were there to greet hers. It was difficult not to cry as +she watched the ugly docks draw near and saw the rows of ugly human +faces upturned upon it—peculiarly ugly in colour the human face at this +hour of the morning. Then, suddenly, Amélie made a little exclamation +and observed in dispassionate yet approving tones, 'Tiens; et voilà +Monsieur Frankline.'</p> + +<p>'Who? Where?' Althea rose in her chair.</p> + +<p>'Mais oui; c'est bien Monsieur Frankline,' Amélie pointed. 'Voilà ce qui +est gentil, par exemple,' and by this comment of Amélie's Althea knew +that Gerald's absence was observed and judged. She got<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> out of her +chair, yet with a strange reluctance. It was not pleasure that she felt; +it was, rather, a fuller realisation of pain. Going to the railing she +looked down at the wharf. Yes, there was Franklin's pale buff-coloured +countenance raised to hers, serene and smiling. He waved his hat. Althea +was only able not to look dismayed and miserable in waving back. That +Franklin should care enough to come; that Gerald should care too little. +But she drew herself together to smile brightly down upon her faithful +lover. Franklin—Franklin above all—must not guess what she was +feeling.</p> + +<p>'Well,' were his first words, as she came down the gangway, 'I thought +we'd keep up our old American habits.' The words, she felt, were very +tactful; they made things easier for her; they even comforted her a +little. One mustn't be too hard on Gerald if it was an American habit.</p> + +<p>'It <i>is</i> a nice one,' she said, grasping Franklin's hand. 'I must make +Gerald acquire it.'</p> + +<p>'Why don't you keep it for me?' smiled Franklin. She felt, as he piloted +her to the Customs, that either his tact or his ingenuousness was +sublime. She leaned on it, whichever it was.</p> + +<p>'Have you seen Gerald?' she asked, as they stood beside her marshalled +array of boxes. 'He seemed very fit and happy in the letters I had at +Queenstown.'</p> + +<p>'No, I've not seen him yet,' smiled Franklin, looking about to catch the +eye of an official.</p> + +<p>'Then'—was on the tip of Althea's tongue—'how did you know I was not +going to be met?' She checked the revealing question, and Franklin's +next remark—whether tactful or ingenuous in its appro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>priateness she +once more could not tell—answered it: 'I've been seeing a good deal of +Miss Buchanan; she told me Mr. Digby wouldn't be able to come up here.'</p> + +<p>'Oh—Helen!' Althea was thankful to be able to pass from the theme of +Gerald and his inabilities. 'So you have been seeing her. Have you been +long in London? Have you seen her often?'</p> + +<p>'I got to London last Monday, and I've seen her as often as she could +let me. We're very good friends, you know,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>She didn't know at all, and she found the information rather +bewildering. At Merriston her own situation had far too deeply absorbed +her to leave her much attention for other people's. She had only noticed +that Helen had been kind to Franklin. She suspected that it was now his +ingenuousness that idealised Helen's tolerant kindness. But though her +superior sophistication made a little touch of irony unavoidable, it was +overwhelmed in the warm sense of gratitude.</p> + +<p>Everything was in readiness for her; her corner seat in the train, +facing the engine; a foot-warmer; the latest magazines, and a box of +fruit. How it all brought back Boston—dear Boston—and the reviving +consciousness of imaginative affection. And how it brought back +Franklin. Well, everybody ought to be his good friend, even if they +weren't so in reality.</p> + +<p>'You didn't suppose I'd forget you liked muscatels?' inquired Franklin, +with a mild and unreproachful gentleness when she exclaimed over the +nectarines and grapes. 'Now, please, sit back and let me put this rug +around you; it's chilly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> and you look rather pale.' He then went off +and looked out for her friends and for Amélie. Mrs. Peel and Sally, when +they arrived with him, showed more than the general warmth of +compatriots in a foreign land. They knew Franklin but slightly, and he +could but have counted with them as one of Althea's former suitors; but +now, she saw it, he took his place in their eyes as the devoted friend, +and, as the journey went on, counted for more and more in his own right. +Sally and Mrs. Peel evidently thought Franklin a dear. Althea thought so +too, her eyes dwelling on him with wistful observation. There was no +charm; there never had been charm; but the thought of charm sickened her +a little just now. What she rested in was this affection, this kindness, +this constant devotion that had never failed her in the greatest or the +littlest things. And though it was not to see him change into a +different creature, not to see him move on into a different category—as +he had changed and moved in the eyes of the Miss Buchanans—he did gain +in significance when, after a little while, he informed them of the new +fact in his life—the fact of millions. They were Americans of an old +stock, and millions meant to them very external and slightly suspicious +things—things associated with rawness and low ideals; but they couldn't +associate Franklin with low ideals. They exclaimed with interest and +sympathy over his adventure, and they felt nothing funny in his projects +for benefiting physics. They all understood each other; they took light +things—like millions—lightly, and grave things—like ideals and +responsibilities—gravely. And, ah yes, there it was—Althea turning her +head to look at the speed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>ing landscape of autumnal pearl and gold, +thought, over her sense of smothered tears—they knew what things were +really serious. They couldn't mistake the apparent for the real +triviality; they knew that some symbols of affection—trifling as they +might be—were almost necessary. But then they understood affection. It +was at this point that her sore heart sank to a leaden depression. +Affection—cherishing, forestalling, imaginative affection—there was no +lack of it, she was sure of that, in this beautiful England of pearl and +gold which, in its melancholy, its sweetness, its breathing out of +memories immemorial, so penetrated and possessed her; but was there not +a terrible lack of it in the England that was to be hers, and where she +was to make her home?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2> + + +<p>It was four days after Althea's arrival in London that Gerald stood in +Helen's sitting-room and confronted her—smoking her cigarette in her +low chair—as he had confronted her that summer on her return from +Paris. Gerald looked rather absent and he looked rather worried, and +Helen, who had observed these facts the moment he came in, was able to +observe them for some time while he stood there before her, not looking +at her, looking at nothing in particular, his eyes turning vaguely from +the mist-enveloped trees outside to the flowers on the writing-table, +and his eyebrows, always very expressive, knitting themselves a little +or lifting as if in the attempt to dispel recurrent and oppressive +preoccupations. It would have been natural in their free intercourse +that, after a certain lapse of time, Helen should ask him what the +matter was, helping him often, with the mere question, to recognise that +something was the matter. But to-day she said nothing, and it was her +silence instead of her questioning that made Gerald aware that he was +standing there expecting to have his state of mind probed and then +elucidated. It added a little to his sense of perplexity that Helen +should be silent, and it was with a slight irritation that he turned and +kicked a log before saying—'I'm rather bothered, Helen.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> + +<p>'What is it?' said Helen. 'Money?' This had often been a bother to them +both.</p> + +<p>Half turned from her, he shook his head. 'No, not money; that's all +right now, thanks to Althea.'</p> + +<p>'Well?' Helen questioned.</p> + +<p>He faced her again, a little quizzical, a little confused and at a loss. +'I suppose it's Althea herself.'</p> + +<p>'Oh!' said Helen. She said it with a perceptible, though very mild +change of tone; but Gerald, in his preoccupation, did not notice the +change.</p> + +<p>'You've seen her several times since she came back?' he asked.</p> + +<p>'Yes, twice; I lunched with her and these American friends of hers +yesterday,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'Well, I've seen her three times,' said Gerald. 'I went to her, as you +know, directly I got back to London on Saturday; I cut my visit at the +Fanshawes two days shorter on purpose. I saw her on Sunday, and I'm just +come from her now. No one could say that I didn't show her every +attention, could they?' It hardly seemed a question, and Helen did not +answer it. 'I don't think she's quite pleased with me,' Gerald then +brought out.</p> + +<p>Still silent, Helen looked at him thoughtfully, but her gaze gave him no +clue.</p> + +<p>'Can you imagine why not?' he asked.</p> + +<p>She reflected, then she said that she couldn't.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Gerald, 'I think it's because I didn't go to meet her at +Liverpool; from something she said, I think it's that. But I never +dreamed she'd mind, you know. And, really, I ask you, Helen, is it +reasonable to expect a man to give up a long-standing engagement and +take that dreary journey up to that dreary place—I've never seen the +Liver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>pool docks, but I can imagine them at six o'clock in the +morning—is it reasonable, I say, to expect that of any man? It wasn't +as if I wasn't to see her the next day.'</p> + +<p>Again Helen carefully considered. 'I suppose she found the docks very +dreary—at six o'clock,' she suggested.</p> + +<p>'But surely that's not a reason for wanting me to find them dreary too,' +Gerald laughed rather impatiently. 'I'd have had to go up to Liverpool +on Thursday and spend the night there; do you realise that?'</p> + +<p>Helen went on with the theme of the docks: 'I suppose she wouldn't have +found them so dreary if you'd been on them; and I suppose she expected +you not to find them dreary for the same reason.'</p> + +<p>Gerald contemplated this lucid statement of the case. 'Has she talked to +you about it?' he asked.</p> + +<p>'Not a word. Althea is very proud. If you have hurt her it is the last +thing that she would talk about.'</p> + +<p>'I know she's proud and romantic, and a perfect dear, of course; but do +you really think it a ground for complaint? I mean—would you have felt +hurt in a similar case?'</p> + +<p>'I? No, I don't suppose so; but Althea, I think, is used to a great deal +of consideration.'</p> + +<p>'But, by Jove, Helen, I'm not inconsiderate!'</p> + +<p>'Not considerate, in the way Althea is used to.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, that's just it,' said Gerald, as if, now, they had reached the +centre of his difficulty; 'and I can't pretend to be, either. I can't +pretend to be like Mr. Kane. Imagine that quaint little fellow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> going up +to meet her. You must own it's rather grotesque—rather tasteless, too, +I think, under the circumstances.'</p> + +<p>'They are very old friends.'</p> + +<p>'Well, but after all, he's Althea's rejected suitor.'</p> + +<p>'It wasn't as a suitor, it was as a friend he went. The fact that she +rejected him doesn't make him any less her friend, or any less +solicitous about her.'</p> + +<p>'It makes me look silly, her rejected suitor showing more solicitude +than I do—unless it makes him look silly; I rather feel it's that way. +But, apart from that, about Althea, I'm really bothered. It's all right, +of course; I've brought her round. I laughed at her a little and teased +her a little, and told her not to be a dear little goose, you know. But, +Helen, deuce take it! the trouble is——' Again Gerald turned and kicked +the log, and then, his hands on the mantelpiece, he gazed with frowning +intentness into the flames. 'She takes it all so much more seriously +than I do,' so he finally brought out his distress; 'so much more +seriously than I can, you know. It's all right, of course; only one +doesn't know quite how to get on.' And now, turning to Helen, he found +her eyes on his, and her silence became significant to him. There was no +response in her eyes; they were veiled, mute; they observed him; they +told him nothing. And he had a sense, new to him and quite inexpressibly +painful, of being shut out. 'I may go on talking to you—about +everything—as I have always done, Helen?' he said. It was hardly a +question; he couldn't really dream that there was anything not to be +talked out with Helen. But there was. Gerald received one of the ugliest +shocks of his life when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Helen said to him in her careful voice: 'You +may not talk about Althea to me; not about her feeling for you—or yours +for her.'</p> + +<p>There was a pause after this, and then Gerald got out: 'I say—Helen!' +on a long breath, staring at her. 'You mean——' he stammered a little.</p> + +<p>'That you owe it to Althea—just because we had to talk her over once, +before you were sure that you wanted to make her your wife—not to +discuss her feelings or her relation to you with anybody, now that she +is to be your wife. I should think you would see that for yourself, +Gerald. I should think you would see that Althea would not marry you if +she thought that you were capable of talking her over with me.'</p> + +<p>Gerald had flushed deeply and vividly. 'But Helen—with <i>you</i>!' he +murmured. It was a helpless appeal, a helpless protest. His whole life +seemed to rise up and confront her with the contrast between their +reality—his relation and hers—and the relative triviality of this new +episode in his life. And there was his error, and there her inexorable +opposition; the episode was one no longer; he must not treat it as +trivial, a matter for mutual musings and conjectures. His 'With you!' +shook Helen's heart; but, looking past him and hard at the fire, she +only moved her head in slow, slight, and final negation.</p> + +<p>Gerald was silent for a long time, and she knew that he was gazing at +her as a dog gazes when some inexorable and inexplicable refusal turns +its world to emptiness. And with her pain for his pain came the rising +of old anger and old irony against him; for whose fault was it that even +the bitter joy of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> perfect freedom was cut off? Who had been so blind as +not to see that a wife must, in common loyalty, bring circumspection and +a careful drawing of limits? Who was it who, in his folly, had not known +that his impulsive acquiescence, his idle acceptance of the established +comfort and order held out to him, had cut away half of their +friendship? Absurd for Gerald, now, to feel reproach and injury. For +when he spoke again it was, though in careful tones, with uncontrollable +reproach. 'You know, Helen, I never expected this. I don't know that I'd +have been able to face this——' He checked himself; already he had +learned something of what was required of him. 'It's like poisoning part +of my life for me.'</p> + +<p>Helen did not allow the bitter smile to curl her lips; her inner +rejoinder answered him with: 'Whose fault is it that all my life is +poisoned?'</p> + +<p>'After all,' said Gerald, and now with a tremor in his voice, 'an old +friend—a friend like you—a more than sister—is nearer than any new +claims.' She had never heard Gerald's voice break before—for anything +to do with her, at least—and she felt that her cheek whitened in +hearing it; but she was able to answer in the same even tones: 'I don't +think so. No one can be near enough to talk about your wife with you.'</p> + +<p>He then turned his back and looked for a long time into the fire. She +guessed that there were tears in his eyes, and that he was fighting with +anger, pain, and amazement, and the knowledge filled her with cruel joy +and with a torturing pity. She longed to tell him that she hated him, +and she longed to put her arms around him and to comfort<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> him—comfort +him because he was going to marry some one else, and must be loyal to +the woman preferred as wife. It was she, however, who first recovered +herself. She got up and pinched a withered flower from the fine azalea +that Franklin Kane had sent her the day before, and, dropping it into +the waste-paper basket, she said at last, very resolutely, 'Come, +Gerald, don't be silly.'</p> + +<p>He showed her now the face of a miserable, sulky boy, and Helen, smiling +at him, went on: 'We have a great many other subjects of conversation, +you will recollect. We can still talk about all the things we used to +talk about. Sit down, and don't look like that, or I shall be angry with +you.'</p> + +<p>She knew her power over him; it was able to deceive him as to their real +situation, and this was to have obeyed pity, not anger. Half unwillingly +he smiled a little, and, rubbing his hand through his hair and sinking +into a chair, he said: 'Laugh at me if you feel like it; I'm ill-used.'</p> + +<p>'Terribly ill-used, indeed,' said Helen. 'I shall go on laughing at you +while you are so ridiculous. Now tell me about the ball at the +Fanshawes, and who was there, and who was the prettiest woman in the +room.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2> + + +<p>Althea had intended to fix the time of her marriage for the end of +November; but, not knowing quite why, she felt on her return to England +that she would prefer a slightly more distant date. It might be foolish +to give oneself more time for uneasy meditation, yet it might be wise to +give oneself more time for feeling the charm. The charm certainly +worked. While Gerald opened his innocent, yet so intelligent eyes, +rallied her on her dejection, called her a dear little goose, and kissed +her in saying it, she had known that however much he might hurt her she +was helplessly in love with him. In telling him that she would marry him +just before Christmas—they were to have their Christmas in the +Riviera—she didn't intend that he should be given more opportunities +for hurting her, but more opportunities for charming her. Helplessly as +she might love, her heart was a tremulously careful one; it could not +rush recklessly to a goal nor see the goal clearly when pain intervened. +It was not now actual pain or doubt it had to meet, but it was that mist +of confusion, wonder, and wistfulness; it needed to be dispersed, and +Gerald, she felt sure, would disperse it. Gerald, after a questioning +lift of his eyebrows, acquiesced very cheerfully in the postponement. +After all,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> they really didn't know each other very well; they would +shake down into each other's ways all the more quickly, after marriage, +for the wisdom gained by a longer engagement. He expressed these +reasonable resignations to Althea, who smiled a little wanly over them.</p> + +<p>She was now involved in the rush of new impressions. They were very +crowded. She was to have but a fortnight of London and then, accompanied +by Mrs. Peel and Sally, to go to Merriston for another fortnight or so +before coming back to London for final preparations. Gerald was to be at +Merriston for part of the time, and Miss Harriet Robinson was coming +over from Paris to sustain and guide her through the last throes of her +trousseau. Already every post brought solemn letters from Miss Robinson +filled with detailed questionings as to the ordering of <i>lingerie</i>. So +it was really in this fortnight of London that she must gain her +clearest impression of what her new environment was to be; there would +be no time later on.</p> + +<p>There were two groups of impressions that she felt herself, rather +breathlessly, observing; one group was made by Helen and Franklin and +herself, and one by Gerald's friends and relatives, with Gerald himself +as a bright though uncertain centre to it.</p> + +<p>Gerald's friends and relations were all very nice to her and all very +charming people. She had never, she thought, met so many people at once +to whom the term might be applied. Their way of dressing, their way of +talking, their way of taking you, themselves, and everything so easily, +seemed as nearly perfect, as an example of human achieve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>ment, as could +well be. Life passed among them would assuredly be a life of gliding +along a sunny, unruffled stream. If there were dark things or troubled +things to deal with, they were kept well below the shining surface; on +the surface one always glided. It was charming, indeed, and yet Althea +looked a little dizzily from side to side, as if at familiar but +unattainable shores, and wondered if some solid foothold on solid earth +were not preferable. She wondered if she would not rather walk than +glide, and under the gliding she caught glimpses, now and then, of her +own dark wonders. They were all very nice to her; but it was as Gerald's +wife that they were nice to her; she herself counted for nothing with +them. They were frivolous people for the most part, though some among +them were serious, and often the most frivolous were those from whom she +would have expected gravity, and the serious those whom, on a first +meeting, she had thought perturbingly frivolous. Some of the political +friends—one who was in the Cabinet, for instance—seemed to think more +about hunting and bridge than about their functions in the State; while +an aunt of Gerald's, still young and very pretty, wrote articles on +philosophy and was ardently interested in ethical societies, in spite of +the fact that she rouged her cheeks, wore clothes so fashionable as to +look recondite, and had a reputation perfectly presentable for social +uses, but not exempt from private whispers. Althea caught such whispers +with particular perturbation. The question of morals was one that she +had imagined herself to face with a cosmopolitan tolerance; but she now +realised that to live among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> people whose code, in this respect, seemed +one of manners only, was a very different thing from reading about them +or seeing them from afar, as it were, in foreign countries. Gerald's +friends and relatives were anything rather than Bohemian, and most of +them were flawlessly respectable; but they were also anything but +unworldly; they were very worldly, and, from the implied point of view +of all of them, what didn't come out in the world it didn't concern +anybody to recognise—except in whispers. It all resolved itself, in the +case of people one disapproved of, into a faculty for being nice to them +without really having anything to do with them; and to poor Althea this +was a difficult task to undertake; social life, in her experience, was +more involved in the life of the affections and matched it more nearly. +She found, when the fortnight was over, that she was glad, very glad, to +get away to Merriston. The comparative solitude would do her good, she +felt, and in it, above all, the charm would perhaps work more +restoringly than in London. She had been, through everything, more aware +than of any new impression that the old one held firm; but, in that +breathless fortnight, she found that the charm, persistently, would not +be to her what she had hoped it might be. It did not revive her; it did +not lift and glorify her; rather it subjugated her and held her helpless +and in thrall. She was not crowned with beams; rather, it seemed to her +in moments of dizzy insight, dragged at chariot wheels. And more than +once her pride revolted as she was whirled along.</p> + +<p>It was at Merriston, installed, apparently, so happily with her friends, +that the second group of im<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>pressions became clearer for her than it had +been in London, when she had herself made part of it—the group that had +to do with Helen, Franklin, and herself. In London, among all the wider +confusions, this smaller but more intense one had not struck her as it +did seeing it from a distance. Perhaps it had been because Franklin, +among all that glided, had been the raft she stood upon, that, in his +company, she had not felt to the full how changed was their relation. +His devotion to her was unchanged; of that she was sure. Franklin had +not altered; it was she who had altered, and she had now to look at him +from the new angle where her own choice had placed her. Seen from this +angle it was clear that Franklin could no longer offer just the same +devotion, however truly he might feel it; she had barred that out; and +it was also clear that he would continue to offer the devotion that she +had left it open to him to offer; but here came the strange +confusion—this devotion, this remnant, this all that could still be +given, hardly differed in practice from the friendship now so frankly +bestowed upon Helen as well as upon herself; and, for a further +strangeness, Franklin, whom she had helplessly seen as passing from her +life, no longer counting in it, was not gone at all; he was there, +indeed, as never before, with the background of his sudden millions to +give him significance. Franklin was, indeed, as firmly ensconced in this +new life that she had entered as he chose to be, and did he not, as a +matter of fact, count in it for more than she did? If it was confusing +to look at Franklin from the angle of her own withdrawal, what was it to +see him altered, for the world, from drab to rose-colour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> and to see +that people were running after him? This fantastic result of wealth, +Althea, after a stare or two, was able to accept with other ironic +acceptations; it was not indeed London's vision of Franklin that altered +him for her, though it confused her; no, what had altered him more than +anything she could have thought possible, was Helen's new seeing of him. +Helen, she knew quite well, still saw Franklin, pleasantly and clearly, +as drab-colour, still, it was probable, saw him as funny; but it was +evident that Helen had come to feel fond of him, if anything so detached +could be called fondness. He could hardly count for anything with +her—after all, who did?—but she liked him, she liked him very much, +and it amused her to watch him adjust himself to his new conditions. She +took him about with her in London and showed him things and people, +ironically smiling, no doubt, and guarding even while she exposed. And +Helen wouldn't do this unless she had come to see something more than +drab-colour and oddity, and whatever the more might be it was not the +millions. No, sitting in the drawing-room at Merriston, with its +memories of the two emotional climaxes of her life, Althea, with a +sinking heart, felt sure that she had lost something, and that she only +knew it lost from seeing that Helen had found it. It had been through +Helen's blindness to the qualities in Franklin which, timidly, +tentatively, she had put before her, that his worth had grown dim to +herself; this was the cutting fact that Althea tried to edge away from, +but that her sincerity forced her again and again to examine. It was +through Helen's appreciation that she now saw more in Franklin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> than she +had ever seen before. If he was funny he was also original, full of his +own underivative flavour; if he was drab-colour, he was also beautiful. +Althea recalled the benignity of Helen's eyes as they dwelt upon him, +her smile, startled, almost touched, when some quaint, telling phrase +revealed him suddenly as an unconscious torch-bearer in a dusky, +self-deceiving world. Helen and Franklin were akin in that; they +elicited, they radiated truth, and Althea recalled, too, how their eyes +would sometimes meet in silence when they both saw the same truth +simultaneously. Not that Helen's truth was often Franklin's; they were +as alien as ever in their outlook, of this Althea was convinced; but +though the outlook was so different, the faculty of sight was the same +in both—clear, unperturbed, and profoundly independent. They were +neither of them dusky or self-deceived. And what was she? Sitting in the +drawing-room at Merriston and thinking it all over, Althea asked herself +the question while her heart sank to a deeper dejection. Not only had +she lost Franklin; she had lost herself. She embarked on the dangerous +and often demoralising search for a definite, recognisable +personality—something to lean on with security, a standard and a prop. +With growing dismay she could find only a sorry little group of +shivering hopes and shaken adages. What was she? Only a well-educated +nonentity with, for all coherence and purpose in life, a knowledge of +art and literature and a helpless feeling for charm. Poor Althea was +rapidly sinking to the nightmare stage of introspection; she saw, +fitfully, not restoringly, that it was nightmare, and dragging herself +away from these miser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>able dissections, fixed her eyes on something not +herself, on the thing that, after all, gave her, even to the nightmare +vision, purpose and meaning. If it were only that, let her, at all +events, cling to it; the helpless feeling for charm must then shape her +path. Gerald was coming, and to be subjugated was, after all, better +than to disintegrate.</p> + +<p>She drove down to meet him in the little brougham that was now +established in the stables. It was a wet, chilly day. Althea, wrapped in +furs, leaned in a corner and looked with an unseeing gaze at the +dripping hedgerows and grey sky. She fastened herself in anticipation on +the approaching brightness. Ah, to warm herself at the light of his +untroubled, unquestioning, unexacting being, to find herself in him. If +he would love her and charm her, that, after all, was enough to give her +a self.</p> + +<p>He was a little late, and Althea did not feel willing to face a public +meeting on the platform. She remained sitting in her corner, listening +for the sound of the approaching train. When it had arrived, she heard +Gerald's voice before she saw him, and the sound thrilled through her +deliciously. He was talking to a neighbour, and he paused for some +moments to chat with him. Then his head appeared at the window, little +drops of rain on his crisp hair, his eyes smiling, yet, as she saw in a +moment, less at her in particular than at the home-coming of which she +was a part. 'Yes,' he turned to the porter to say, 'the portmanteau +outside, the dressing-case in here.' The door was opened and he stepped +in beside her. 'Hello, Althea!' He smiled at her again, while he drew a +handful of silver<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> from his pocket and picked out a sixpence for the +porter. 'Here; all right.' The brougham rolled briskly out of the +station yard. They were in the long up-hill lanes. 'Well, how are you, +dear?' he asked.</p> + +<p>Althea was trembling, but she was controlling herself; she had all the +pain and none of the advantage of the impulsive, emotional woman; +consciousness of longing made instinctive appeal impossible. 'Very well, +thank you,' she smiled, as quietly as he.</p> + +<p>'What a beastly day!' said Gerald, looking out. 'You can't imagine +London. It's like breathing in a wet blanket. The clean air is a +comfort, at all events.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' smiled Althea.</p> + +<p>'Old Morty Finch is coming down in time for dinner,' Gerald went on. 'I +met him on my way to the station and asked him. Such a good fellow—you +remember him? He won't be too many, will he?'</p> + +<p>'Indeed no.'</p> + +<p>Gerald leaned back, drew the rug up about his knees, and folded his +arms, looking at her, still with his generally contented smile. 'And +your guests are happy? You're enjoying yourself? Miss Arlington plays +the violin, you said. I'm looking forward to hearing her—and seeing her +again, too; she is such a very pretty girl.'</p> + +<p>'Isn't she?' said Althea. And now, as they rolled on between the +dripping hedges, she knew that the trembling of hope and fear was gone, +and that a sudden misery, like that of the earth and sky, had settled +upon her. He had not kissed her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> He did not even take her hand. Oh, why +did he not kiss her? why did he not know that she wanted love and +comfort? Only her pride controlled the cry.</p> + +<p>Gerald looked out of the window and seemed to find everything very +pleasant. 'I went to the play last night,' he said. 'Kane took a party +of us—Helen, Miss Buchanan, Lord Compton, and Molly Fanshawe. What a +good sort he is, Kane; a real character.'</p> + +<p>'You didn't get at him at all in the summer, did you?' said Althea, in +her deadened voice.</p> + +<p>'No,' said Gerald reflectively, 'not at all; and I don't think that I +get much more at him now, you know; but I see more what's in him; he is +so extraordinarily kind and he takes his money so nicely. And, O Lord! +how he is being run after! He really has millions, you know; the mothers +are all at his traces trying to track him down, and he is as cheerful +and as unconcerned as you please.' Gerald suddenly smiled round at her +again. 'I say, Althea, don't you regret him sometimes? It would have +been a glorious match, you know.'</p> + +<p>Althea felt herself growing pale. 'Regret him!' she said, and, for her, +almost violently, the opportunity was an outlet for her wretchedness; 'I +can't conceive how a man's money can make any difference. I couldn't +have married Franklin if he'd been a king!'</p> + +<p>'Oh, my dear!' said Gerald, startled; 'I didn't mean it seriously, of +course.'</p> + +<p>'It seems to me,' said Althea, trying to control her labouring breath, +'that over here you take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> nothing quite so seriously as that—great +matches, I mean, and money.'</p> + +<p>Gerald was silent for a moment; then, in a very courteous voice he said: +'Have I offended you in any way, Althea?'</p> + +<p>Tears stood in her eyes; she turned away her head to hide them. 'Yes, +you have,' she said, and the sound of her voice shocked her, it so +contradicted the crying out of her disappointed heart.</p> + +<p>But though Gerald was blind on occasions that did not seem to him to +warrant any close attention, he was clear-sighted on those that did. He +understood that something was amiss; and though her exclamation had, +indeed, made him angry for a moment, he was now sorry; he felt that she +was unhappy, and he couldn't bear people to be unhappy. 'I've done +something that displeases you,' he said, taking her hand and leaning +forward to look into her eyes, half pleading and half rallying her in +the way she knew so well. 'Do forgive me.'</p> + +<p>She longed to put her head on his shoulder and sob: 'I wanted you to +love me'; but that would have been to abase herself too much; yet the +tears fell as she answered, trying to smile: 'It was only that you hurt +me; even in jest I cannot bear to have you say that I could have been so +sordid.'</p> + +<p>He pressed her hand. 'I was only in fun, of course. Please forgive me.'</p> + +<p>She knew, with all his gay solicitude, his gentle self-reproach, that +she had angered and perplexed him, that she made him feel a little at a +loss with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> her talk of sordidness, that, perhaps, she wearied him. And, +seeing this, she was frightened—frightened, and angry that she should +be afraid. But fear predominated, and she forced herself to smile at him +and to talk with him during the long drive, as though nothing had +happened.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> + + +<p>Some days after Gerald had gone to Merriston, Franklin Kane received a +little note from old Miss Buchanan. Helen, too, had gone to the country +until Monday, as she had told Franklin when he had asked her to see some +pictures with him on Saturday. Franklin had felt a little bereft, +especially since, hoping for her on Saturday, he had himself refused an +invitation. But he did not miss that; the invitations that poured in +upon him, like a swelling river, were sources of cheerful amusement to +him. He, too, was acquiring his little ironies and knew why they poured +in. It was not the big house-party where he would have been a fish out +of water—even though in no sense a fish landed—that he missed; he +missed Helen; and he wouldn't think of going to see pictures without +her. It was, therefore, pleasant to read Miss Buchanan's hospitable +suggestion that he should drop in that afternoon for a cup of tea and to +keep an old woman company. He was very glad indeed to keep Miss Buchanan +company. She interested him greatly; he had not yet in the least made +out what was her object in life, whether she had gained or missed it, +and whether, indeed, she had ever had one to gain or miss. People who +went thus unpiloted through life filled him with wonder and conjecture.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>He found Miss Buchanan as he had found her on the occasion of his first +visit to the little house in Belgravia. Her acute and rugged face showed +not much greater softening for this now wonted guest—showed, rather, a +greater acuteness; but any one who knew Miss Buchanan would know from +its expression that she liked Franklin Kane. 'Well,' she said, as he +drew his chair to the opposite side of the tea-table—very cosy +it was, the fire shining upon them, and the canaries trilling +intermittently—'Well, here we are, abandoned. We'll make the best of +it, won't we?'</p> + +<p>Franklin said that under the circumstances he couldn't feel at all +abandoned. 'Nor do I,' said Miss Buchanan, filling the tea-pot. 'You and +I get on very well together, I consider.' Franklin thought so too.</p> + +<p>'I hope we may go on with it,' said Miss Buchanan, leaning back in her +chair while the tea drew. 'I hope we are going to keep you over here. +You've given up any definite idea of going back, I suppose.'</p> + +<p>Franklin was startled by this confident assurance. His definite idea in +coming over had been, of course, to go back at the end of the autumn, +unless, indeed, a certain cherished hope were fulfilled, in which case +Althea should have decided on any movements. He had hardly, till this +moment, contemplated his own intentions, and now that he did so he found +that he had been guided by none that were definable. It was not because +he had suddenly grown rich and, in his funny way, the fashion, that he +thus stayed on in London, working hard, it is true, and allowing no new +developments to interfere with his work, yet making no plans and setting +no goal before him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>self. To live as he had been living for the past +weeks was, indeed, in a sense, to drift. There was nothing Franklin +disapproved of more than of drifting; therefore he was startled when +Miss Buchanan's remarks brought him to this realisation. 'Well, upon my +word, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'I hadn't thought about it. No—of course +not—of course, I've not given up the idea of going back. I shall go +back before very long. But things have turned up, you see. There is +Althea's wedding—I must be at that—and there's Miss Helen. I want to +see as much of her as I can before I go home, get my friendship firmly +established, you know.'</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan now poured out the tea and handed Franklin his cup. 'I +shouldn't think about going yet, then,' she observed. 'London is an +admirable place for the sort of work you are interested in, and I +entirely sympathise with your wish to see as much as you can of Helen.' +She added, after a little pause in which Franklin, still further +startled to self-contemplation, wondered whether it was work, Althea's +wedding, or Helen who had most kept him in London,—'I'm troubled about +Helen; she's not looking at all well; hasn't been feeling well all the +summer. I trace it to that attack of influenza she had in Paris when she +met Miss Jakes.'</p> + +<p>Franklin's thoughts were turned from himself. He looked grave. 'I'm +afraid she's delicate,' he said.</p> + +<p>'There is nothing sickly about her, but she is fragile,' said Miss +Buchanan. 'She can't stand wear and tear. It might kill her.'</p> + +<p>Franklin looked even graver. The thought of his friend killed by wear +and tear was inexpressibly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> painful to him. He remembered—he would +never forget—the day in the woods, Helen's 'I'm sick to death of it.' +That Helen had a secret sorrow, and that it was preying upon her, he +felt sure, and there was pride for him in the thought that he could help +her there; he could help her to hide it; even her aunt didn't know that +she was sick to death of it. 'What do you suggest might be done?' he now +inquired. 'Do you think she goes out too much? Perhaps a rest-cure.'</p> + +<p>'No; I don't think she over-tires herself; she doesn't go out nearly as +much as she used to. There is nothing to cure and nothing to rest from. +It isn't so much now; I'm here now to make things possible for her. It's +after I'm gone. I'm an old woman; I'm devoted to my niece, and I don't +see what's to become of her when I'm dead.'</p> + +<p>If Franklin had been startled before, he was shocked now. He had never +given much thought to the economic basis of Helen's life, taking it for +granted that though she would like more money, she had, and always would +have, quite enough to live on happily. The idea of an insecure future +for her had never entered his head. He now knew that, for all his +theories of the independence of women, it was quite intolerable to +contemplate an insecure future for Helen. Some women might have it in +them to secure themselves—she was not one of them. She was a flower in +a vase; if the vase were taken away the flower would simply lie where it +fell and wither. He had put down his tea-cup while Miss Buchanan spoke, +and he sat gazing at her. 'Isn't Miss Helen provided for?' he asked.</p> + +<p>'Yes, in a sense she is,' said Miss Buchanan, who,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> after drinking her +tea, did not go on to her muffin, but still leaned back with folded +arms, her deep-set, small grey eyes fixed on Franklin's face. 'I've seen +to that as best I could; but one can't save much out of a small annuity. +Helen, after my death, will have an income of £150 a year. It isn't +enough. You have only to look at Helen to see that it isn't enough. +She's not fit to scrape and manage on that.'</p> + +<p>Franklin repeated the sum thoughtfully. 'Well, no, perhaps not,' he half +thought, only half agreed; 'not leading the kind of life she does now. +If she could only work at something as well; bring in a little more like +that.' But Miss Buchanan interrupted him.</p> + +<p>'Nonsense, my dear man; what work is there—work that will bring in +money—for a decorative, untrained idler like Helen? And what time would +she have left to live the only life she's fit to lead if she had to make +money? I'm not worried about bare life for Helen; I'm worried about what +kind of life it's to be. Helen was brought up to be an idler and to make +a good marriage—like most girls of her class—and she hasn't made it, +and she's not likely to make it now.'</p> + +<p>'One hundred and fifty pounds isn't enough,' said Franklin, still +thoughtfully, 'for a decorative idler.'</p> + +<p>'That's just it,' Miss Buchanan acquiesced; and she went on after a +moment, 'I'm willing to call Helen a decorative idler if we are talking +of purely economic weights and measures; thank goodness there are other +standards, and we are not likely to see them eliminated from civilised +society for many a generation. For many a generation, I trust,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> there'll +be people in the world who don't earn their keep, as one may say, and +yet who are more worth while keeping than most of the people who do. To +my mind Helen is such a person. I'd like to tell you a little about her +life, Mr. Kane.'</p> + +<p>'I should be very much obliged if you would,' Franklin murmured, his +thin little face taking on an expression of most intense concentration. +'It would be a great privilege. You know what I feel about Miss Helen.'</p> + +<p>'Yes; it's because I know what you feel about her that I want to tell +you,' said Miss Grizel. 'Not that it's anything startling, or anything +you wouldn't have supposed for yourself; but it illustrates my point, I +think, very well, my point that Helen is the type of person we can't +afford to let go under. Has Helen ever spoken to you about her mother?'</p> + +<p>'Never,' said Franklin, his intent face expressing an almost ritualistic +receptivity.</p> + +<p>'Well, she's a poor creature,' said Miss Buchanan, 'a poor, rubbishy +creature; the most selfish and reckless woman I know. I warned my +brother how it would turn out from the first; but he was infatuated and +had his way, and a wretched way it turned out. She made him miserable, +and she made the children miserable, and she nearly ruined him with her +extravagance; he and I together managed to put things straight, and see +to it that Nigel should come into a property not too much encumbered and +that Helen should inherit a little sum, enough to keep her going—a +little more it was, as a matter of fact, than what I'll be able to leave +her. Well, when my brother died, she was of age and she came into her +modest fortune; for a young<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> girl, with me to back her up, it wasn't +bad. She had hardly seen her mother for three years—they'd always been +at daggers drawn—when one day, up in Scotland, when she was with her +brother—it was before Nigel married—who should appear but Daisy. She +had travelled up there in desperate haste to throw herself on her +children's mercy. She was in terrible straits. She had got into +debt—cards and racing—and she was frightfully involved with some +horror of a man. Her honour was wrecked unless she could pay her debts +and extricate herself. Well, she found no mercy in Nigel; he refused to +give her a farthing. It was Helen who stripped herself of every penny +she possessed and saved her. I don't know whether she touched Helen's +pity, or whether it was mere family pride; the thought of the horror of +a man was probably a strong motive too. All Helen ever said about it to +me was, "How could I bear to see her like that?" So, she ruined herself. +Of course after that it was more than ever necessary that she should +marry. I hadn't begun to save for her, and there was nothing else for +her to look to. Of course I expected her to marry at once; she was +altogether the most charming girl of her day. But there is the trouble; +she never did. She refused two most brilliant offers, one after the +other, and hosts of minor ones. There was some streak of girlish romance +in her, I suppose. I wish I could have been more on the spot and put on +pressure. But it was difficult to be on the spot. Helen never told me +about her offers until long after; and pressure with her wouldn't come +to much. Of course I didn't respect her the less for her foolishness. +But, dear me, dear me,' said Miss Buchanan, turning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> her eyes on the +fire, 'what a pity it has all been, what a pity it is, to see her +wasted.'</p> + +<p>Franklin listened to this strange tale, dealing with matters to him +particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of +men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all +sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside +fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him +was the thought of Helen in it all. This oppressed him very much.</p> + +<p>Miss Buchanan continued to look into the fire for a little while after +she had finished her story, and then, bringing her eyes back to +Franklin's countenance, she looked at him keenly and steadily. 'And now, +Mr. Kane,' she said, 'you are perhaps asking yourself why I tell you all +this?'</p> + +<p>Franklin was not asking it at all, and he answered with earnest +sincerity: 'Why, no; I think I ought to be told. I want to be told +everything about my friends that I may hear. I'm glad to know this, +because it makes me feel more than ever what a fine woman Miss Helen is, +and I'm sorry, because she's wasted, as you say. I only wish,' said +Franklin, and the intensity of cogitation deepened on his face, 'I only +wish that one could think out some plan to give her a chance.'</p> + +<p>'I wish one could,' said Miss Buchanan. And without any change of voice +she added: 'I want you to marry her, Mr. Kane.'</p> + +<p>Franklin sat perfectly still and turned his eyes on her with no apparent +altering of expression, unless the arrested stillness of his look was +alteration. His eyes and Miss Buchanan's plunged deep into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> each +other's, held each other's for a long time. Then, slowly, deeply, +Franklin flushed.</p> + +<p>'But, Miss Buchanan,' he said, pausing between his sentences, for he did +not see his way, 'I'm in love with another woman—that is——' and for a +longer pause his way became quite invisible—'I've been in love with +another woman for years.'</p> + +<p>'You mean Miss Jakes,' said Miss Buchanan. 'Helen told me about it. But +does that interfere? Helen isn't likely to be in love with you or to +expect you to be in love with her. And the woman you've loved for years +is going to marry some one else. It's not as if you had any hope.'</p> + +<p>There was pain for Franklin in this reasonable speech, but he could not +see clearly where it lay; curiously, it did not seem to centre on that +hopelessness as regarded Althea. He could see nothing clearly, and there +was no time for self-examination. 'No,' he agreed. 'No, that's true. +It's not as if I had any hope.'</p> + +<p>'I think Helen worthy of any man alive,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and yet, +under the strange circumstances, I know that what I'm asking of you is +an act of chivalry. I want to see Helen safe, and I think she would be +safe with you.'</p> + +<p>Franklin flushed still more deeply. 'Yes, I think she would,' he said. +He paused then, again, trying to think, and what he found first was a +discomfort in the way she had put it. 'It wouldn't be an act of +chivalry,' he said. 'Don't think that. I care for Miss Helen too much +for that. It's all the other way round, you know. I mean'—he brought +out—'I don't believe she'd think of taking me.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel's eyes were on him, and it may have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> been their gaze that +made him feel the discomfort. She seemed to be seeing something that +evaded him. 'I don't look like a husband for a decorative idler, do I, +Miss Buchanan?' he tried to smile.</p> + +<p>Her eyes, with their probing keenness, smiled back. 'You mayn't look +like one, but you are one, with your millions,' she said. 'And I believe +Helen might think of taking you. She has had plenty of time to outgrow +youthful dreams. She's tired. She wants ease and security. She needs a +husband, and she doesn't need a lover at all. She would get power, and +you would get a charming wife—a woman, moreover, whom you care for and +respect—as she does you; and you would get a home and children. I +imagine that you care for children. Decorative idler though she is, +Helen would make an excellent mother.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I care very much for children,' Franklin murmured, not +confused—pained, rather, by this unveiling of his inner sanctities.</p> + +<p>'Of course,' Miss Buchanan went on, 'you wouldn't want Helen to live out +of England. Of course you would make generous settlements and give her +her proper establishments here. I want Helen to be safe; but I don't +want safety for her at the price of extinction.'</p> + +<p>Obviously, Franklin could see that very clearly, whatever else was dim, +he was the vase for the lovely flower. That was his use and his supreme +significance in Miss Buchanan's eyes. And the lovely flower was to be +left on its high stand where all the world could see it; what other use +was there for it? He quite saw Miss Buchanan's point, and the strange +thing was, in spite of all the strug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>gling of confused pain and +perplexity in him, that here he, too, was clear; with no sense of inner +protest he could make it his point too. He wanted Helen to stay in her +vase; he didn't want to take her off the high stand. He had not time now +to seek for consistency with his principles, his principles must +stretch, that was all; they must stretch far enough to take in Helen and +her stand; once they had done that he felt that there might be more to +say and that he should be able to say it; he felt sure that he should +say nothing that Helen would not like; even if she disagreed, she would +always smile at him.</p> + +<p>'No,' he said, 'it wouldn't do for her to live anywhere but in England.'</p> + +<p>'Well, then, what do you say to it?' asked Miss Buchanan. She had rather +the manner of a powerful chancellor negotiating for the marriage of a +princess.</p> + +<p>'Why,' Franklin replied, smiling very gravely, 'I say yes. But I can't +think that Miss Helen will.'</p> + +<p>'Try your chances,' said Miss Buchanan. She reached across the table and +shook his hand. 'I like you, Mr. Kane,' she said. 'I think you are a +good man; and, don't forget, in spite of my worldliness, that if I +weren't sure of that, all your millions wouldn't have made me think of +you for Helen.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2> + + +<p>Helen returned to town on Monday afternoon, and, on going to her room, +found two notes there. One from Gerald said that he was staying on for +another week at Merriston, the other from Franklin said that he would +take his chances of finding her in at 5.30 that afternoon. Helen only +glanced at Franklin's note and then dropped it into the fire; at +Gerald's she looked long and attentively. She always, familiar as they +were, studied any letter of Gerald's that she received; they seemed, the +slightest of them, to have something of himself; the small crisp writing +was charming to her, and the very way he had of affixing his stamps in +not quite the same way that most people affixed theirs, ridiculously +endeared even his envelopes. She turned the note over in her fingers as +she stood before the fire, seeing all that it meant to him—how +little!—and all that it meant to her, and she laid it for a moment +against her cheek before tearing it across and putting it, too, into the +fire. Aunt Grizel was gone out and had left word that she would not be +in till dinner-time. Helen looked idly at the clock and decided that she +would take a lazy afternoon, have tea at home, and await Franklin.</p> + +<p>When he arrived he found her reading before the fire in the little room +where she did not often receive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> him; it was usually in the drawing-room +that they met. Helen wore a black tea-gown, transparent and flowing, the +same gown, indeed, remodelled to more domestic uses, in which Althea had +first seen her. She looked pale and very thin.</p> + +<p>Franklin, too, was aware of feeling pale; he thought that he had felt +pale ever since his talk with Miss Buchanan on Saturday. He had not yet +come to any decision about the motives that had made him acquiesce in +her proposal; he only knew that, whatever they were, they were not those +merely reasonable ones that she had put before him. A charming wife, a +home and children; these were not enough, and Franklin knew it, to have +brought him here to-day on his strange errand; nor was it an act of +chivalry; nor was it pity and sympathy for his friend. All these, no +doubt, made some small part of it; but they far from covered the case; +they would have left him as calm and as rational as, he knew, he looked; +but since he did not feel calm and rational he knew that the case was +covered by very different motives. What they were he could not clearly +see; but he felt that something was happening to him and that it was +taking him far out of his normal course. Even his love for Althea had +not taken him out of his course; it had never been incalculable; it had +been the ground he walked on, the goal he worked towards; what was +happening now was like a current, swift and unfathomable, that was +bearing him he knew not where.</p> + +<p>Helen smiled at him and, turning in her chair to look up at him, gave +him her hand. 'You look tired,' she said. 'You'll have some tea?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I've been looking up some things at the British Museum,' said Franklin, +'and I had a glass of milk and a bun; the bun was very satisfying, +though I can't say that it was very satisfactory; I guess I shan't want +anything else for some hours yet.'</p> + +<p>'A bun? What made you have a bun?' said Helen, laughing.</p> + +<p>'Well, it seemed to go with the place, somehow,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>'I can imagine that it might; I've only been there once; very large and +very indigestible I found it, and most depressing. Yes, I see that it +might make a bun seem suitable.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, but it's a very wonderful place, you know,' Franklin said. 'I +should have expected you to go oftener; you care about beauty.'</p> + +<p>'Not beauty in a museum. I don't like museums. The mummies were what +impressed me most, after the Elgin marbles, and everything there seemed +like a mummy—dead and desecrated. Well, what have you been doing +besides eating buns at the British Museum? Has London been working you +very hard?'</p> + +<p>'I've not seen much of London while you've been away,' said Franklin, +who had drawn a chair to the other side of the fire. 'I think that you +are London to me, and when you are out of it it doesn't seem to mean +much—beyond museums and work.'</p> + +<p>'Come, what of all your scientific friends?'</p> + +<p>'They don't mean London; they mean science,' said Franklin, smiling back +at her. She always made him feel happy for himself, and at ease, even +when he was feeling unhappy for her; and just now he was feeling +strangely, deeply unhappy for her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> It wasn't humility, in the usual +sense, that showed his coming offer to him as so inadequate; he did not +think of himself as unworthy; but he did think of himself as +incongruous; and that this fine, sad, subtle creature should be brought, +from merely reasonable motives, to taking the incongruous intimately +into her life made him more unhappy for her than usual. He wished he +wasn't so incongruous; he wished he had something besides friendship and +millions; he wished, almost, that his case was hopeless and that +friendship and millions would not gain her. Yet, under these wishes, +which made his face look tired and jaded, was another feeling; it was +too selfless to be called a wish; rather it was a wonder, deep and +melancholy, as to what was being done to him, and what would be done, as +an end of it all. That something had been done he knew; it was because +of Helen—that was one thing at last seen clearly—that he had not, long +ago, left London.</p> + +<p>'Science is perfectly impersonal, perfectly cosmopolitan, you know,' he +went on. 'Now you are intensely personal and intensely local.'</p> + +<p>'I don't think of myself as London, then, if I'm local,' said Helen, her +eyes on the fire. 'I think of myself as Scotland, in the moorlands, on a +bleak, grey day, when the heather is over and there's a touch of winter +in the wind. You don't know the real me.'</p> + +<p>'I'd like to,' said Franklin, quietly and unemphatically.</p> + +<p>They sat for a little while in silence, and Helen, so unconscious of +what was approaching her, seemed in no haste to break it. She was +capable of sitting thus in silent musing, her cheek on her hand, her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +eyes on the fire, for half an hour with Mr. Kane beside her.</p> + +<p>Franklin was reflecting. It wouldn't do to put it to her as her need; it +must be put to her as his; as his reasonable need for the castle, the +princess, the charming wife, the home, and children. And it must be that +need only, the need of the dry, matter-of-fact friend who could give her +a little and to whom she could give much. To hint at other needs—if +other needs there were—would not be in keeping with the spirit of the +transaction, and would, no doubt, endanger it. He well remembered old +Miss Buchanan's hint; it was as a husband that Helen might contemplate +him, not as a lover. 'Miss Buchanan,' he said at last, 'you don't +consider that love, romantic love, is necessary in marriage, do you? +I've gathered more than once from remarks of yours that that point of +view is rather childish to you.'</p> + +<p>Helen turned her eyes on him with the look of kindly scrutiny to which +he was accustomed. She had felt, in these last weeks, that London might +be having some unforeseen effect on Franklin Kane; she thought of him as +very clear and very fixed, yet of such a guilelessly open nature as +well, that new experience might impress too sharply the candid tablets +of his mind. She did not like to think of any alteration in Franklin. +She wanted him to remain a changeless type, tolerant of alteration, but +in itself inalterable. 'To tell you the truth, I used to think so,' she +said, 'for myself, I mean. And I hope that you will always think so.'</p> + +<p>'Why?' asked Franklin.</p> + +<p>'I want you to go on believing always in the things<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> that other people +give up—the nice, beautiful things.'</p> + +<p>'Well, that's just my point; can't marriage without romantic love be +nice and beautiful?'</p> + +<p>'Well, can it?' Helen smiled.</p> + +<p>Franklin appeared conscientiously to ponder. 'I've a high ideal of +marriage,' he said. 'I think it's the happiest state for men and women; +celibacy is abnormal, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I suppose it is,' Helen acquiesced, smiling on.</p> + +<p>'A mercenary or a worldly marriage is a poor thing; it can't bring the +right sort of growth,' Franklin went on. 'I'm not thinking of anything +sordid or self-seeking, except in the sense that self-development is +self-seeking. I'm thinking of conditions when a man and woman, without +romantic love, might find the best chances of development. Even without +romantic love, marriage may mean fine and noble things, mayn't it? a +home, you know, and shared, widened interests, and children,' said poor +Franklin, 'and the mutual help of two natures that understand and +respect each other.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, of course,' said Helen, as he paused, fixing his eyes upon her; +'it may certainly mean all that, the more surely, perhaps, for having +begun without romance.'</p> + +<p>'You agree?'</p> + +<p>She smiled now at his insistence. 'Of course I agree.'</p> + +<p>'You think it might mean happiness?'</p> + +<p>'Of course; if they are both sensible people and if neither expects +romance of the other; that's a very important point.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> + +<p>Franklin again paused, his eyes on hers. With a little effort he now +pursued. 'You know of my romance, Miss Buchanan, and you know that it's +over, except as a beautiful and sacred memory. You know that I don't +intend to let a memory warp my life. It may seem sudden to you, and I +ask your pardon if it's too sudden; but I want to marry; I want a home, +and children, and the companionship of some one I care for and respect, +very deeply. Therefore, Miss Buchanan,' he spoke on, turning a little +paler, but with the same deliberate steadiness, 'I ask you if you will +marry me.'</p> + +<p>While Franklin spoke, it had crossed Helen's mind that perhaps he had +determined to follow her suggestion—buy a castle and find a princess to +put in it; it had crossed her mind that he might be going to ask her +advice on this momentous step—she was used to giving advice on such +momentous steps; but when he brought out his final sentence she was so +astonished that she rose from her chair and stood before him. She became +very white, and, with the strained look that then came to them, her eyes +opened widely. And she gazed down at Franklin Winslow Kane while, in +three flashes, searing and swift, like running leaps of lightning, three +thoughts traversed her mind: Gerald—All that money—A child. It was in +this last thought that she seemed, then, to fall crumblingly, like a +burnt-out thing reduced to powder. A child. What would it look like, a +child of hers and Franklin Kane's? How spare and poor and insignificant +were his face and form. Could she love a child who had a nose like +that—a neat, flat, sallow little nose? A spasm, half of laughter, half +of sobbing, caught her breath.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I've startled you,' said Franklin, who still sat in his chair looking +up at her. 'Please forgive me.'</p> + +<p>A further thought came to her now, one that she could utter, was able to +utter. 'I couldn't live in America. Yes, you did startle me. But I am +much honoured.'</p> + +<p>'Thank you,' said Franklin. 'I needn't say how much I should consider +myself honoured if you would accept my proposal.' He rose now, but it +was to move a little further away from her, and, taking up an ornament +from the mantelpiece, he examined it while he said: 'As for America, I +quite see that; that's what I was really thinking of in what I was +saying about London. You are London, and it wouldn't do to take you away +from it. I shouldn't think of taking you away. What I would ask you to +do would be to take me in. Since being over here, this time, and seeing +some of the real life of the country—what it's working towards, what it +needs and means—and, moreover, taking into consideration the character +of my own work, I should feel perfectly justified in making a compromise +between my patriotism and my—my affection for you. Some day you might +perhaps find that you'd like to pay us a visit, over there; I think +you'd find it interesting, and it wouldn't, of course, be my America +that you'd see, not the serious and unfashionable America; it would be a +very different America from that that you'd find waiting to welcome you. +So that what I should suggest—and feel justified in suggesting—would +be that I spent three months alternately in England and America; I +should in that way get half a year of home life and half a year of my +own country, and be able, perhaps, to be something<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> of a link between +the English and American scientific worlds. As for our life +here'—Franklin remembered old Miss Buchanan's words—'you should have +your own establishments and,' he lifted his eyes to hers, now, and +smiled a little, 'pursue the just and the beautiful under the most +favourable conditions.'</p> + +<p>Helen, when he smiled so at her, turned from him and sank again into her +chair. She leaned her elbow on the arm and put her hand over her eyes. A +languor of great weariness went over her, the languor of the burnt-out +thing floating in the air like a drift of ashes.</p> + +<p>Here, at last, in her hand, however strange the conditions, was the +power she had determined to live for. She could, with Franklin's +millions, mould circumstances to her will, and Franklin would be no more +of an odd impediment than the husbands of many women who married for +money—less of an impediment, indeed, than most, for—though it could +only be for his money—she liked him, she was very fond of him, dear, +good, and exquisite little man. Impossible little man she, no doubt, +would once have thought him—impossible as husband, not as friend; but +so many millions made all the difference in possibility. Franklin was +now as possible as any prince, though, she wondered with the cold +languor, could a prince have a nose like that?</p> + +<p>Franklin was possible, and it was in her hand, the power, the high +security; yet she felt that it would be in weariness rather than in +strength that the hand would close. It must close, must it not? If she +refused Franklin what, after all, was left to her,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> what was left in +herself or in her life that could say no to him? Nothing; nothing at +all, no hope, no desire, no faith in herself or in life. If it came to +that, the clearest embodiment of faith and life she knew sat opposite to +her waiting for an answer. He was good; she was fond of him; he had +millions; what could it be but yes? Yet, while her mind sank, like a +feather floating downwards in still air, to final, inevitable +acquiescence, while the little clock ticked with a fine, insect-like +note, and the flames made a soft flutter like the noise of shaken silk, +a blackness of chaotic suffering rose suddenly in her, and her thoughts +were whirled far away. In flashes, dear and terrible, she saw it—her +ruined youth. It rose in dim symbolic pictures, the moorland where +melancholy birds cried and circled, where the rain fell and the wind +called with a passionate cadence among the hills. To marry Franklin +Kane—would it not be to abandon the past; would it not be to desecrate +it and make it hers no longer? Was not the solitary moorland better, the +anguish and despair better than the smug, warm, sane life of purpose and +endeavour? If she was too tired, too indifferent, if she acquiesced, if +she married Franklin Kane, would she forget that the reallest thing in +her life had not been its sanity, and its purpose, but its wild, its +secret, its broken-hearted love? Surely the hateful wisdom of the daily +fact would not efface the memory so that, with years, she would come to +smile over it as one smiles at distant childish griefs? Surely not. Yet +the presage of it passed bleakly over her soul. Life was so reasonable. +And there it sat in the person of Franklin Winslow Kane; life, wise, +kind, commonplace, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> inexorably given to the fact, to the present, to +the future that the present built, inexorably oblivious of the past. Her +tragic, rebel heart cried out against it, but her mind whispered with a +hateful calm that life conquered tragedy.</p> + +<p>Let it be so, then. She faced it. In the very fact of submission to life +her tragedy would live on; the tragedy—and this she would never +forget—would be to feel it no longer. She would be life's captive, not +its soldier, and she would keep to the end the captive's bitter heart. +She knew, as she put down her hand at last and looked at Franklin Kane, +that it was to be acquiescence, unless he could not accept her terms. +She was ready, ironically, wearily ready for life; but it must be on her +own terms. There must be no loophole for misunderstanding between her +and her friend—if she were to marry him. Only by the clearest +recognition of what she owed him could her pride be kept intact; and she +owed him cold, cruel candour. 'Do you understand, I wonder,' she said to +him, and in a voice that he had never heard from her before, the voice, +he knew, of the real self, 'how different I am from what you think a +human being should be? Do you realise that, if I marry you, it will be +because you have money—because you have a great deal of money—and only +for that? I like you, I respect you; I would be a loyal wife to you, but +if you weren't rich—and very rich—I should not think of marrying you.'</p> + +<p>Franklin received this information with an unmoved visage, and after a +pause in which they contemplated each other deeply, he replied: 'All +right.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>'That isn't all,' said Helen. 'You are very good—an idealist. You think +me—even in this frankness of mine—far nicer than I am. I have no +ideals—none at all. I want to be independent and to have power to do +what I please. As for justice and beauty—it's too kind of you to +remember so accurately some careless words of mine.'</p> + +<p>Franklin remained unperturbed, unless the quality of intent and +thoughtful pity in his face were perturbation. 'You don't know how nice +you are,' he remarked, 'and that's the nicest thing about you. You are +the honestest woman I've met, and you seem to me about the most unhappy. +I guessed that. Well, we won't talk about unhappiness, will we? I don't +believe that talking about it does much good. If you'll marry me, we'll +see if we can't live it down somehow. As for ideals, I'll trust you in +doing what you like with your money; it will be yours, you know. I shall +make half my property over to you for good; then if I disapprove of what +you do with it, you'll at all events be free to go on pleasing yourself +and displeasing me. I won't be able to prevent you by force from doing +what I think wrong any more than you will me. You'll take your own +responsibility, and I'll take mine. And I don't believe we shall quarrel +much about it,' said Franklin, smiling at her.</p> + +<p>Tears rose to Helen's eyes. Franklin Kane, since she had become his +friend, often touched her; something in him now smote upon her heart; it +was so gentle, so beautiful, and so sad.</p> + +<p>'My dear friend,' she said, 'you will be marrying a hard, a selfish, and +a broken-hearted woman who will bring you nothing.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + +<p>'All right,' said Franklin again.</p> + +<p>'I won't do you any good.'</p> + +<p>'You won't do me any harm.'</p> + +<p>'You want me to marry you, even if I'm not to do you any good?'</p> + +<p>He nodded, looking brightly and intently at her.</p> + +<p>She rose now and stood beside him. With all the strange new sense of +unity between them there was a stronger sense of formality, and that +seemed best expressed by their clasp of hands over what, apparently, was +an agreement. 'You understand, you are sure you understand,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'What I want to understand is that you are going to marry me,' said +Franklin.</p> + +<p>'I will marry you,' Helen said.</p> + +<p>And now, rather breathlessly, as if after a race hardly won, Franklin +answered: 'Well, I guess you can leave the rest to me.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2> + + +<p>Gerald had decided to stay on for another week at Merriston and to come +up to town with Althea, and she fancied that the reason for his decision +was that he found Sally Arlington such very good company. Sally played +the violin exceedingly well and looked like an exceedingly lovely muse +while she played, and Gerald, who was very fond of music, also expressed +more than once to Althea his admiration of Miss Arlington's appearance. +There was nothing in Gerald's demeanour towards Sally to arouse a hint +of jealousy; at least there would not have been had Althea been his +wife. But she was not yet his wife, and he treated her—this was the +fact that the week was driving home—as though she were, and as though +with wifely tolerance she perfectly understood his admiring pretty young +women who looked like muses and played the violin. She was not yet his +wife; this was the fact, she repeated it over her hidden misery, that +Gerald did not enough realise. She was not his wife, and she did not +like to see him admiring other young women and behaving towards herself +as though she were a comprehending and devoted spouse, who found +pleasure in providing them for his delectation. She knew that she could +trust Gerald, that not for a moment would he permit him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>self a +flirtation, and not for a moment fail to discriminate between admiration +of the newcomer and devotion to herself; yet that the admiration had +been sufficient to keep him on at Merriston, while the devotion took for +granted the right to all sorts of marital neglects, was the fact that +rankled. It did more than rankle; it burned with all the other burnings. +Althea had, at all events, been dragged from her mood of introspection. +She had lost the sense of nonentity. She was conscious of a passionate, +protesting self that cried out for justice. Who was Gerald, after all, +to take things so for granted? Why should he be so sure of her? He was +not her husband. She was his betrothed, not his wife, and more, much +more was due to a betrothed than he seemed to imagine. It was not so +that another man would have treated her; it was not so that Franklin +would have handled his good fortune. Her heart, bereft and starving, +cried out for Franklin and for the love that had never failed, even +while, under and above everything, was her love for Gerald, and the cold +fear lest he should guess what was in her heart, should be angry with +her and turn away. It was this fear that gave her self-mastery. She +acted the part that Gerald took for granted; she was the tolerant, +devoted wife. Yet even so she guessed that Gerald had still his instinct +of something amiss. He, too, with all his grace, all his deference and +sweetness, was guarded. And once or twice when they were alone together +an embarrassed silence had fallen between them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Peel and Sally left on Saturday, and on Saturday afternoon Miss +Harriet Robinson was to arrive from Paris, to spend the Sunday, to +travel<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> up to town with Althea and Gerald on Monday, and to remain there +with Althea until her marriage. Saturday morning, therefore, after the +departure of Mrs. Peel and Sally, would be empty, and when she and +Gerald met, just before the rather bustled breakfast, Althea suggested +to him that a walk together when her guests were gone would be nice, and +Gerald had genially acquiesced. A little packet of letters lay beside +Gerald's plate and a larger one by Althea's, hers mainly from America as +she saw, fat, friendly letters, bearing the Boston postmark; a thin note +from Franklin in London also, fixing some festivity for the coming week +no doubt; but Sally and Mrs. Peel engaged her attention, and she +postponed the reading until after they were gone. She observed, however, +in Gerald's demeanour during the meal, a curious irritability and +preoccupation. He ate next to nothing, drank his cup of coffee with an +air of unconsciousness, and got up and strolled away at the first +opportunity, not reappearing until Mrs. Peel and Sally were making their +farewells in the hall. He and Althea stood to see them drive off, and +then, since she was ready for the walk, they went out together.</p> + +<p>It was a damp day, but without rain. A white fog hung closely and +thickly over the country, and lay like a clogging, woollen substance +among the scattered gold and russets of the now almost leafless trees.</p> + +<p>Gerald walked beside Althea in silence, his hands in his pockets. +Althea, too, was silent, and in her breast was an oppression like that +of the day—a dense, dull, clogging fear. They had walked for quite ten +minutes, and had left the avenue and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> were upon the high road when +Gerald said suddenly, 'I've had some news this morning.'</p> + +<p>It was a relief to hear that there was some cause for his silence +unconnected with her own inadequacy. But anger rose with the relief; it +must be some serious cause to excuse him.</p> + +<p>'Have you? It's not bad, I hope,' she said, hoping that it was.</p> + +<p>'Bad? No; I don't suppose it's bad. It's very odd, though,' said Gerald. +He then put his hand in his breast-pocket and drew out a letter. Althea +saw that the writing on the envelope was Helen's. 'You may read it,' +said Gerald.</p> + +<p>The relief was now merged in something else. Althea's heart seemed +standing still. It began to thump heavily as she opened the letter and +read what Helen wrote:<br /></p> + + + +<blockquote><p>'<span class="smcap">Dear Gerald</span>,—I have some surprising news for you; but I +hardly think that you will be more surprised than I was. I am going to +marry Mr. Kane. I accepted him some days ago, but have been getting used +to the idea since then, and you are the first person, after Aunt Grizel, +who knows. It will be announced next week and we shall probably be +married very soon after you and Althea. I hope that both our ventures +will bring us much happiness. The more I see of Mr. Kane, the more I +realise how fortunate I am.—Yours affectionately,</p> + +<p class='author'>'<span class="smcap">Helen.</span>'<br /></p></blockquote> + + + +<p>Althea gazed at these words. Then she turned her eyes and gazed at +Gerald, who was not looking at her but straight before him. Her first +clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> thought was that if he had received a shock it could not be +comparable to that which she now felt. It could not be that the letter +had fallen on his heart like a sword, severing it. Althea's heart seemed +cleft in twain. Gerald—Franklin—it seemed to pulse, horribly divided +and horribly bleeding. Looking still at Gerald's face, pallid, absorbed, +far from any thought of her, anger surged up in her, and not now against +Gerald only, but against Franklin, who had failed her, against Helen, +who, it seemed, did not win love, yet won something that took people to +her and bound them to her. Then she remembered her unread letters, and +remembered that Franklin could not have let this news come to her from +another than himself. She drew out his letter and read it. It, too, was +short.<br /></p> + + + +<blockquote><p>'<span class="smcap">Dearest Althea</span>,—I know how glad you'll be to hear that +happiness, though of a different sort, has come to me. Any sort of +happiness was, for so many years, connected with you, dear Althea, that +it's very strange to me to realise that there can be another happiness; +though this one is connected with you, too, and that makes me gladder. +Helen, your dear friend, has consented to marry me, and the fact of her +being your dear friend makes her even dearer to me. So that I must thank +you for your part in this wonderful new opening in my life, as well as +for all the other lovely things you've always meant to me.—Your friend,</p> + +<p class='author'>'<span class="smcap">Franklin.</span>'<br /></p></blockquote> + + + +<p>Althea's hand dropped. She stared before her. She did not offer the +letter to Gerald. 'It's in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>credible,' she said, while, in the heavy +mist, they walked along the road.</p> + +<p>Gerald still said nothing. He held his head high, and gazed before him +too, as if intent on difficult and evasive thoughts.</p> + +<p>'I could not have believed it of Helen,' said Althea after a little +pause.</p> + +<p>At this he started and looked round at her. 'Believed? What? What is +that you say?' His voice was sharp, as though she had struck him on the +raw.</p> + +<p>Althea steadied her own voice; she wished to strike him on the raw, and +accurately; she could only do that by hiding from him her own great +dismay. 'I could not have believed that Helen would marry a man merely +for his money.' She did not believe that Helen was to marry Franklin +merely for his money. If only she could have believed it; but the +bleeding heart throbbed: 'Lost—lost—lost.' It was not money that Helen +had seen and accepted; it was something that she herself had been too +blind and weak to see. In Helen's discovery she helplessly partook. He +<i>was</i> of value, then. He, whom she had not found good enough for her, +was good enough for Helen. And this man—this affianced husband of +hers—ah, his value she well knew; she was not blind to it—that was the +sickening knowledge; she knew his value and it was not hers, not her +possession, as Franklin's love and all that Franklin was had been. +Gerald possessed her; she seemed to have no part in him; how little, his +next words showed.</p> + +<p>'What right have you to say she's taking him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> merely for his money?' +Gerald demanded in his tense, vibrant voice.</p> + +<p>Ah, how he made her suffer with his hateful unconsciousness of her +pain—the male unconsciousness that rouses woman's conscious cruelty.</p> + +<p>'I know Helen. She has always been quite frank about her mercenary +ideas. She always told me she would marry a man for his money.'</p> + +<p>'Then why do you say it's incredible that she is going to?'</p> + +<p>Why, indeed? but Althea held her lash. 'I did not believe, even of her, +that she would marry a man she considered so completely insignificant, +so completely negligible—a man she described to me as a funny little +man. There are limits, even to Helen's insensitiveness, I should have +imagined.'</p> + +<p>She had discovered the raw. Gerald was breathing hard.</p> + +<p>'That must have been at first—when she didn't know him. They became +great friends; everybody saw that Helen had become very fond of him; I +never knew her to be so fond of anybody. You are merely angry because a +man who used to be in love with you has fallen in love with another +woman.'</p> + +<p>So he, too, could lash. 'How dare you, Gerald!' she said.</p> + +<p>At her voice he paused, and there, in the wet road, they stood and +looked at each other.</p> + +<p>What Althea then saw in his face plunged her into the nightmare abyss of +nothingness. What had she left? He did not love her—he did not even +care for her. She had lost the real love, and this brightness that she +clung to darkened for her. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> looked at her, steadily, gloomily, +ashamed of what she had made him say, yet too sunken in his own pain, +too indifferent to hers, to unsay it. And in her dispossession she did +not dare make manifest the severance that she saw. He did not care for +her, but she could not tell him so; she could not tell him to go. With +horrid sickness of heart she made a feint that hid her knowledge.</p> + +<p>'What you say is not true. Franklin does not love her. I know him +through and through. I am the great love of his life; even in his letter +to me, here, he tells me that I am.'</p> + +<p>'Well, since you've thrown him over, he can console himself, I hope.'</p> + +<p>'You do not understand, Gerald. I am disappointed—in both my friends. +It is an ugly thing that has happened. You feel it so; and so do I.'</p> + +<p>He turned and began to walk on again. And still it lay with her to speak +the words that would make truth manifest. She could not utter them; she +could not, now, think. All that she knew was the dense, suffocating +fear.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she stopped, put her hands on her heart, then covered her eyes. +'I am ill; I feel very ill,' she said. It was true. She did feel very +ill. She went to the bank at the side of the road and sank down on it. +Gerald had supported her; she had dimly been aware of the bitter joy of +feeling his arm around her, and the joy of it slid away like a snake, +leaving poison behind. He stood above her, alarmed and pitying.</p> + +<p>'Althea—shall I go and get some one? I am so awfully sorry—so +frightfully sorry,' he repeated.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> + +<p>She shook her head, sitting there, her face in her hands and her elbows +on her knees. And in her great weakness an unbelievable thing happened +to her. She began to cry piteously, and she sobbed: 'O Gerald—don't be +unkind to me! don't be cruel! don't hurt me! O Gerald—love me—please +love me!' The barriers of her pride, of her thought, were down, and, +like the flowing of blood from an open wound, the truth gushed forth.</p> + +<p>For a moment Gerald was absolutely silent. It was a tense, a stricken +silence, and she felt in it something of the horror that the showing of +a fatal wound might give. Then he knelt beside her; he took her hand; he +put his arm around her. 'Althea, what a brute—what a brute I've been. +Forgive me.' It was for something else than his harsh words that he was +asking her forgiveness. He passed hurriedly from that further, that +inevitable hurt. 'I can't tell you how—— I mean I'm so completely +sorry. You see, I was so taken aback—so cut up, you know. I could think +of nothing else. She is such an old friend—my nearest friend. I never +imagined her marrying, somehow; it was like hearing that she was going +away for ever. And what you said made me angry.' Even he, with all his +compunction, could but come back to the truth.</p> + +<p>And, helpless, she could but lean on his pity, his sheer human pity.</p> + +<p>'I know. He was my nearest friend too. For all my life I've been first +with him. I was cut up too. I am sorry—I spoke so.'</p> + +<p>'Poor girl—poor dear. Here, take my arm. Here. Now, you do feel +better.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was on her feet, her hand drawn through his arm, her face turned +from him and still bathed in tears.</p> + +<p>They walked back slowly along the road. They were silent. From time to +time she knew that he looked at her with solicitude; but she could not +return his look. The memory of her own words was with her, a strange, +new, menacing fact in life. She had said them, and they had altered +everything. Henceforth she depended on his pity, on his loyalty, on his +sense of duty to a task undertaken. Their bond was recognised as an +unequal one. Once or twice, in the dull chaos of her mind, a flicker of +pride rose up. Could she not emulate Helen? Helen was to marry a man who +did not love her. Helen was to marry rationally, with open eyes, a man +who was her friend. But Helen did not love the man who did not love her. +She was not his thrall. She gained, she did not lose, her freedom.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2> + + +<p>A week was gone since Helen had given her consent to Franklin, and again +she was in her little sitting-room and again waiting, though not for +Franklin. Franklin had been with her all the morning; and he had been +constantly with her through the week, and she had found the closer +companionship, until to-day, strangely easy. Franklin's very lacks +endeared him to her. It was wonderful to see any one so devoid of any +glamour, of any adventitious aid from nature, who yet so beamed. This +beaming quality was, for Helen, his chief characteristic. There was +certainly no brilliancy in Franklin's light; it was hardly a ray and it +emitted never a sparkle; but it was a mild, diffused effulgence, and she +always felt more peaceful and restored for coming within its radius.</p> + +<p>It had wrapped her around all the week, and it had remained so unchanged +that their relation, too, had seemed unchanged and her friend only a +little nearer, a little more solicitous. They had gone about together; +they had taken walks in the parks; they had made plans while strolling +beside the banks of the Serpentine or leaning on the bridge in St. +James's Park, to watch the ducks being fed. Already she and Franklin and +the deeply triumphant Aunt Grizel had gone on a journey down to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> +country to look at a beautiful old house in order to see if it would do +as one of Helen's 'establishments.' Already Franklin had brought her a +milky string of perfect pearls, saying mildly, as he had said of the box +of sweets, 'I don't approve of them, but I hope you do.' And on her +finger was Franklin's ring, a noble emerald that they had selected +together.</p> + +<p>Helen had been pleased to feel in herself a capacity for satisfaction in +these possessions, actual and potential. She liked to look at the great +blot of green on her hand and to see the string of pearls sliding to her +waist. She liked to ponder on the Jacobean house with its splendid rise +of park and fall of sward. She didn't at all dislike it, either, when +Franklin, as calmly possessed as ever with a clear sense of his duties, +discussed with her the larger and more impersonal uses of their fortune. +She found that she had ideas for him there; that the thinking and active +self, so long inert, could be roused to very good purpose; that it was +interesting, and very interesting, to plan, with millions at one's +disposal, for the furtherance of the just and the beautiful. And she +found, too, in spite of her warnings to Franklin, that though she might +be a hard, a selfish, and a broken-hearted woman, she was a woman with a +very definite idea of her own responsibilities. It did not suit her at +all to be the mere passive receiver; it did not suit her to be greedy. +She turned her mind at once, carefully and consistently, to Franklin's +interests. She found atoms and kinetics rather confusing at first, but +Franklin's delighted and deliberate elucidations made a light for her +that promised by degrees to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> illuminate these dark subjects. Yes; +already life had taken hold of her and, ironically, yet not unwillingly, +she followed it along the appointed path. Yesterday, however, and +to-day, especially, a complication, subtle yet emphatic, had stolen upon +her consciousness.</p> + +<p>All the week long, in spite of something mastered and controlled in his +bearing, she had seen that he was happy, and though not imaginative as +to Franklin's past, she had guessed that he had never in all his life +been so happy, and that never had life so taken hold of him. He enjoyed +the pearls, he enjoyed the emerald, he enjoyed the Jacobean house and +going over it with her and Aunt Grizel; above all he enjoyed herself as +a thinking and acting being, the turning of her attention to atoms, her +grave, steady penetration of his life. And in this happiness the +something controlled and mastered had melted more and more; she had +intended that it should melt. She had guessed at the pain, the anxiety +for her that had underlain the dear little man's imperturbability, and +she had determined that as far as in her lay Franklin should think her +happy, should think that, at all events, she was serene and without +qualms or misgivings. And she had accomplished this. It was as if she +saw him breathing more deeply, more easily; as if, with a long sigh of +relief, he smiled at her and said, with a new accent of confidence: 'All +right.' And then, after the sigh of relief, she saw that he became too +happy. It was only yesterday that she began to see it; it was to-day +that she had clearly seen that Franklin had fallen in love with her.</p> + +<p>It wasn't that, in any blindness to what she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> meant, he came nearer and +made mistakes. He did not come a step nearer, and, in his happiness, his +unconscious happiness, he was further from the possibility of mistakes +than before. He did not draw near. He stood and gazed. Men had loved +Helen before, yet, she felt it, no man had loved her as Franklin did. +She could not have analysed the difference between his love and that of +other men, yet she felt it dimly. Franklin stood and gazed; but it was +not at charm or beauty that he gazed; whether he was really deeply aware +of them she could not tell; the only words she could find with which to +express her predicament and its cause sounded silly to her, but she +could find no others. Franklin was gazing at her soul. She couldn't +imagine what he found to fix him in it; he had certainly said that she +was the honestest woman he had known; she gloomily made out that she +was, she supposed, 'straight'; she liked clear, firm things, and she +liked to keep a bargain. It didn't seem to her a very arresting array of +virtues; but then—no, she couldn't settle Franklin's case so glibly as +that; if it wasn't what she might have of charm that he had fallen in +love with, it wasn't what she might have of virtue either. Perhaps one's +soul hadn't much to do with either charm or virtue. And, after all, +whatever it was, he was gazing at it, rapt, smiling, grave, in the +lover's trance. He saw her, and only her. And she saw him, and a great +many other things besides.</p> + +<p>The immediate hope that came to her was that Franklin, perhaps, might +really never know just what had happened to him. If he never recognised +it, it might never become explicit; it might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> managed; it could of +course be managed in any case; but how she should hate having him made +conscious of pain. If he never said to himself, and far less to her, +that he had fallen in love with her, he might not really suffer in the +strange, ill-adjusted union before them. She did not think that he had +yet said it to himself; but she feared that he was hovering on the verge +of self-recognition. His very guilelessness in the realm of the emotions +exposed him to her, and with her perplexity went a yearning of pity as +she witnessed the soft, the hesitant, the delicate unfolding.</p> + +<p>For more had come than the tranced gaze. That morning, writing notes, +with Franklin beside her, her hand had inadvertently touched his once or +twice in taking the papers from him, and Helen then had seen that +Franklin blushed. Twice, also, looking up, she had found his eyes fixed +on her with the lover's dwelling tenderness, and both times he had +quickly averted his glance in a manner very new in him.</p> + +<p>Helen had pondered deeply in the moments before his departure. Franklin +had never kissed her; the time would come when he must kiss her. The +time would come when a kiss of farewell or greeting must, however rare, +be a facile, marital custom. How would Franklin—trembling on that verge +of a self-recognition that might make a chaos of his life—how and when +would he initiate that custom? How could it be initiated by him at all +unless with an emotion that would not only reveal him to himself, but +make it known to him that he was revealed to her. The revelation, if it +came, must come gradually; they must both have time to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> get used to it, +she to having a husband she did not love in love with her; he to loving +a wife who would never love him back. She shrank from the thought of +emotional revelations. It was her part to initiate and to make a kiss an +easy thing. Yet she found, sitting there, writing the last notes, with +Franklin beside her, that it was not an easy thing to contemplate. The +thought of her own cowardice spurred her on. When Franklin rose at last, +gave her his hand, said that he'd come back that evening, Helen rose +too, resolved. 'Good-bye,' she said. 'Don't forget the tickets for that +concert.'</p> + +<p>'No, indeed,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>'And I think, don't you? that we might put the announcement in the +papers to-morrow. Aunt Grizel wants, I am sure, to see me safely Morning +Posted.'</p> + +<p>'So do I,' smiled Franklin.</p> + +<p>Helen was summoning her courage. 'Good-bye,' she repeated, and now she +smiled with a new sweetness. 'I think we ought to kiss each other +good-bye, don't you? We are such an old engaged couple.'</p> + +<p>Resolved, and firm in her resolve, though knowing commotion of soul, she +leaned to him and kissed his forehead and turned her cheek to him. +Franklin had kept her hand, and in the pause, where she did not see his +face, she felt his tighten on it; but he did not kiss her. Smiling a +little nervously, she raised her head and looked at him. He was gazing +at her with a shaken, stricken look.</p> + +<p>'You must kiss me good-bye,' said Helen, speaking as she would have +spoken to a departing child. 'Why, we have no right to be put in the +<i>Morning Post</i> unless we've given each other a kiss.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + +<p>And, really like the child, Franklin said: 'Must I?'</p> + +<p>He kissed her then, gently, and spoke no further word. But she knew, +when he had gone, and when thinking over the meaning of his face as it +only came to her when the daze of her own daring faded and left her able +to think, that she had hardly helped Franklin over a difficulty; she had +made him aware of it rather; she had shown him what his task must be. +And it could not reassure her, for Franklin, that his face, after that +stricken moment, and with a wonderful swiftness of delicacy, had +promised her that it should be accomplished. It promised her that there +should be no emotions, or, if there were, that they should be mastered +ones; it promised her that she should see nothing in him to make her +feel that she was refusing anything, nothing to make her feel that she +was giving pain by a refusal. It seemed to say that he knew, now, at +last, what the burden was that he laid upon her and that it should be as +light as he could make it. It did not show her that he saw his own +burden; but Helen saw it for him. She, too, made herself promises as she +stood after his departure, taking a long breath over her discovery; she +was not afraid in looking forward. All that she was afraid of—and it +was of this that she was thinking as she now stood leaning her arm upon +the mantelshelf and looking into the fire,—all that she was afraid of +was of looking back. It was for Gerald that she was waiting and it was +Gerald's note that hung from her hand against her knee, and since that +note had come, not long after Franklin had left her, her thoughts had +been centred on the coming<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> interview. Gerald had not written to her +from the country; she had expected to have an answer to her announcement +that morning, but none had come. This note had been brought by hand, and +it said that if he could not find her at four would she kindly name some +other hour when he might do so. She had answered that he would find her, +and it was now five minutes to the hour.</p> + +<p>Gerald's note had not said much more, and yet, in the little it did say, +it had contrived to be tense and cool. It seemed to intimate that he +reserved a great deal to say to her, and that, perhaps more, he reserved +a great deal to think and not to say. It was a note that had startled +her and that then had filled her with a bitterness of heart greater than +any she had ever known. For that she would not accept, not that tone +from Gerald. That it should be Gerald—Gerald of all the people in the +world—to adopt that tone to her! The exceeding irony of it brought a +laugh to her lips. She was on edge. Her strength had only just taken her +through the morning and its revelations, there was none left now for +patience and evasion. Gerald must be careful, was the thought that +followed the laugh.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2> + + +<p>She heard the door-bell ring, and then his quick step. It did not seem +to her this afternoon that she had to master the disquiet of heart that +his coming always brought. It was something steeled and hostile that +waited for him.</p> + +<p>When he had entered and stood before her she saw that he intended to be +careful, to be very careful, and the recognition of that attitude in him +gave further bitterness to her cold, her fierce revolt. What right had +he to that bright formal smile, that chill pressure of her fingers, that +air of crisp cheerfulness, as of one injured but willing, magnanimously, +to conceal his hurt? What right—good heavens!—had Gerald to feel +injured? She almost laughed again as she looked at him and at this +unveiling of his sublime self-centredness. He expected to find his world +just as he would have it, his cushion at his head and his footstool at +his feet, the wife in her place fulfilling her comely duties, the +spinster friend in hers, administering balms and counsels; the wife at +Merriston House, and the spinster friend in the little sitting-room +where, for so many years, he had come to her with all his moods and +misfortunes. She felt that her eyes fixed themselves on him with a cold +menace as he stood there on the other side of the fire and, putting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> his +foot on the fender, looked first at her and then down at the flames. His +very silence was full of the sense of injury; but she knew that hers was +the compelling silence and that she could force him to be the first to +speak. And so it was that presently he said:</p> + +<p>'Well, Helen, this is great news.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, isn't it?' she answered. 'It has been a year of news, hasn't it?'</p> + +<p>He stared, courteously blank, and something in her was pleased to +observe that he looked silly with his affectation of blandness.</p> + +<p>'I beg your pardon?'</p> + +<p>'You had your great event, and I, now, have mine.'</p> + +<p>'Ah yes, I see.'</p> + +<p>'It's all rather queer when one comes to think of it,' said Helen. +'Althea, my new friend—whom I told you of here, only a few months +ago—and her friend. How important they have become to us, and how +little, last summer, we could have dreamed of it.' She, too, was +speaking artificially, and was aware of it; but she was well aware that +Gerald didn't find that she looked silly. She had every advantage over +the friend who came with his pretended calm and his badly hidden +rancour. And since he stood silent, looking at the fire, she added, +mildly and cheerfully: 'I am so glad for your happiness, Gerald, and I +hope that you are glad for mine.'</p> + +<p>He looked up at her now, and she could not read the look; it hid +something—or else it sought for something hidden; and in its +oddity—which reminded her of a blind animal dazedly seeking its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> +path—it so nearly touched her that, with a revulsion from any hint of +weakening pity for him, it made her bitterness against him greater than +before.</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid I can't say I'm glad, Helen,' he replied. 'I'm too amazed, +still, to feel anything except'—he seemed to grope for a word and then +to give it up—'amazement.'</p> + +<p>'I was surprised myself,' said Helen. 'I had not much hope left of +anything so fortunate happening to me.'</p> + +<p>'You feel it, then, so fortunate?'</p> + +<p>'Don't you think that it is—to marry millions,' Helen asked, smiling, +'and to have found such a good man to care for me?'</p> + +<p>'I think it is he who is fortunate,' said Gerald, after a moment.</p> + +<p>'Thank you; perhaps we both are fortunate.'</p> + +<p>Once more there was a long silence and then, suddenly, Gerald flung +away, thrusting his hands in his pockets and stopping before the window, +his back turned to her. 'I can't stand this,' he declared.</p> + +<p>'What can't you stand?'</p> + +<p>'You don't love this man. He doesn't love you.'</p> + +<p>'What is that to you?' asked Helen.</p> + +<p>'I can't think it of you; I can't bear to think it.'</p> + +<p>'What is it to you?' she repeated, in a deadened voice.</p> + +<p>'Why do you say that?' he took her up with controlled fury. 'How +couldn't it but be a great deal to me? Haven't you been a great +deal—for all our lives nearly? Do you mean that you're going<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> to kick +me out completely—because you are going to marry? What does it mean to +me? I wish it could mean something to you of what it does to me. To give +yourself—you—you—to a man who doesn't love you—whom you don't +love—for money. Oh, I know we've always talked of that sort of thing as +if it were possible—and perhaps it is—for a man. But when it comes to +a woman—a woman one has cared for—looked up to—as I have to you—it's +a different matter. One expects a different standard.'</p> + +<p>'What standard do you expect from me?' asked Helen. There were tears, +but tears of rage, in her voice.</p> + +<p>'You know,' said Gerald, who also was struggling with an emotion that, +rising, overcame his control, 'you know what I think of you—what I +expect of you. A great match—a great man—something fitting for +you—one could accept that; but this little American nonentity, this +little American—barely a gentleman—whom you'd never have looked at if +he hadn't money—a man who will make you ridiculous, a man who can't +have a thought or feeling in common with you—it's not fit—it's not +worthy; it smirches you; it's debasing.'</p> + +<p>He had not turned to look at her while he spoke, perhaps did not dare to +look. He knew that his anger, his more than anger, had no warrant, and +that the words in which it cloaked itself—though he believed in all he +said—were unjustifiable. But it was more than anger, and it must speak, +must plead, must protest. He had no right to say these things, perhaps, +but Helen should understand the more beneath, should understand that he +was lost,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> bewildered, miserable; if Helen did not understand, what was +to become of him? And now she stood there behind him, not speaking, not +answering him, so that he was almost frightened and murmured on, half +inaudibly: 'It's a wrong you do—to me—to our friendship, as well as to +yourself.'</p> + +<p>Helen now spoke, and the tone of her voice arrested his attention even +before the meaning of her words reached him. It was a tone that he had +never heard from her, and it was not so much that it made him feel that +he had lost her as that it made him feel—strangely and +penetratingly—that he had never known her.</p> + +<p>'You say all this to me, Gerald, you who in all these years have never +taken the trouble to wonder or think about me at all—except how I might +amuse you or advise you, or help you.' These were Helen's words. 'Why +should I go on considering you, who have never considered me?'</p> + +<p>It was so sudden, so amazing, and so cruel that, turning to her, he +literally stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed. 'I don't know what you +mean, Helen,' he said.</p> + +<p>'Of course you don't,' she continued in her measured voice, 'of course +you don't know what I mean; you never have. I don't blame you; you are +not imaginative, and all my life I've taken care that you should know +very little of what I meant. The only bit of me that you've known has +been the bit that has always been at your service. There is a good deal +more of me than that.'</p> + +<p>'But—what have you meant?' he stammered, almost in tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her face, white and cold, was bent on him, and in her little pause she +seemed to deliberate—not on what he should be told, that was fixed—but +on how to tell it; and for this she found finally short and simple +words.</p> + +<p>'Can't you guess, even now, when at last I've become desperate and +indifferent?' she said. 'Can't you see, even now, that I've always loved +you?'</p> + +<p>They confronted each other in a long moment of revelation and avowal. It +grew like a great distance between them, the distance of all the years +through which she had suffered and he been blind. Gerald saw it like a +chasm, dark with time, with secrecy, with his intolerable stupidity. He +gazed at her across it, and in her face, her strange, strong, fragile, +weary face, he saw it all, at last. Yes, she had loved him all her life, +and he had never seen it.</p> + +<p>She had moved, in speaking to him, away from her place near the fire, +and he now went to it, and put his arms on the mantelpiece and hid his +face upon them. 'Fool—fool that I am!' he uttered softly. He stood so, +his face hidden from her, and his words seemed to release some bond in +Helen's heart. The worst of the bitterness against him passed away. The +tragedy, after all, was not his fault, but Fate's, and to suggest that +he was accountable was to be grotesquely stupid. That he had not loved +her was the tragedy; that he had never seen was, in reality, the +tragedy's alleviation. Absurd to blame poor Gerald for not seeing. When +she spoke again it was in an altered voice.</p> + +<p>'No, you're not,' she said, and she seemed with him to contemplate the +chasm and to make it clear for him—she had always made things clear for +him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> and there was now, with all the melancholy, a peacefulness in +sharing with him this, their last, situation. Never before had they +talked over one so strange, and never again would they talk over any +other so near; to speak at last was to make it, in its very nearness, +immeasurably remote, to put it away, from both their lives, for ever. +'No, you're not; I shouldn't have said that you were not imaginative; I +shouldn't have said that you had never considered me; you have—you have +been the best of friends; I was letting myself be cruel. It's only that +<i>I'm</i> not a fool. A woman who isn't can always keep a man from +imagining; it's the one thing that even a stupid woman can do. And my +whole nature has been moulded by the instinct for concealment.' She +looked round mechanically for a seat while she spoke; she felt horribly +tired; and she sank on a straight, high chair near the writing-table. +Here, leaning forward, her arms resting on her knees, her hands clasped +and hanging, she went on, looking before her. 'I want to tell you about +it now. There are things to confess. I haven't been a nice woman in it +all; I've not taken it as a nice woman would. I've hated you for not +loving me. I've hated you for not wanting anything more from me and for +your contentment with what I gave you, and for caring as much as you +did, too, for being fonder of me than of any one else in the world, and +yet never caring more. Of course I understood; it was a little comfort +to my pride to understand. Even if I'd been the sort of woman you would +have fallen in love with, I was too near. I had to make myself too near; +that was my shield. I had to give you everything<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> you wanted because +that was the sure way to hide from you that I had so much more to give. +And for years I went on hoping—not that you would see—I should have +lost everything then—but that, of yourself, you would want more.'</p> + +<p>Gerald had lifted his head, but his hand still hid his eyes. 'Helen, +dear Helen,' he said, and she did not understand his voice—it was pain, +but more than pain; 'why were you so cruel? why were you so proud? If +you'd only let me see; if you'd only given me a hint. Don't you know it +only needed that?'</p> + +<p>She paused over his question for so long that he put down his hand and +looked at her, and her eyes, meeting his unfalteringly, widened with a +strained, suffering look.</p> + +<p>'It's kind of you to say so,' she said. 'And I know you believe it now; +you are so fond of me, and so sorry for this horrid tale I inflict on +you, that you have to believe it. And of course it may be true. Perhaps +it did only need that.'</p> + +<p>They had both now looked away again, Gerald gazing unseeingly into the +mirror, Helen at the opposite wall. 'It may be true,' she repeated. 'I +had only, perhaps, to be instinctive—to withdraw—to hide—create the +little mysteries that appeal to men's senses and imaginations. I had +only to put aside my pride and to shut my eyes on my horrible, hard, +lucid self-consciousness, let instinct guide me, be a mere woman, and +you might have been in love with me. It's true. I used often to think +it, too. I used often to think that I might make you fall in love with +me if I could stop being your friend. But, don't you see, I knew myself<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> +far too well. I <i>was</i> too proud. I didn't want you if you only wanted me +because I'd lured you and appealed to your senses and imagination. I +didn't want you unless you wanted me for the big and not for the little +things of love. I couldn't pretend that I had something to hide—I know +perfectly how it is done—the air of evasion, of wistfulness—all the +innocent hypocrisies women make use of; but I couldn't. I didn't want +you like that. There was nothing for it but to look straight at you and +pretend, not that there was anything to hide, but that there was +nothing.'</p> + +<p>Again, his eyes meeting hers, she looked, indeed, straight at him and +smiled a little; for there was, indeed, nothing now to hide; and she +went on quietly, 'You see now, how I've been feeling for these last +months, when everything has gone, at last, completely. I'd determined, +long ago, to give up hope and marry some one else. But I didn't know +till this autumn, when you decided to marry Althea, I didn't know till +then how much hope there was still left to be killed. When a thing like +that has been killed, you see, one hasn't much feeling left for the rest +of life. I don't care enough, one way or the other, not to marry as I'm +doing. There is still one's life to live, and one may as well make what +seems the best of it. I've not succeeded, you see, in marrying your +great man, and I've fallen back very thankfully on my dear, good +Franklin, who is not, let me tell you, a nonentity in my eyes; I'm +fonder of him than of any one I've ever known except yourself. And it +was too much, just the one touch too much, to have you come to me to-day +with reproaches and an air of injury. But, at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> same time, I ask your +pardon for having spoken to you like that—as though you'd done <i>me</i> a +wrong. And if I've been too cruel, if the memory rankles and makes you +uncomfortable, you must keep away from me as long as you like. It won't +be for ever, I'm sure. In spite of everything I'm sure that we shall +always be friends.'</p> + +<p>She got up now, knowing in her exhaustion that she was near tears, and +she found her cigarette-case on the writing-table; it was an automatic +relapse to the customary. She felt that everything, indeed, was over, +and that the sooner one relapsed on every-day trivialities the better.</p> + +<p>Gerald watched her light the cigarette, the pulsing little flicker of +yellow flame illuminating her cheek and hair as she stood half turned +from him. She was near him and he had but one step to take to her. He +was almost unaware of motive. What he did was nearly as automatic, as +inevitable, as her search for the cigarette. He was beside her and he +put his arms around her and took the cigarette from her hand. Then, +folding her to him, he hid his face against her hair.</p> + +<p>It was, then, not excitement he felt so much as the envelopment of a +great, a beautiful necessity. So great, so beautiful, in its peace and +accomplishment, that it was as if he had stood there holding Helen for +an eternity, and as if all the miserable years that had separated them +were looked down at serenely from some far height.</p> + +<p>And Helen had stood absolutely still. When she spoke he heard in her +voice an amazement too great for anger. It was almost gentle in its +astonishment. 'Gerald,' she said, 'I am not in need of consolation.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>Foolish Helen, he thought, breathing quietly in the warm dusk of her +hair; foolish dear one, to speak from that realm of abolished time.</p> + +<p>'I'm not consoling you,' he said.</p> + +<p>She was again silent for a moment and he felt that her heart was +throbbing hard; its shocks went through him. 'Let me go,' she said.</p> + +<p>He kissed her hair, holding her closer.</p> + +<p>Helen, starting violently, thrust him away with all her strength, and +though blissfully aware only of his own interpretation, Gerald half +released her, keeping her only by his clasp of her wrists.</p> + +<p>His kiss had confirmed her incredible suspicion. 'You insult me!' she +said. 'And after what I told you! What intolerable assumption! What +intolerable arrogance! What baseness!'</p> + +<p>Her eyes seemed to burn their eyelids; her face was transformed in its +wild, blanched indignation.</p> + +<p>'But I love you,' said Gerald, and he looked at her with a candour of +conviction too deep for pleading.</p> + +<p>'You love me!' Helen repeated. She could have wept for sheer fury and +humiliation had not her scornful concentration on him been too intent to +admit the flooding image of herself—mocked and abased by this +travesty—which might have brought the fears. 'I think that you are +mad.'</p> + +<p>'But I do love you,' Gerald reiterated. 'I've been mad, if you like; but +I'm quite sane now.'</p> + +<p>'You are a simpleton,' was Helen's reply; she could find no other word +for his fatuity.</p> + +<p>'Be as cruel as you like; I know I deserve it,' said Gerald.</p> + +<p>'You imagine I'm punishing you?'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I don't imagine anything, or see anything, Helen, except that we love +each other and that you've got to marry me.'</p> + +<p>Helen looked deeply into his eyes, deeply and, he saw it at last, +implacably. 'If your last chance hadn't been gone, can you believe that +I would ever have told you? Your last chance is gone. I will never marry +you.' And hearing steps outside, she twisted her hands from his, saying, +'Think of appearances, please. Here is Franklin.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2> + + +<p>Gerald was standing at the window looking out when Franklin entered, and +Helen, in the place where he had left her, met the gaze of her affianced +with a firm and sombre look. There was a moment of silence while +Franklin stood near the door, turning a hesitant glance from Gerald's +back to Helen's face, and then Helen said, 'Gerald and I have been +quarrelling.'</p> + +<p>Franklin, feeling his way, tried to smile. 'Well, that's too bad,' he +said. He looked at her for another silent moment before adding, 'Do you +want to go on? Am I in the way?'</p> + +<p>'No, I don't want to go on, and you are very welcome,' Helen answered. +Her eyes were fixed on Franklin and she wondered at her own +self-command, for, in his eyes, so troubled and so kindly, she seemed to +see mutual memories; the memory of herself lying in the wood and saying +'I'm sick to death of it'; the memory of herself standing here and +saying to him 'I'm a broken-hearted woman.' And she knew that Franklin +was seeing in her face the same memories, and that, with his intuitive +insight where things of the heart were concerned, he was linking them +with the silent figure at the window.</p> + +<p>'I suppose,' he said, going to the fire and standing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span> before it, his +back to the others, 'I suppose I can't help to elucidate things a +little.'</p> + +<p>'No, I think they are quite clear,' said Helen, 'or, at all events, you +put an end to them by staying; especially'—and she fixed her gaze on +the figure at the window—'as Gerald is going now.'</p> + +<p>But Gerald did not move and Franklin presently remarked, 'Sometimes, you +know, a third person can see things in another way and help things out. +If you could just, for instance, talk the matter over quietly, before +me, as a sort of adviser, you know. That might help. It's a pity for old +friends to quarrel.'</p> + +<p>Gerald turned from the window at this. He had come down from the heights +and knew that he had risen there too lightly, and that the tangles of +lower realities must be unravelled before he could be free to mount +again—Helen with him. He knew, at last, that he had made Helen very +angry and that it might take some time to disentangle things; but the +radiance of the heights was with him still, and if, to Helen's eye, he +looked fatuous, to Franklin, seeing his face now, for the first time, he +looked radiant.</p> + +<p>'Helen,' he said, smiling gravely at her, 'what Kane says is very +sensible. He is the one person in the world one could have such things +out before. Let's have them out; let's put the case to him and he shall +be umpire.'</p> + +<p>Helen bent her ironic and implacable gaze upon him and remained silent.</p> + +<p>'You think I've no right to put it before him, I suppose.'</p> + +<p>'You most certainly have no right. And you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> would gain nothing by it. +What I told you just now was true.'</p> + +<p>'I can't accept that.'</p> + +<p>'Then you are absurd.'</p> + +<p>'Very well, I am absurd, then. But there's one thing I have a right to +tell Kane,' Gerald went on, unsmiling now. 'I owe it to him to tell him. +He'll think badly of me, I know; but that can't be helped. We've all got +into a dreadful muddle and the only way out of it is to be frank. So I +must tell you, Kane, that Althea and I have found out that we have made +a mistake; we can't hit it off. I'm not the man to make her happy and +she feels it, I'm sure she feels it. It's only for my sake, I know, that +she hasn't broken off long ago. You are in love with Althea, and I am in +love with Helen; so there it is. I'm only saying what we are all +seeing.' Gerald spoke gravely, yet at the same time with a certain +blitheness, as though he took it for granted, for Franklin as well as +for himself, that he thus made both their paths clear and left any +hazardous element in their situations the same for both. Would Althea +have Franklin and would Helen have him? This was really all that now +needed elucidation.</p> + +<p>A heavy silence followed his words. In the silence the impression that +came to Gerald was as if one threw reconnoitring pebbles into a well, +expecting a swift response of shallowness, and heard instead, after a +wondering pause, the hollow reverberations of sombre, undreamed-of +depths. Franklin's eyes were on him and Helen's eyes were on him, and he +knew that in both their eyes he had proved himself once more, to say the +least of it, absurd.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Digby,' said Franklin Kane, and his voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> was so strange that it +sounded indeed like the fall of the stone in far-off darkness, 'perhaps +you are saying what we all see; but perhaps we don't all see the same +things in the same way; perhaps,' Franklin went on, finding his way, +'you don't even see some things at all.'</p> + +<p>Gerald had flushed. 'I know I'm behaving caddishly. I've no right to say +anything until I see Althea.'</p> + +<p>'Well, perhaps not,' Franklin conceded.</p> + +<p>'But, you know,' said Gerald, groping too, 'it's not as if it were +really sudden—the Althea side of it, I mean. We've not hit it off at +all. I've disappointed her frightfully; it will be a relief to her, I +know—to hear'—Gerald stammered a little—'that I see now, as clearly +as she does, that we couldn't be happy together. Of course,' and he grew +still more red, 'it will be she who throws me over. And—I think I'd +better go to her at once.'</p> + +<p>'Wait, Gerald,' said Helen.</p> + +<p>He paused in his precipitate dash to the door. Only her gaze, till now, +had told of the chaos within her; but when Gerald said that he was going +to Althea, she found words. 'Wait a moment. I don't think that you +understand. I don't think, as Franklin says, that you see some things at +all. Do you realise what you are doing?'</p> + +<p>Gerald stood, his hand on the door knob, and looked at her. 'Yes; I +realise it perfectly.'</p> + +<p>'Do you realise that it will not change me and that I think you are +behaving outrageously?'</p> + +<p>'Even if it won't change you I'd have to do it now. I can't marry +another woman when I'm in love with you.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Can't you? When you know that you can never marry me?'</p> + +<p>'Even if I know that,' said Gerald, staring at her and, with his +deepening sense of complications, looking, for him, almost stern.</p> + +<p>'Well, know it; once for all.'</p> + +<p>'That you won't ever forgive me?' Gerald questioned.</p> + +<p>'Put it like that if you like to,' she answered.</p> + +<p>Gerald turned again to go, and it was now Franklin who checked him.</p> + +<p>'Mr. Digby—wait,' he said; 'Helen—wait.' He had been looking at them +both while they interchanged their hostilities, and yet, though watching +them, he had been absent, as though he were watching something else even +more. 'What I mean, what I want to say, is this——' he rather +stammered. 'Don't please go to Althea directly. I'm to go to her this +evening. She asked me to come and see her at six.' He pulled out his +watch. 'It's five now. Will you wait? Will you wait till this evening, +please?'</p> + +<p>Gerald again had deeply flushed. 'Of course, if you ask it. Only I do +feel that I ought to see her, you know,' he paused, perplexed. Then, as +he looked at Franklin Kane, something came to him. The cloud of his +oppression seemed to pass from his face and it was once more +illuminated, not with blitheness, but with recognition. He saw, he +thought he saw, the way Franklin opened for them all. And his words +expressed the dazzled relief of that vision. 'I see,' he said, gazing on +at Franklin, 'yes, I see. Yes, if you can manage that it will be +splendid of you, Kane.' Flooded with the hope of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> swift elucidation he +seized the other's hand while he went on. 'It's been such a dreadful +mess. Do forgive me. You must; you will, won't you? It may mean +happiness for you, even though Helen says it can't for me. I do wish you +all good fortune. And—I'll be at my club until I hear from you. And I +can't say how I thank you.' With this, incoherently and rapidly +pronounced, Gerald was gone and Franklin and Helen were left standing +before each other.</p> + +<p>For a long time they did not speak, but Franklin's silence seemed caused +by no embarrassment. He still looked perplexed, but, through his +perplexity, he looked intent, as though tracing in greater and greater +clearness the path before him—the path that Gerald had seen that he was +opening and that might, Gerald had said, mean happiness to them all. It +was Helen watching him who felt a cruel embarrassment. She saw Franklin +sacrificed and she saw herself unable to save him. It would not save him +to tell him again that she would never marry Gerald. Franklin knew, too +clearly for any evasion, that Althea's was the desperate case, the case +for succour. She, Helen, could be thrown over—for they couldn't evade +that aspect—and suffer never a scratch; but for Althea to throw over +Gerald meant that in doing it she must tear her heart to pieces.</p> + +<p>And she could not save Franklin by telling him that she had divined his +love for her; that would give him all the more reason for ridding her of +a husband who hadn't kept to the spirit of their contract. No, the only +way to have saved him would have been to love him and to make him know +and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> feel it; and this was the only thing she could not do for Franklin.</p> + +<p>She took refuge in her nearest feeling, that of scorn for Gerald. 'It's +unforgivable of Gerald,' she said.</p> + +<p>Franklin's eyes—they had a deepened, ravaged look, but they were still +calm—probed hers, all their intentness now for her. 'Why, no,' he said, +after a moment, 'I don't see that.'</p> + +<p>Helen, turning away, had dropped into her chair, leaning her forehead on +her hand. 'I shall never forgive him,' she said.</p> + +<p>Franklin, on the other side of the fire, stood thinking, thinking so +hard that he was not allowing himself to feel. He was thinking so hard +of Helen that he was unconscious how the question he now asked might +affect himself. 'You do love him, Helen? It's him you've always loved?'</p> + +<p>'Always,' she said.</p> + +<p>'And he's found it out—only to-day.'</p> + +<p>'He didn't find it out; I told him. He came to reproach me for my +engagement.'</p> + +<p>Franklin turned it over. 'But what he has found out, then, is that he +loves you.'</p> + +<p>'So he imagines. It's not a valuable gift, as you see, Gerald's love.'</p> + +<p>Again Franklin paused and she knew that, for her sake, he was weighing +the value of Gerald's love. And he found in answer to what she said his +former words: 'Why, no, I don't see that,' he said.</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid it's all I do see,' Helen replied.</p> + +<p>He looked down upon her and after a silence he asked: 'May I say +something?'</p> + +<p>She nodded, resting her face in her hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>'You're wrong, you know,' said Franklin. 'Not wrong in feeling this way +now; I don't believe you can help that; but in deciding to go on feeling +it. You mustn't talk about final decisions.'</p> + +<p>'But they are made.'</p> + +<p>'They can't be made in life. Life unmakes them, I mean, unless you set +yourself against it and ruin things that might be mended.'</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid I can't take things as you do,' said Helen. 'Some things are +ruined from the very beginning.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin; 'at all events some +things aren't. And you're wrong about this thing, I'm sure of it. You're +hard and you're proud, and you set yourself against life and won't let +it work on you. The only way to get anything worth while out of life is +to be humble with it and be willing to let it lead you, I do assure you, +Helen.'</p> + +<p>Suddenly, her face hidden in her hands, she began to cry.</p> + +<p>'He is spoiled for me. Everything is spoiled for me,' she sobbed. 'I'd +rather be proud and miserable than humiliated. Who wants a joy that is +spoiled? Some things can't be joys if they come too late.'</p> + +<p>She wept, and in the silence between them knew only her own sorrow and +the bitterness of the desecration that had been wrought in her own love. +Then, dimly, through her tears, she heard Franklin's voice, and heard +that it trembled.</p> + +<p>'I think they can, Helen,' he said. 'I think it's wonderful the way joy +can grow if we don't set ourselves against life. I'm going to try to +make it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> grow'—how his poor voice trembled, she was drawn from her own +grief in hearing it—'and I wish I could leave you believing that you +were going to try too.'</p> + +<p>She put down her hands and lifted her strange, tear-stained face.</p> + +<p>'You are going to Althea.'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Franklin, and he smiled gently at her.</p> + +<p>'You are going to ask her to marry you before she can know that Gerald +is giving her up.'</p> + +<p>He paused for a moment. 'I'm going to see if she needs me.'</p> + +<p>Helen gazed at him. She couldn't see joy growing, but she saw a +determination that, in its sudden strength, was almost a joy.</p> + +<p>'And—if she doesn't need you, Franklin?'</p> + +<p>'Ah, well,' said Franklin, continuing to smile rather fixedly, 'I've +stood that, you see, for a good many years.'</p> + +<p>Helen rose and came beside him. 'Franklin,' she said, and she took his +hand, 'if she doesn't have you—you'll come back.'</p> + +<p>'Come back?' he questioned, and she saw that all his hardly held +fortitude was shaken by his wonder.</p> + +<p>'To me,' said Helen. 'You'll marry me, if Althea won't have you. Even if +she does—I'm not going to marry Gerald. So don't go to her with any +mistaken ideas about me.'</p> + +<p>He was very pale, holding her hand fast, as it held his. 'You mean—you +hate him so much—for never having seen—that you'll go through with +it—to punish him.'</p> + +<p>She shook her head. 'No, I'm not so bad as that.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> It won't be for +revenge. It will be for you—and for myself, too; because I'd rather +have it so; I'd rather have you, Franklin, than the ruined thing.'</p> + +<p>She knew that it was final and supreme temptation that she put before +him, and she held it there resolved, so that if there were one chance +for him he should have it. She knew that she would stand by what she +said. Franklin was her pride and Gerald her humiliation; she would never +accept humiliation; and though she could see Franklin go without a +qualm, she could, she saw it clearly, have a welcome for him nearly as +deep as love's, if he came back to her. And what she hoped, quite +selflessly, was that the temptation would suffice; that he would not go +to Althea. She looked into his face, and she saw that he was tormented.</p> + +<p>'But, Helen,' he said, 'the man you love loves you; doesn't that settle +everything?'</p> + +<p>She shook her head again. 'It settles nothing. I told you that I was a +woman with a broken heart. It's not mended; it never can be mended.'</p> + +<p>'But, Helen,' he said, and a pitiful smile of supplication dawned on his +ravaged little face, 'that's where you're so wrong. You've got to let it +soften and then it will have to mend. It's the hard hearts that get +broken.'</p> + +<p>'Well, mine is hard.'</p> + +<p>'Let it melt, Helen,' he pleaded with her, 'please let it melt. Please +let yourself be happy, dear Helen.'</p> + +<p>But still she shook her head, looking deeply at him, and in the +negation, in the look, it was as if she held her cup of magic steadily +before him. She was there, for him, if he would have her. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> kept him +to his word for his sake; but she kept him to his word for hers, too. +Yes, he saw that though it was for his sake, it was not for his +alone—there was the final magic—that her eyes met his in that long, +clear look. It was the nearest he would ever come to Helen; it was the +most she could ever do for him; and, with a pang, deep and piercing, he +felt all that it meant, and felt his love of her avowed in his own eyes, +and recognised, received in hers. Helplessly, now, he looked at her, his +lips pressed together so that they should not show their trembling, and +only a little muscle in his cheek quivering irrepressibly. And he +faltered: 'Helen—you could never love me back.'</p> + +<p>'Not in that way,' said Helen. She was grave and clear; she had not a +hesitation. 'But that way is ruined and over for me. I could live for +you, though. I could make it worth your while.'</p> + +<p>He looked, and he could say nothing. Against his need of Helen he must +measure Althea's need of him. He must measure, too—ah, cruel +perplexity—the chance for Helen's happiness. She was unhesitating; but +how could she know herself so inflexible, how could she know that the +hard heart might not melt? For the sake of Helen's happiness he must +measure not only Gerald's need of her against his own and Gerald's power +against his own mere pitifulness, but he must wonder, in an agony of +sudden surmise, which, in the long-run, could give her most, the loved +or the unloved man. In all his life no moment had ever equalled this in +its fulness, and its intensity, and its pain. It thundered, it rushed, +it darkened—like the moment of death by drowning and like the great +river that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> bears away the drowning man. Memories flashed in it, broken +and vivid—of Althea's eyes and Helen's smile; Althea so appealing, +Helen so strong; and, incongruous in its remoteness, a memory of the +bleak, shabby little street in a Boston suburb, the small wooden house +painted brown, where he was born, where scanty nasturtiums flowered on +the fence in summer, and in winter, by the light of a lamp with a ground +glass shade, his mother's face, careful, worn, and gentle, bent over the +family mending. Where, indeed, had the river borne him, and what had +been done to him?</p> + +<p>Helen's voice came to him, and Helen's face reshaped itself—a strange +and lovely beacon over the engulfing waters. She saw his torment and she +understood. 'Go to her if you must,' she said; 'and I know that you +must. But don't go with mistaken ideas. Remember what I tell you. +Nothing is changed—for me, or in me. If Althea doesn't want you +back—or if Althea does want you back—I shall be waiting.' And, seeing +his extremity, Helen, grave and clear, filled her cup of magic to the +brim. As she had said that morning, she said now—but with what a +difference: 'Kiss me good-bye, Franklin.'</p> + +<p>He could not move towards her; he could not kiss her; but, smiling more +tenderly than he could have thought Helen would ever smile, she put her +arms around him and drew his rapt, transfigured face to hers. And +holding him tenderly, she kissed him and said: 'Whatever happens—you've +had the best of me.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2> + + +<p>Althea, since the misty walk with Gerald, had been plunged in a pit of +mental confusion. She swung from accepted abasement to the desperate +thought of the magnanimity in such abasement; she dropped from this +fragile foothold to burning resentment, and, seeing where resentment +must lead her, she turned again and clasped, with tight-closed eyes, the +love that, looked upon, could not be held without humiliation. +Self-doubt and self-analysis had brought her to this state of pitiful +chaos. The only self left seemed centred in her love; if she did not +give up Gerald, what was left her but accepted abasement? If she let him +go, it would be to own to herself that she had failed to hold him, to +see herself as a nonentity. Yet, to go on clinging, what would that +show? Only with closed eyes could she cling. To open them for the merest +glimmer was to see that she was, indeed, nothing, if she had not +strength to relinquish a man who did not any longer, in any sense, wish +to make her his wife. With closed eyes one might imagine that it was +strength that clung; with open eyes one saw that it was weakness.</p> + +<p>Miss Harriet Robinson, all alert gaiety and appreciation, had arrived at +Merriston on Saturday, had talked all through Sunday, and had come up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +to London with Althea and Gerald on Monday morning. Gerald had gone to a +smoking-carriage, and Althea had hardly exchanged a word with him. She +and Miss Robinson went to a little hotel in Mayfair, a hotel supposed to +atone for its costliness and shabbiness by some peculiar emanation of +British comfort. Americans of an earnest, if luxurious type, congregated +there and found a satisfactory local flavour in worn chintzes and uneven +passages. Lady Blair had kindly pressed Althea to stay with her in South +Kensington and be married from her house; but even a week ago, when this +plan had been suggested, Althea had shrunk from it. It had seemed, even +then, too decisive. Once beneath Lady Blair's quasi-maternal roof one +would be propelled, like a labelled parcel, resistlessly to the altar. +Even then Althea had felt that the little hotel in Mayfair, with its +transient guests and impersonal atmosphere, offered further breathing +space for indefiniteness.</p> + +<p>She was thankful indeed for breathing space as, on the afternoon of her +arrival, she sat sunken in a large chair and felt, as one relief, that +she would not see Miss Robinson again until evening. It had been +tormenting, all the journey up, to tear herself from her own sick +thoughts and to answer Miss Robinson's unsuspecting comments and +suggestions.</p> + +<p>Miss Robinson was as complacent and as beaming as though she had herself +'settled' Althea. She richly embroidered the themes, now so remote, that +had once occupied poor Althea's imagination—house-parties at Merriston; +hostess-ship on a large scale in London; Gerald's seat in Parliament +taken as a matter-of-course. Althea, feeling the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> intolerable irony, had +attempted vague qualifications; Gerald did not care for politics; she +herself preferred a quieter life; they probably could not afford a town +house. But to such disclaimers Miss Robinson opposed the brightness of +her faith in her friend's capacities. 'Ah, my dear, it's your very +reticence, your very quietness, that will tell. Once settled—I've +always felt it of you—you will make your place—and your place can only +be a big one. My only regret is that you won't get your wedding-dress in +Paris—oh yes, I know that they have immensely improved over here; but, +for cut and <i>cachet</i>, Paris is still the only place.'</p> + +<p>This had all been tormenting, and Miss Buckston's presence at lunch had +been something of a refuge—Miss Buckston, far more interested in her +Bach choir practice than in Althea's plans, and lending but a +preoccupied attention to Miss Robinson's matrimonial talk. Miss +Buckston, at a glance, had dismissed Miss Robinson as frothy and +shallow. They were both gone now, thank goodness. Lady Blair would not +descend upon her till next morning, and Sally and Mrs. Peel were not due +in London until the end of the week. Althea sat, her head leaning back, +her eyes closed, and wondered whether Gerald would come and see her. He +had parted from her at the station, and the memory of his face, +courteous, gentle, yet so unseeing, made her feel like weeping +piteously. She spent the afternoon in the chair, her eyes closed and an +electric excitement of expectancy tingling through her, and Gerald did +not come. He did not come that evening, and the evening passed like a +phantasmagoria—the dinner in the sober little dining-room, Miss<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> +Robinson, richly dressed, opposite her; and the hours in her +drawing-room afterwards, she and Miss Robinson on either side of the +fire, quietly conversing. And next morning there was no word from him. +It was then, as she lay in bed and felt the tears, though she did not +sob, roll down over her cheeks upon the pillow, that sudden strength +came with sudden revolt. A revulsion against her suffering and the cause +of it went through her, and she seemed to shake off a torpor, an +obsession, and to re-enter some moral heritage from which, for months, +her helpless love had shut her out.</p> + +<p>Lying there, her cheeks still wet but her eyes now stern and steady, she +felt herself sustained, as if by sudden wings, at a vertiginous height +from which she looked down upon herself and upon her love. What had it +been, that love? what was it but passion pure and simple, the craving +feminine thing, enmeshed in charm. To a woman of her training, her +tradition, must not a love that could finally satisfy her nature, its +deeps and heights, be a far other love; a love of spirit rather than of +flesh? What was all the pain that had warped her for so long but the +inevitable retribution for her back-sliding? Old adages came to her, +aerial Emersonian faiths. Why, one was bound and fettered if feeling was +to rule one and not mind. Friendship, deep, spiritual congeniality, was +the real basis for marriage, not the enchantment of the heart and +senses. She had been weak and dazzled; she had followed the +will-o'-the-wisp—and see, see the bog where it had led her.</p> + +<p>She saw it now, still sustained above it and looking down. Her love for +Gerald was not a high<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> thing; it called out no greatness in her; +appealed to none; there was no spiritual congeniality between them. In +the region of her soul he was, and would always remain, a stranger.</p> + +<p>Sure of this at last, she rose and wrote to Franklin, swiftly and +urgently. She did not clearly know what she wanted of him; but she felt, +like a flame of faith within her, that he, and he only, could sustain +her at her height. He was her spiritual affinity; he was her wings. +Merely to see him, merely to steep herself in the radiance of his love +and sympathy, would be to recover power, poise, personality, and +independence. It was a goal she flew towards, though she saw it but in +dizzy glimpses, and as if through vast hallucinations of space.</p> + +<p>She told Franklin to come at six. She gave herself one more day; for +what she could not have said. A lightness of head seemed to swim over +her, and a loss of breath, when she tried to see more clearly the goal, +or what might still capture and keep her from it.</p> + +<p>She told Amélie that she had a bad headache and would spend the day on +her sofa, denying herself to Lady Blair; and all day long she lay there +with tingling nerves and a heavily beating heart—poor heart, what was +happening to it in its depths she could not tell—and Gerald did not +write or come.</p> + +<p>At tea-time Miss Robinson could not be avoided. She tip-toed in and sat +beside her sofa commenting compassionately on her pallor. 'I do so beg +you to go straight to bed, dear,' she said. 'Let me give you some sal +volatile; there is nothing better for a headache.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span></p> + +<p>But Althea, smiling heroically, said that she must stay up to see +Franklin Kane. 'He wants to see me, and will be here at six. After he is +gone I will go to bed.' She did not know why she should thus arrange +facts a little for Miss Robinson; but all her nature was stretched on +its impulse towards safety, and it was automatically that she adjusted +facts to that end. After the first great moment of enfranchisement and +soaring, it was like relapsing to some sub-conscious function of the +organism—digestion or circulation—that did things for one if one +didn't interfere with it. Her mind no longer directed her course except +in this transformed and subsidiary guise; it had become part of the +machinery of self-preservation.</p> + +<p>'You really are an angel, my dear,' said Miss Robinson. 'You oughtn't to +allow your devotees to <i>accaparer</i> you like this. You will wear yourself +out.'</p> + +<p>Althea, with a smile still more heroic, said that dear Franklin could +never wear her out; and Miss Robinson, not to be undeceived, shook her +head, while retiring to make room for the indiscreet friend.</p> + +<p>When she was gone, Althea got up and took her place in the chintz chair +where she had waited for so long yesterday.</p> + +<p>Outside, a foggy day closed to almost opaque obscurity. The fire burned +brightly, there were candles on the mantelpiece and a lamp on the table, +yet the encompassing darkness seemed to have entered the room. After the +aerial heights of the morning it was now at a corresponding depth, as if +sunken to the ocean-bed, that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> seemed to sit and wait, and feel, in +a trance-like pause, deep, essential forces working. And she remembered +the sunny day in Paris, and the other hotel drawing-room where, empty +and aimless, she had sat, only six months ago. How much had come to her +since then; through how much hope and life had she lived, to what +heights been lifted, to what depths struck down. And now, once more she +sat, bereft of everything, and waiting for she knew not what.</p> + +<p>Franklin appeared almost to the moment. Althea had not seen him since +leaving London some weeks before, and at the first glance he seemed to +her in some way different. She had only time to think, fleetingly, of +all that had happened to Franklin since she had last seen him, all the +strange, new things that Helen must have meant to him; and the thought, +fleeting though it was, made more urgent the impulse that pressed her +on. For, after all, the second glance showed him as so much the same, +the same to the unbecomingness of his clothes, the flatness of his +features, the general effect of decision and placidity that he always, +predominatingly, gave.</p> + +<p>It was on Franklin's sameness that she leaned. It was Franklin's +sameness that was her goal; she trusted it like the ground beneath her +feet. She went to him and put out her hands. 'Dear Franklin,' she said, +'I am so glad to see you.'</p> + +<p>He took her hands and held them while he looked into her eyes. The face +she lifted to him was a woeful one, in spite of the steadying of its +pale lips to a smile. It was not enfranchisement and the sustained +height that he saw—it was fear and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> desolation; they looked at him out +of her large, sad eyes and they were like an uttered cry. He saw her +need, worse still, he saw her trust; and yet, ah yet, his hope, his +unacknowledged hope, the hope which Helen's magic had poured into his +veins, pulsed in him. He saw her need, but as he looked, full of +compassion and solicitude, he was hoping that her need was not of him.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Althea burst into sobs. She leaned her face against his +shoulder, her hands still held in his, and she wept out: 'O Franklin, I +had to send for you—you are my only friend—I am so unhappy, so +unhappy.' Franklin put an arm around her, still holding her hand, and he +slightly patted her back as she leaned upon him. 'Poor Althea, poor +dear,' he said.</p> + +<p>'Oh, what shall I do, Franklin?' she whispered.</p> + +<p>'Tell me all about it,' said Franklin. 'Tell me what's the matter.'</p> + +<p>She paused for a moment, and in the pause her thoughts, released for +that one instant from their place of servitude, scurried through the +inner confusion. His tone, the quietness, kindness, rationality of it, +seemed to demand reason, not impulse, from her, the order of truth and +not the chaos of feeling. But pain and fear had worked for too long upon +her, and she did not know what truth was. All she knew was that he was +near, and tender and compassionate, and to know that seemed to be +knowing at last that here was the real love, the love of spirit from +which she had turned to lower things. Impulse, not insincere, surged up, +and moved by it alone she sobbed on, 'O Franklin, I have made a mistake, +a horrible, horrible mistake. It's killing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> me. I can't go on. I don't +love him, Franklin—I don't love Gerald—I can't marry him. And how can +I tell him? How can I break faith with him?'</p> + +<p>Franklin stood very still, his hand clasping hers, the other ceasing its +rhythmic, consolatory movement. He held her, this woman whom he had +loved for so many years, and over her bent head he looked before him at +the frivolous and ugly wall-paper, a chaos of festooned chrysanthemums +on a bright pink ground. He gazed at the chrysanthemums, and he +wondered, with a direful pang, whether Althea were consciously lying to +him.</p> + +<p>She sobbed on: 'Even in the first week, I knew that something was wrong. +Of course I was in love—but it was only that—there was nothing else +except being in love. Doubts gnawed at me from the first; I couldn't +bear to accept them; I hoped on and on. Only in this last week I've seen +that I can't—I can't marry him. Oh——' and the wail was again +repeated, 'what shall I do, Franklin?'</p> + +<p>He spoke at last, and in the disarray of her sobbing and darkened +condition—her face pressed against him, her ears full of the sound of +her own labouring breath—she could not know to the full how strange his +voice was, though she felt strangeness and caught her breath to listen.</p> + +<p>'Don't take it like this, Althea,' he said. 'It's not so bad as all +this. It can all be made right. You must just tell him the truth and set +him free.'</p> + +<p>And now there was a strange silence. He was waiting, and she was waiting +too; she stilled her breath and he stilled his; all each heard was the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> +beating of his and her own heart. And the silence, to Althea, was full +of a new and formless fear, and to Franklin of an acceptation sad beyond +all the sadnesses of his life. Even before Althea spoke, and while the +sweet, the rapturous, the impossible hope softly died away, he knew in +his heart, emptied of magic, that it was he Althea needed.</p> + +<p>She spoke at last, in a changed and trembling voice; it pierced him, for +he felt the new fear in it: 'How can I tell him the truth, Franklin?' +she said. 'How can I tell you the truth? How can I say that I turned +from the real thing, the deepest, most beautiful thing in my life—and +hurt it, broke it, put it aside, so blind, so terribly blind I was—and +took the unreal thing? How can I ever forgive myself—but, O Franklin, +much, much more, how can you ever forgive me?' her voice wailed up, +claiming him supremely.</p> + +<p>She believed it to be the truth, and he saw that she believed it. He +saw, sadly, clearly, that among all the twistings and deviations of her +predicament, one thing held firm for her, so firm that it had given her +this new faith in herself—her faith in his supreme devotion. And he saw +that he owed it to her. He had given it to her, he had made it her +possession, to trust to as she trusted to the ground under her feet, +ever since they were boy and girl together. Six months ago it would have +been with joy, and with joy only, that he would have received her, and +have received the gift of her bruised, uncertain heart. Six months—why +only a week ago he would have thought that it could only be with joy.</p> + +<p>So now he found his voice and he knew that it was nearly his old voice +for her, and he said, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> answer to that despairing statement that +wailed for contradiction: 'Oh no, Althea, dear. Oh no, you haven't +wrecked our lives.'</p> + +<p>'But you are bound now,' she hardly audibly faltered. 'You have another +life opening before you. You can't come back now.'</p> + +<p>'No, Althea,' Franklin repeated, and he stroked her shoulder again. 'I +can come back, if you want me. And you do want me, don't you, dear? You +will let me try to make you happy?'</p> + +<p>She put back her head to look at him, her poor face, tear-stained, her +eyes wild with their suffering, and he saw the new fear in them, the +formless fear. 'O Franklin,' she said, and the question was indeed a +strange one to be asked by her of him: 'do you love me?'</p> + +<p>And now, pierced by his pity, Franklin could rise to all she needed of +him. The old faith sustained him, too. One didn't love some one for all +one's life like that, to be left quite dispossessed. Many things were +changed, but many still held firm; and though, deep in his heart, sick +with its relinquishment, Helen's words seemed to whisper, 'Some things +can't be joys when they come too late,' he could answer himself as he +had answered her, putting away the irony and scepticism of +disenchantment—'It's wonderful the way joy can grow,' and draw strength +for himself and for his poor Althea from that act of affirmation.</p> + +<p>'Why, of course I love you, Althea, dear,' he said. 'How can you ask me +that? I've always loved you, haven't I? You knew I did, didn't you, or +else you wouldn't have sent? You knew I wasn't bound if you were free. I +understand it all.' And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> smiling at her so that she should forget for +ever that she had had a new fear, he added, 'And see here, dear, you +mustn't delay a moment in letting Gerald know. Come, write him a note +now, and I'll have it sent to his club so that he shall hear right +away.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2> + + +<p>Helen woke next morning after unbroken, heavy slumbers, with a mind as +vague and empty as a young child's. All night long she had been dreaming +strange, dreary dreams of her youth. There had been no pain in them, or +fear, only a sad lassitude, as of one who, beaten and weary, looks back +from a far distance at pain and fear outlived. And lying in her bed, +inert and placid, she felt as if she had been in a great battle, and +that after the annihilation of anæsthetics she had waked to find herself +with limbs gone and wounds bandaged, passive and acquiescent, in a world +from which all large issues had been eliminated for ever.</p> + +<p>It was the emptiest kind of life on which her eyes opened so quietly +this morning. She was not even to be life's captive. The little note +which had come to her last night from Franklin and now lay beside her +bed had told her that. He had told her that Althea had taken him back, +and he had only added, 'Thank you, dear Helen, for all that you have +given me and all that you were willing to give.'</p> + +<p>In the overpowering sense of sadness that had been the last of the day's +great emotions Helen had found no mitigation of relief for her own +escape. That she had escaped made only an added bitterness. And even +sadness seemed to be a memory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> this morning, and the relief that came, +profound and almost sweet, was in the sense of having passed away from +feeling. She had felt too much; though, had life been in her with which +to think or feel, she could have wept over Franklin.</p> + +<p>Sometimes she closed her eyes, too much at peace for a smile; sometimes +she looked quietly about her familiar little room, above Aunt Grizel's, +and showing from its windows only a view of the sky and of the +chimney-pots opposite, a room oddly empty of associations and links; no +photographs, few books, few pictures; only the vase of flowers she liked +always to have near her; her old Bible and prayer-book and hymnal, +battered by years rather than by use, for religion held no part at all +in Helen's life; and two faded prints of seventeenth-century +battleships, sailing in gallant squadrons on a silvery sea. These had +hung in Helen's schoolroom, and she had always been fond of them. The +room was symbolic of her life, so insignificant in every outer contact, +so centred, in her significant self, on its one deep preoccupation. But +there was no preoccupation now. Gerald's image passed before her and +meant nothing more than the other things she looked at, while her mind +drifted like an aimless butterfly from the flowers and the prints to the +pretty old mirror—a gift of Gerald's—and hovered over the graceful +feminine objects scattered upon the chairs and tables. The thought of +Gerald stirred nothing more than a mild wonder. What a strange thing, +her whole life hanging on this man, coloured, moulded by him. What did +such a feeling mean? and what had she really wanted of Gerald more than +he had given? She wanted nothing now.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was with an effort—a painful, dragging effort—that she roused +herself to talk to Aunt Grizel, who appeared at the same time as her +breakfast. Not that she needed to act placidity and acquiescence before +Aunt Grizel; she felt them too deeply to need to act; the pain, perhaps, +came from having nothing else with which to meet her.</p> + +<p>Aunt Grizel was amazed, distressed, nearly indignant; she only was not +indignant because of a pity that perplexed even while it soothed her. +She, too, had had a letter from Franklin that morning, and only that +morning had heard of the broken engagement and of how Franklin faced it. +She did not offer to show Helen Franklin's letter, which she held in her +hand, emphasising her perplexity by doubling it over and slapping her +palm with it. 'She sent for him, then.' It was on Althea that she longed +to discharge her smothered anger.</p> + +<p>Helen was ready for her; to have to be so ready was part of the pain. +'Well, in a sense perhaps, it was all she could do, wasn't it? when she +found that she couldn't go on with Gerald, and really wanted Franklin at +last.'</p> + +<p>'Rather late in the day to come to that conclusion when Mr. Kane was +engaged to another woman.'</p> + +<p>'Well—he was engaged to another woman only because Althea wouldn't have +him.'</p> + +<p>'Oh!—Ah!' Aunt Grizel was non-committal on this point. 'She lets him +seem to jilt you.'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps she does.' Helen's placidity was profound.</p> + +<p>'I know Mr. Kane, he wouldn't have been willing to do that unless +pressure had been brought to bear.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Pressure was, I suppose; the pressure of his own feeling and of +Althea's unhappiness. He saw that his chance had come and he had to take +it. He couldn't go on and marry me, could he, Aunt Grizel? when he saw +the chance had come for him to take,' said Helen reasonably.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said Aunt Grizel, 'the main point isn't, of course, what the +people who know of your engagement will think—we don't mind that. What +we want to decide on is what we think ourselves. I keep my own counsel, +for I know you'd rather I did, and you keep yours. But what about this +money? He writes to me that he wants me to take over from him quite a +little fortune, so that when I die I can leave you about a thousand a +year. He has thought it out; it isn't too much and it isn't too little. +He is altogether a remarkable man; his tact never fails him. Of course +it's nothing compared with what he wanted to do for you; but at the same +time it's so much that, to put it brutally, you get for nothing the +safety I wanted you to marry him to get.'</p> + +<p>Helen's delicate and weary head now turned on its pillow to look at Aunt +Grizel. They looked at each other for some time in silence, and in the +silence they took counsel together. After the interchange Helen could +say, smiling a little, 'We mustn't put it brutally; that is the one +thing we must never do. Not only for his sake,' she wanted Aunt Grizel +to see it clearly, 'but for mine.'</p> + +<p>'How shall we put it, then? It's hardly a possible thing to accept, yet, +if he hadn't believed you would let him make you safe, would he have +gone back to Miss Jakes? One sees his point.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p> + +<p>'We mustn't put it brutally, because it isn't true,' said Helen, +ignoring this last inference. 'I couldn't let you take it for me unless +I cared very much for him; and I care so much that I can't take it.'</p> + +<p>Aunt Grizel was silent for another moment. 'I see: it's because it's all +you can do for him now.'</p> + +<p>'All that he can do for me, now,' Helen just corrected her.</p> + +<p>'Wasn't it all he ever could do, and more? He makes you safe—of course +it's not what I wanted for you, but it's part of it—he makes you safe +and he removes himself.'</p> + +<p>Aunt Grizel saw the truth so clearly that Helen could allow her to seem +brutal. 'It's only because we could both do a good deal for each other +that doing this is possible,' she said.</p> + +<p>She then roused herself to pour out her coffee and butter her toast, and +Miss Buchanan sat in silence beside her, tapping Franklin Winslow Kane's +letter on her palm from time to time. And at last she brought out her +final decision. 'When I write to him and tell him that I accept, I shall +tell him too, that I'm sorry.'</p> + +<p>'Sorry? For what?' Helen did not quite follow her.</p> + +<p>'That it's all he can do now,' said Aunt Grizel; 'that he is removing +himself.'</p> + +<p>It was her tribute to Franklin, and Helen, even for the sake of all the +delicate appearances, couldn't protest against such a tribute. She was +glad that Franklin was to know, from Aunt Grizel, that he, himself, was +regretted. So that she said, 'Yes; I'm glad you can tell him that.'</p> + +<p>It was at this moment of complete understanding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> that the maid came in +and said that Mr. Digby was downstairs and wanted to see Miss Helen. He +would wait as long as she liked. There was then a little pause, and Aunt +Grizel saw a greater weariness pass over her niece's face.</p> + +<p>'Very well,' she spoke for her to the maid. 'Tell Mr. Digby that some +one will be with him directly,' and, as the door closed: 'You're not fit +to see him this morning, Helen,' she said; 'not fit to pour balms into +his wounds. Let me do it for you.'</p> + +<p>Helen lay gazing before her, and she was still silent. She did not know +what she wanted; but she did know that she did not want to see Gerald. +The thought of seeing him was intolerable. 'Will you pour balms?' she +said. 'I'm afraid you are not too sorry for Gerald.'</p> + +<p>'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not,' said Aunt Grizel, smiling a +little grimly. 'He takes things too easily, and I confess that it does +rather please me to see him, for once in his life, "get left." He needed +to "get left."'</p> + +<p>'Well, you won't tell him that, if I let you go to him instead of me? +You will be nice to him?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, I'll be nice enough. I'll condole with him.'</p> + +<p>'Tell him,' said Helen, as Aunt Grizel moved resolutely to the door, +'that I can't see anybody; not for a long time. I shall go away, I +think.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2> + + +<p>Miss Grizel had known Gerald all his life, and yet she was not intimate +with him, and during the years that Helen had lived with her she had +come to feel a certain irritation against him. Her robust and caustic +nature had known no touch of jealousy for the place he held in Helen's +life. It was dispassionately that she observed, and resented on Helen's +account, the exacting closeness of a friendship with a man who, she +considered, was not worth so much time and attention. She suspected +nothing of the hidden realities of Helen's feeling, yet she did suspect, +acutely, that, had it not been for Gerald, Helen might have had more +time for other things. It was Gerald who monopolised and took for +granted. He came, and Helen was always ready. Miss Grizel had not liked +Gerald to be so assured. She was pleased, now, in going downstairs, that +Gerald Digby should find, for once, and at a moment of real need, that +Helen could not see him.</p> + +<p>He was standing before the fire, his eyes on the door, and as she looked +at him Miss Grizel experienced a certain softening of mood. She decided +that she had, to some extent, misjudged Gerald; he had, then, capacity +for caring deeply. Miss Jakes's defection had knocked him about badly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> +There was kindness in her voice as she said: 'Good morning,' and gave +him her hand.</p> + +<p>But Gerald was not thinking of her or of her kindness. 'Where is Helen?' +he asked, shaking and then automatically retaining her hand.</p> + +<p>'You can't see Helen to-day,' said Miss Grizel, a little nettled by the +open indifference. 'She is not at all well. This whole affair, as you +may imagine, has been singularly painful for her to go through. She asks +me to tell you that she can see nobody for a long time. We are going +away; we are going to the Riviera,' said Miss Grizel, making the resolve +on the spot.</p> + +<p>Gerald held her hand and looked at her with a feverish unseeing gaze. 'I +must see Helen,' he said.</p> + +<p>'My dear Gerald,' Miss Grizel disengaged her hand and went to a chair, +'this really isn't an occasion for musts. Helen has had a shock as well +as you, and you certainly shan't see her.'</p> + +<p>'Does she say I shan't?'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel's smile was again grim. 'She says you shan't, and so do I. +She's not fit to see anybody.'</p> + +<p>Gerald looked at her for another moment and then turned to the +writing-table. 'I beg your pardon; I don't mean to be rude. Only I +really must see her. Do you mind my writing a line? Will you have it +taken to her?'</p> + +<p>'Certainly,' said Miss Grizel, compressing her lips.</p> + +<p>Gerald sat down and wrote, quickly, yet carefully, pausing between the +sentences and fixing the same unseeing gaze on the garden. He then rose +and gave the note to Miss Grizel, who, ringing, gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> it to the maid, +after which she and Gerald remained sitting on opposite sides of the +room in absolute silence for quite a long while.</p> + +<p>Gerald's note had been short. 'Don't be so unspeakably cruel,' it ran, +without preamble. 'You know, don't you, that it has all turned out +perfectly? Althea has thrown me over and taken Kane. I've made them +happy at all events. As for us—O Helen, you must see me. I can't wait. +I can't wait for an hour. I beseech you to come. Only let me see +you.—<span class="smcap">Gerald.</span>'</p> + +<p>To this appeal the maid presently brought the answer, which Gerald, +oblivious of Miss Grizel's scrutiny, tore open and read.</p> + +<p>'Don't make me despise you, Gerald. You come because of what I told you +yesterday, and I told you because it was over, so that you insult me by +coming. You must believe me when I say that it is over, and until you +can meet me as if you had forgotten, I cannot see you. I will not see +you now. I do not want to see you.—<span class="smcap">Helen.</span>'</p> + +<p>He read this, and Miss Grizel saw the blood surge into his face. He +leaned back in his chair, crumpled Helen's note in his fingers, and +looked out of the window. Again Miss Grizel was sorry for him, though +with her sympathy there mingled satisfaction. Presently Gerald looked at +her, and it was as if he were, at last, aware of her. He looked for a +long time, and suddenly, like some one spent and indifferent, he said, +offering his explanation: 'You see—I'm in love with Helen—and she +won't have me.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel gasped and gazed. 'In love with Helen? You?' she repeated. +The gold locket on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> her ample bosom had risen with her astounded breath.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Gerald, 'and she won't have me.'</p> + +<p>'But Miss Jakes?' said Miss Grizel.</p> + +<p>'She is in love with Kane, and Kane with her—as he always has been, you +know. They are all right. Everything is all right, except Helen.'</p> + +<p>A queer illumination began to shoot across Miss Grizel's stupor.</p> + +<p>'Perhaps you told Helen that you loved her before Miss Jakes threw you +over. Perhaps you told Mr. Kane that Miss Jakes loved him before she +threw you over. Perhaps it's you who have upset the apple-cart.'</p> + +<p>'I suppose it is,' said Gerald, gloomily, but without contrition. 'I +thought it would bring things right to have the facts out. It has +brought them right—for Althea and Kane; they will be perfectly happy +together.'</p> + +<p>This simplicity, in the face of her own deep knowledge—the knowledge +she had built on in sending for Franklin Kane a week ago—roused a +ruthless ire in Miss Grizel. 'I'm afraid that you've let your own wishes +sadly deceive you,' she said. 'I must tell you, since you evidently +don't know it, that Mr. Kane is in love with Helen; deeply in love with +her. From what I understand of the situation you have sacrificed him to +your own feeling, and perhaps sacrificed Miss Jakes too; but I don't go +into that.'</p> + +<p>It was now Gerald's turn to gaze and gasp; he did not gasp, however; he +only gazed—gazed with a gaze no longer inward and unseeing. He was, at +last, seeing everything. He fell back on the one most evident thing he +saw, and had from the be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>ginning seen. 'But Helen—she could never have +loved him. Such a marriage would be unfit for Helen. I'm not excusing +myself. I see I've been an unpardonable fool in one way.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel's ire increased. 'Unfit for Helen? Why, pray? He would have +given her the position of a princess—in our funny modern sense. I +intended, and I made the marriage. I saw he'd fallen in love with +her—dear little man—though at the time he didn't know it himself. And +since then I've had the satisfaction—one of the greatest of my life—of +seeing how happy I had made both of them. It was obvious, touchingly so, +that he was desperately in love with Helen. Yes, Gerald, don't come to +me for sympathy and help. You've wrecked a thing I had set my heart on. +You've wrecked Mr. Kane, and my opinion is that you've wrecked Helen +too.'</p> + +<p>Gerald, who had become very pale, kept his eyes on her, and he went back +to his one foothold in a rocking world. 'Helen could never have loved +him.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel shook her hand impatiently above her knee. 'Love! Love! What +do you all mean with your love, I'd like to know? What's this sudden +love of yours for Helen, you who, until yesterday, were willing to marry +another woman for her money—or were you in love with her too? What's +Miss Jakes's love of Mr. Kane, who, until a week ago, thought herself in +love with you? And you may well ask me what is Mr. Kane's love of Helen, +who, until a week ago, thought himself in love with Miss Jakes? But +there I answer you that he is the only one of you who seems to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> to +know what love is. One can respect his feeling; it means more than +himself and his own emotions. It means something solid and dependable. +Helen recognised it, and Helen's feeling for him—though it certainly +wasn't love in your foolish sense—was something that she valued more +than anything you can have to offer her. And I repeat, though I'm sorry +to pain you, that it is clear to me that you have wrecked her life as +well as Mr. Kane's.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel had had her say. She stood up, her lips compressed, her eyes +weighty with their hard, good sense. And Gerald rose, too. He was at a +disadvantage, and an unfair one, but he did not think of that. He +thought, with stupefaction, of what he had done in this room the day +before to Franklin and to Helen. In the depths of his heart he couldn't +wish it undone, for he couldn't conceive of himself now as married to +Althea, nor could he, in spite of Miss Grizel's demonstrations, conceive +of Helen as married to Franklin Kane. But with all the depths of his +heart he wished what he had done, done differently. And although he +couldn't conceive of Helen as married to Franklin Kane, although he +couldn't accept Miss Grizel's account of her state as final, nor believe +her really wrecked—since, after all, she loved him, not Franklin—he +could clearly conceive from Miss Grizel's words that by doing it as he +had, he had wrecked many things and endangered many. What these things +were her words only showed him confusedly, and his clearest impulse now +was to see just what they were, to see just what he had done. Miss +Grizel couldn't show him, for Miss Grizel didn't know the facts; Helen +would not show him, she refused to see him; his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> mind leaped at once, as +he rose and stood looking rather dazedly about before going, to Franklin +Kane. Kane, as he had said yesterday, was the one person in the world +before whom one could have such things out. Even though he had wrecked +Kane, Kane was still the only person he could turn to. And since he had +wrecked him in his ignorance he felt that now, in his enlightenment, he +owed him something infinitely delicate and infinitely deep in the way of +apology.</p> + +<p>'Well, thank you,' he said, grasping Miss Grizel's hand. 'You had to say +it, and it had to be said. Good-bye.'</p> + +<p>Miss Grizel, not displeased with his fashion of taking her chastisement, +returned his grasp. 'Yes,' she said, 'you couldn't go on as you were. +But all the same, I'm sorry for you.'</p> + +<p>'Oh,' Gerald smiled a little. 'I don't suppose you've much left for me, +and no wonder.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, I've plenty left for you,' said Miss Grizel. And, in thinking +over his expression as he had left her, the smile, its self-mockery, yet +its lack of bitterness, his courage, and yet the frankness of his +disarray, she felt that she liked Gerald more than she had ever liked +him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2> + + +<p>'Why, yes, of course I can see you. Do sit down.' Franklin spoke +gravely, scanning his visitor's face while he moved piles of pamphlets +from a chair and pushed aside the books and papers spread before him on +the table.</p> + +<p>Gerald had found him, after a fruitless morning call, at his lodgings in +Clarges Street, and Franklin, in the dim little sitting-room, had risen +from the work that, for hours, had given him a feeling of anchorage—not +too secure—in a world where many of his bearings were painfully +confused. Seeing him so occupied, Gerald, in the doorway, had hesitated: +'Am I interrupting you? Shall I come another time? I want very much to +see you, if I may.' And Franklin had replied with his quick reassurance, +too kindly for coldness, yet too grave for cordiality.</p> + +<p>Gerald sat down at the other side of the table and glanced at the array +of papers spread upon it. They gave him a further sense of being beyond +his depth. It was like seeing suddenly the whole bulk of some ocean +craft, of which before one had noticed only the sociable and very +insignificant decks and riggings, lifted, for one's scientific +edification, in its docks. All the laborious, underlying meaning of +Franklin's life was symbolised in these neat papers and heavy books. +Gerald tried to remember, with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> only partial success, what Franklin's +professional interests were; people's professional interests had rarely +engaged his attention. It was queer to realise that the greater part of +Franklin Kane's life was something entirely alien from his own +imagination, and Gerald felt, as we have said, beyond his depth in +realising it. Yet the fact of a significance he had no power of gauging +did not disconcert him; he was quite willing to swim as best he could +and even to splash grotesquely; quite willing to show Franklin Kane that +he was very helpless and very ignorant, and could only appeal for mercy.</p> + +<p>'Please be patient with me if I make mistakes,' he said. 'I probably +shall make mistakes; please bear with me.'</p> + +<p>Franklin, laying one pamphlet on another, did not reply to this, keeping +only his clear, kind gaze responsively on the other's face.</p> + +<p>'In the first place,' said Gerald, looking down and reaching out for a +thick blue pencil which he seemed to examine while he spoke, 'I must ask +your pardon. I made a terrible fool of myself yesterday afternoon. As +you said, there were so many things I didn't see. I do see them now.'</p> + +<p>He lifted his eyes from the pencil, and Franklin, after meeting them for +a moment, said gently: 'Well, there isn't much good in looking at them, +is there? As for asking my pardon—you couldn't have helped not knowing +those things.'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps I ought to have guessed them, but I didn't. I was able to play +the fool in perfect good faith.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I don't know about that; I don't know that you played the fool,' +said Franklin.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>'My second point is this,' said Gerald. 'Of course I'm not going to +pretend anything. You know that I love Helen and that I believe she +loves me, and that for that reason I've a right to seem silly and +fatuous and do my best to get her. I quite see what you must both of you +have thought of me yesterday. I quite see that she couldn't stand my +blindness—to all you meant and felt, you know, and then my imagining +that everything could be patched up between her and me. She wants me to +feel my folly to the full, and no wonder. But that sort of bitterness +would have to go down where people love—wouldn't it? it's something +that can be got over. But that's what I want to ask you; perhaps I'm +more of a fool than I yet know; perhaps what her aunt tells me is true; +perhaps I've wrecked Helen as well as wrecked you. It's a very queer +question to ask—and you must forgive me—no one can answer it but you, +except Helen, and Helen won't see me. Do you really think I have wrecked +her?'</p> + +<p>Everybody seemed to be asking this question of poor Franklin. He gave it +his attention in this, its new application, and before answering, he +asked:</p> + +<p>'What's happened since I saw you?'</p> + +<p>Gerald informed him of the events of the morning.</p> + +<p>'I suppose,' said Franklin, reflecting, 'that you shouldn't have gone so +soon. You ought to have given her more time to adjust herself. It looked +a little too sure, didn't it? as if you felt that now that you'd settled +matters satisfactorily you could come and claim her.'</p> + +<p>'I know now what it looked like,' said Gerald; 'but, you see, I didn't +know this morning. And I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> was sure, I am sure,' he said, fixing his +charming eyes sadly and candidly upon Franklin, 'that Helen and I belong +to one another.'</p> + +<p>Franklin continued to reflect. 'Well, yes, I understand that,' he said. +'But how can you make her feel it? Why weren't you sure long ago?'</p> + +<p>'Oh, you ask me again why I was a fool,' said Gerald gloomily, 'and I +can only reply that Helen was too clever. After all, falling in love is +suddenly seeing something and wanting something, isn't it? Well, Helen +never let me see and never let me want.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, that's just the trouble. She's let you see, so that you do want, +now. But that can't be very satisfactory to her, can it?' said Franklin, +with all his impartiality.</p> + +<p>'Of course it can't!' said Gerald, with further gloom. 'And don't, +please, imagine that I'm idiotic enough to think myself satisfactory. My +only point is that I belong to her, unsatisfactory as I am, and that, +unless I've really wrecked her, and myself—I must be able to make her +feel that it's her point too; that other things can't really count, +finally, beside it. Have I wrecked her?' Gerald repeated. 'I mean, would +she have been really happier with you? Forgive me for asking you such a +question.'</p> + +<p>Franklin again resumed his occupation of laying the pamphlets of one +pile neatly upon those of the other. He had all his air of impartial +reflection, yet his hand trembled a little, and Gerald, noticing this, +murmured again, turning away his eyes: 'Forgive me. Please understand. I +must know what I've done.'</p> + +<p>'You see,' said Franklin, after a further silence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> while he continued +to transfer the pamphlets; 'quite apart from my own feelings—which do, +I suppose, make it a difficult question to answer—I really don't know +how to answer, because what I feel is that the answer depends on you. I +mean,' said Franklin, glancing up, 'do you love her most, or do I? And +even beyond that—because, of course, the man who loved her least might +make her happiest if she loved him—have you got it in you to give her +life? Have you got it in you to give her something beyond yourself to +live for? Helen doesn't love me, she never could have loved me, and I +believe, with you, that she loves you; but even so it's quite possible +that in the long-run I might have made her happier than you can, unless +you have—in yourself—more to make her happy with.'</p> + +<p>Gerald gazed at Franklin, and Franklin gazed back at him. In Gerald's +face a flush slowly mounted, a vivid flush, sensitive and suffering as a +young girl's. And as if Franklin had borne a mild but effulgent light +into the innermost chambers of his heart, and made self-contemplation +for the first time in his life, perhaps, real to him, he said in a +gentle voice: 'I'm afraid you're making me hopeless. I'm afraid I've +nothing to give Helen—beyond myself. I'm a worthless fellow, really, +you know. I've never made anything of myself or taken anything seriously +at all. So how can Helen take me seriously? Yes, I see it, and I've +robbed her of everything. Only,' said Gerald, leaning forward with his +elbows on the table and his forehead on his hands, while he tried to +think it out, 'it is serious, now, you know. It's really serious at +last. I would try to give her something beyond myself and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> to make +things worth while for her—I see what you mean; but I don't believe I +shall ever be able to make her believe it now.'</p> + +<p>They sat thus for a long time in silence—Gerald with his head leant on +his hands, Franklin looking at him quietly and thoughtfully. And as a +result of long reflection, he said at last: 'If she loves you still, you +won't have to try to make her believe it. I'd like to believe it, and so +would you; but if Helen loves you, she'll take you for yourself, of +course. The question is, does she love you? Does she love you enough, I +mean, to want to mend and grow again? Perhaps it's that way you've +wrecked her; perhaps it's withered her—going on for all these years +caring, while you didn't see and want.'</p> + +<p>From behind his hands Gerald made a vague sound of acquiescent distress. +'What shall I do?' he then articulated. 'She won't see me. She says she +won't see me until I can meet her as if I'd forgotten. It isn't with +Helen the sort of thing it would mean with most women. She's not saving +her dignity by threats and punishments she won't hold to. Helen always +means what she says—horribly.'</p> + +<p>Franklin contemplated the bent head. Gerald's thick hair, disordered by +the long, fine fingers that ran up into it; Gerald's attitude sitting +there, miserable, yet not undignified, helpless, yet not humble; +Gerald's whole personality, its unused strength, its secure sweetness, +affected him strangely. He didn't feel near Gerald as he had, in a +sense, felt near Helen. They were aliens, and would remain so; but he +felt tenderly towards him. And, even while it inflicted a steady, +probing wound to recognise it, he recognised, profoundly, sadly, and +finally,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> that Gerald and Helen did belong to each other, by an affinity +deeper than moral standards and immeasurable by the test of happiness. +Helen had been right to love him all her life. He felt as if he, from +his distance, loved him, for himself, and because he was loveable. And +he wanted Helen to take Gerald. He was sure, now, that he wanted it.</p> + +<p>'See here,' he said, in his voice of mild, fraternal deliberation, 'I +don't know whether it will do much good, but we'll try it. Helen has a +very real feeling for me, you know; Helen likes me and thinks of me as a +true friend. I'm certainly not satisfactory to her,' and Franklin smiled +a little; 'but all the same she's very fond of me; she'd do a lot to +please me; I'm sure of it. So how would it be if I wrote to her and put +things to her, you know?'</p> + +<p>Gerald raised his head and looked over the table across the piled +pamphlets at Franklin. For a long time he looked at him, and presently +Franklin saw that tears had mounted to his eyes. The emotion that he +felt to be so unusual, communicated itself to him. He really hadn't +known till he saw Gerald Digby's eyes fill with tears what his own +emotion was. It surged up in him suddenly, blotting out Gerald's face, +overpowering the long resistance of his trained control; and it was with +an intolerable sense of loss and desolation that, knowing that he loved +Gerald and that Gerald's tears were a warrant for his loveableness and +for the workings of fate against himself, he put his head down on his +arms and, not sobbing, not weeping, yet overcome, he let the waves of +his sorrow meet over him.</p> + +<p>He did not know, then, what he thought or felt. All that he was +conscious of was the terrible sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span>merging of will and thought and the +engulfing sense of desolation; and all that he seemed to hear was the +sound of his own heart beating the one lovely and agonising word: +'Helen—Helen—Helen!'</p> + +<p>He was aware at last, dimly, that Gerald had moved, had come round the +table, and was leaning on it beside him. Then Gerald put his hand on +Franklin's hand. The touch drew him up out of his depths. He raised his +head, keeping his face hidden, and he clasped Gerald's hand for a +moment. Then Gerald said brokenly: 'You mustn't write. You mustn't do +anything for me. You must let me take my own chances—and if I've none +left, it will be what I deserve.'</p> + +<p>These words, like air breathed in after long suffocation under water, +cleared Franklin's mind. He shook his head, and he found Gerald's hand +again while he said, able now, as the light grew upon him, to think:</p> + +<p>'I want to write. I want you to have all the chances you can.'</p> + +<p>'I don't deserve them,' said Gerald.</p> + +<p>'I don't know about that,' said Franklin, 'I don't know about that at +all. And besides'—and now he found something of his old whimsicality to +help his final argument—'let's say, if you'd rather, that Helen +deserves them. Let's say that it's for Helen's sake that I want you to +have every chance.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII.</h2> + + +<p>Helen received Franklin's letter by the first post next morning. She +read it in bed, where she had remained ever since parting from him, +lying there with closed eyes in the drowsy apathy that had fallen upon +her.<br /></p> + + +<blockquote><p>'<span class="smcap">Dear Helen</span>,'—Franklin wrote, and something in the writing +pained her even before she read the words—'Gerald Digby has been with +me here. Your aunt has been telling him things. He knows that I care for +you and what it all meant yesterday. It has been a very painful +experience for him, as you may imagine, and the way he took it made me +like him very much. It's because of that that I'm writing to you now. +The thing that tormented me most was the idea that, perhaps, with all my +deficiencies, I could give you more than he could. I hadn't a very high +opinion of him, you know. I felt you might be safer with me. But now, +from what I've seen, I'm sure that he is the man for you. I understand +how you could have loved him for all your life. He's not as big as you +are, nor as strong; he hasn't your character; but you'll make him +grow—and no one else can, for he loves you with his whole heart, and +he's a broken man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Dear Helen, I know what it feels like now. You're withered and burnt +out. It's lasted too long to be felt any longer and you believe it's +dead. But it isn't dead, Helen; I'm sure it isn't. Things like that +don't die unless something else comes and takes their place. It's +withered, but it will grow again. See him; be kind to him, and you'll +find out. And even if you can't find out yet, even if you think it's all +over, look at it this way. You know our talk about marriage and how you +were willing to marry me, not loving me; well, look at it this way, for +his sake, and for mine. He needs you more than anything; he'll be +nothing, or less and less, without you; with you he'll be more and more. +Think of his life. You've got responsibility for that, Helen; you've let +him depend on you always—and you've got responsibility, too, for what's +happened now. You told him—I'm not blaming you—I understand—I think +you were right; but you changed things for him and made him see what he +hadn't seen before; nothing can ever be the same for him again; you +mustn't forget that; your friendship is spoiled for him, after what +you've done. So at the very least you can feel sorry for him and feel +like a mother to him, and marry him for that—as lots of women do.</p> + +<p>'Now I'm going to be very egotistical, but you'll know why. Think of my +life, dear Helen. We won't hide from what we know. We know that I love +you and that to give you up—even if, in a way, I had to—was the +greatest sacrifice of my life. Now, what I put to you is this: Is it +going to be for nothing—I mean for nothing where you are concerned? If +I'm to think of you going on alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> with your heart getting harder and +drier every year, and everything tender and trustful dying out of you—I +don't see how I can bear it.</p> + +<p>'So what I ask you is to try to be happy; what I ask you is to try to +make him happy; just look at it like that; try to make him happy and to +help him to grow to be a fine, big person, and then you'll find out that +you are growing, too, in all sorts of ways you never dreamed of.</p> + +<p>'When you get this, write to him and tell him that he may come. And when +he is with you, be kind to him. Oh—my dear Helen—I do beg it of you. +Put it like this—be kind to me and try.—<br /> +Your affectionate</p> + +<p class='author'><span class="smcap">Franklin</span>.'<br /></p></blockquote> + + + +<p>When Helen had read this letter she did not weep, but she felt as if +some hurt, almost deeper than she could endure, was being inflicted on +her. It had begun with the first sight of Franklin's letter; the writing +of it had looked like hard, steady breathing over some heart-arresting +pain. Franklin's suffering flowed into her from every gentle, careful +sentence; and to Helen, so unaware, till now, of any one's suffering but +her own, this sharing of Franklin's was an experience new and +overpowering. No tears came, while she held the letter and looked before +her intently, and it was not as if her heart softened; but it seemed to +widen, as if some greatness, irresistible and grave, forced a way into +it. It widened to Franklin, to the thought of Franklin and to Franklin's +suffering; its sorrow and its compassion were for Franklin; and as it +received and enshrined him, it shut Gerald out. There was no room for +Gerald in her heart.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>She would do part of what Franklin asked of her, of course. She would +see Gerald; she would be kind to him; she would even try to feel for +him. But the effort was easy because she was so sure that it would be +fruitless. For Gerald, she was withered and burnt out. If she were to +'grow'—dear, funny phrases, even in her extremity, Helen could smile +over them; even though she loved dear Franklin and enshrined him, his +phrases would always seem funny to her—but if she were to grow it must +be for Franklin, and in a different way from what he asked. She would +indeed try not to become harder and drier; she would try to make of her +life something not too alien from his ideal for her; she would try to +pursue the just and the beautiful. But to rekindle the burnt-out fires +of her love was a miracle that even Franklin's love and Franklin's +suffering could not perform, and as for marrying Gerald in order to be a +mother to him, she did not feel it possible, even for Franklin's sake, +to assume that travesty.</p> + +<p>It was at five o'clock that she asked Gerald to come and see her. She +went down to him in her sitting-room, when, on the stroke of the clock, +he was announced. She felt that it required no effort to meet him, +beyond the forcing of her weariness.</p> + +<p>Gerald was standing before the fire, and in looking at him, as she +entered and closed the door, she was aware of a little sense of +surprise. She had not expected to find him, since the crash of Aunt +Grizel's revelations, as fatuous as the day before yesterday; nor had +she expected the boyish sulkiness of that day's earlier mood. She +expected change and the signs of discomfort and distress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> It was this +haggard brightness for which she was unprepared. He looked as if he +hadn't slept or eaten, and under jaded eyelids his eyes had the +sparkling fever of insomnia.</p> + +<p>Helen felt that she could thoroughly carry out the first of Franklin's +requests; she could be kind and she could be sorry; yes, Gerald was very +unhappy; it was strange to think of, and pitiful.</p> + +<p>'Have you had any tea?' she asked him, giving him her hand, which he +pressed mechanically.</p> + +<p>'No, thanks,' said Gerald.</p> + +<p>'Do have some. You look hungry.'</p> + +<p>'I'm not hungry, thanks.' He was neither hostile nor pleading; he only +kept his eyes fixed on her with bright watchfulness, rather as a +patient's eyes watch the doctor who is to pronounce a verdict, and +Helen, with all her kindness, felt a little irked and ill at ease before +his gaze.</p> + +<p>'You've heard from Kane?' Gerald said, after a pause. Helen had taken +her usual place in the low chair.</p> + +<p>'Yes, this morning.'</p> + +<p>'And that's why you sent for me?'</p> + +<p>'Yes,' said Helen, 'he asked me to.'</p> + +<p>Gerald looked down into the fire. 'I can't tell you what I think of him. +You can't care to hear, of course. You know what I've done to him, and +that must make you feel that I'm not the person to talk about him. But +I've never met any one so good.'</p> + +<p>'He is good. I'm glad to hear you say it. He is the best person I've +ever met, too,' said Helen. 'As for what you did to him, you didn't know +what you were doing.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I don't think that stupidity is any excuse. I ought to have felt he +couldn't be near you like that, and not love you. I robbed him of you, +didn't I? If it hadn't been for what I did, you would have married him, +all the same—in spite of what you told me, I mean.'</p> + +<p>Helen had coloured a little, and after a pause in which she thought over +his words she said: 'Yes, of course I would have married him all the +same. But it was really I, in what I told you, who brought it upon +myself and upon Franklin.'</p> + +<p>For a little while there was silence and then Gerald said, delicately, +yet with a directness that showed he took for granted in her a detached +candour equal to his own: 'I think I asked it stupidly. I suppose the +thing I can't even yet realise is that, in a way, I robbed you too. I've +robbed you of everything, haven't I, Helen?'</p> + +<p>'Not of everything,' said Helen, glad really of the small consolation +she could offer him. 'Not of financial safety, as it happens. It will +make you less unhappy to hear, so I must tell you, Franklin is arranging +things with Aunt Grizel so that when she dies I shall come into quite a +nice little bit of money. I shall have no more sordid worries. In that +way you mustn't have me on your conscience.'</p> + +<p>Gerald's eyes were on her and they took in this fact of her safety with +no commotion; it was but one—and a lesser—among the many strange facts +he had had to take in. And he forced himself to look squarely at what he +had conceived to be the final impossibility as he asked: 'And—in other +ways?—Could you have fallen in love with him, Helen?'</p> + +<p>It was so bad, so inconceivably bad a thing to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> face, that his relief +was like a joy when Helen answered. 'No, I could never have fallen in +love with dear Franklin. But I cared for him very much, the more, no +doubt, from having ceased to care about love. I felt that he was the +best person, the truest, the dearest, I had ever known, and that we +would make a success of our life together.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, yes, of course,' Gerald hastened past her qualifications to the +one liberating fact. 'Two people like you would have had to. But you +didn't love him; you couldn't have come to love him. I haven't robbed +you of a man you could have loved.'</p> + +<p>She saw his immense relief. The joy of it was in his eyes and voice; and +the thought of Franklin, of what she had not been able to do for +Franklin, made it bitter to her that because she had not been able to +save Franklin, Gerald should find relief.</p> + +<p>'You couldn't have robbed me of him if there'd been any chance of that,' +she said. 'If there had been any chance of my loving Franklin I would +never have let him go. Don't be glad, don't show me that you are +glad—because I didn't love him.'</p> + +<p>'I can't help being glad, Helen,' he said.</p> + +<p>She leaned her head on her hand, covering her eyes. While he was there, +showing her that he was glad because she had not loved Franklin, she +could not be kind, nor even just to him.</p> + +<p>'Helen,' he said, 'I know what you are feeling; but will you listen to +me?' She answered that she would listen to anything he had to say, and +her voice had the leaden tone of impersonal charity.</p> + +<p>'Helen,' Gerald said, 'I know how I've blundered. I see everything. But, +with it all, seeing it all, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> don't think that you are fair to me. I +don't think it is fair if you can't see that I couldn't have thought of +all these other possibilities—after what you'd told me—the other day. +How could I think of anything, then, but the one thing—that you loved +me and that I loved you, and that, of course, I must set my mistake +right at once, set Althea free and come to you? I was very simple and +very stupid; but I don't think it's fair not to see that I couldn't +believe you'd really repulse me, finally, if you loved me.'</p> + +<p>'You ought to have believed it,' Helen said, still with her covered +eyes. 'That is what is most simple, most stupid in you. You ought to +have felt—and you ought to feel now—that to a woman who could tell you +what I did, everything is over.'</p> + +<p>'But, Helen, that's my point,' ever so carefully and patiently he +insisted. 'How can it be over when I love you—if you still love me?'</p> + +<p>She put down her hand now and looked up at him and she saw his hope; not +yet dead; sick, wounded, perplexed, but, in his care and patience, +vigilant. And it was with a sad wonder for the truth of her own words, +that she said, looking up at the face dear beyond all telling for so +many years, 'I don't want you, Gerald. I don't want your love. I'm not +blaming you. I am fair to you. I see that you couldn't help it, and that +it was my fault really. But you are asking for something that isn't +there any longer.'</p> + +<p>'You mean,' said Gerald, he was very pale, 'that I've won no rights; you +don't want a man who has won no rights.'</p> + +<p>'There are no rights to win, Gerald.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Because of what I've done to him?'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps; but I don't think it's that.'</p> + +<p>'Because of what I've done to you—not seeing—all our lives?'</p> + +<p>'Perhaps, Gerald. I don't know. I can't tell you, for I don't know +myself. I don't think anything has been killed. I think something is +dead that's been dying by inches for years. Don't press me any more. +Accept the truth. It's all over. I don't want you any longer.'</p> + +<p>Helen had risen while she spoke and kept her eyes on Gerald's in +speaking. Until this moment, for all his pain and perplexity, he had not +lost hope. He had been amazed and helpless and full of fear, but he had +not believed, not really believed, that she was lost to him. Now, she +saw it in his eyes, he did believe; and as the patient, hearing his +sentence, gazes dumb and stricken, facing death, so he gazed at her, +seeing irrevocability in her unmoved face. And, accepting his doom, +sheer childishness overcame him. As Franklin the day before had felt, so +he now felt, the intolerableness of his woe; and, as with Franklin, the +waves closed over his head. Helen was so near him that it was but a +stumbling step that brought her within his arms; but it was not with the +lover's supplication that he clung to her; he clung, hiding his face on +her breast, like a child to its mother, broken-hearted, bewildered, +reproachful. And, bursting into tears, he sobbed: 'How cruel you are! +how cruel! It is your pride—you've the heart of a stone! If I'd loved +you for years and told you and made you know you loved me back—could I +have treated you like this—and cast you off—and stopped loving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> you, +because you'd never seen before? O Helen, how can you—how can you!'</p> + +<p>After a moment Helen spoke, angrily, because she was astounded, and +because, for the first time in her life, she was frightened, beyond her +depth, helpless in the waves of emotion that lifted her like great +encompassing billows. 'Gerald, don't. Gerald, it is absurd of you. +Gerald, don't cry.' She had never seen him cry.</p> + +<p>He heard her dimly, and the words were the cruel ones he expected. The +sense of her cruelty filled him, and the dividing sense that she, who +was so cruel, was still his only refuge, his only consolation.</p> + +<p>'What have I done, I'd like to know, that you should treat me like this? +If you loved me before—all those years—why should you stop now, +because I love you? why should you stop because of telling me?'</p> + +<p>Again Helen's voice came to him after a pause, and it seemed now to +grope, stupefied and uncertain, for answers to his absurdity. 'How can +one argue, Gerald, like this; perhaps it was because I told you? +Perhaps——'</p> + +<p>He took her up, not waiting to hear her surmises. 'How can one get over +a thing like that, all in a moment? How can it die like that? You're not +over it, not really. It is all pride, and you are punishing me for what +I couldn't help, and punishing yourself too, for no one will ever love +you as I do. O Helen—I can't believe it's dead. Don't you know that no +one will ever love you as I do? Can't you see how happy we could have +been together? It's so <i>silly</i> of you not to see. Yes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> you are silly as +well as cruel.' He shook her while he held her, while he buried his face +and cried—cried, literally, like a baby.</p> + +<p>She stood still, enfolded but not enfolding, and now she said nothing +for a long time, while her eyes, with their strained look of pain, gazed +widely, and as if in astonishment, before her; and he, knowing only the +silence, the unresponsive silence, continued to sob his protestation, +his reproach, with a helplessness and vehemence ridiculous and +heart-rending.</p> + +<p>Then, slowly, as if compelled, Helen put her arms around him, and, +dully, like a creature hypnotised to action strange to its whole nature, +she said once more, and in a different voice: 'Don't cry, Gerald.' But +she, too, was crying. She tried to control her sobs; but they broke from +her, strange and difficult, like the sobs of the hypnotised creature +waking from its trance to confused and painful consciousness, and, +resting her forehead on his shoulder, she repeated dully, between her +sobs: 'Don't cry.'</p> + +<p>He was not crying any longer. Her weeping had stilled his in an instant, +and she went on, between her broken breaths: 'How absurd—oh, how +absurd. Sit down here—yes—keep your head so, if you must, you foolish, +foolish child.'</p> + +<p>He held her, hearing her sobs, feeling them lift her breast, and, in all +his great astonishment, like a smile, the memory of the other day stole +over him, the stillness, the accomplishment, the blissful peace, the +lifting to a serene eternity of space. To remember it now was like +seeing the sky from a nest, and in the sweet darkness of sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> +security he murmured: '<i>You</i> are the foolish child.'</p> + +<p>'How can I believe you love me?' said Helen.</p> + +<p>'How can you not?'</p> + +<p>They sat side by side, her arms around him and his head upon her breast. +'It was only because I told you——'</p> + +<p>'Well—isn't that reason enough?'</p> + +<p>'How can it be reason enough for me?'</p> + +<p>'How can it not? You've spent your whole life hiding from me; when I saw +you, why, of course, I fell in love at once. O Helen—dear, dear Helen!'</p> + +<p>'When you saw my love.'</p> + +<p>'Wasn't that seeing you?'</p> + +<p>They spoke in whispers, and their hearts were not in their words. He +raised his head and looked at her, and he smiled at her now with the +smile of the beautiful necessity. 'How you've frightened me,' he said. +'Don't be proud. Even if it did need your cleverness to show me that, +too. I mean—you've given me everything—always—and why shouldn't you +have given me the chance to see you—and to know what you are to me? How +you frightened me. You are not proud any longer. You love me.'</p> + +<p>She was not proud any longer. She loved him. Vaguely, in the +bewilderment of her strange, her blissful humility, among the great +billows of life that encompassed and lifted her, it seemed with enormous +heart-beats, Helen remembered Franklin's words. 'Let it melt—please let +it melt, dear Helen.' But it had needed the inarticulate, the +instinctive, to pierce to the depths of life. Gerald's tears, his head +so boyishly pressed against her, his arms so childishly clinging, had +told her what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> her heart might have been dead to for ever if, with +reason and self-command, he had tried to put it into words.</p> + +<p>She looked at him, through her tears, and she knew him dearer to her in +this resurrection than if her heart had never died to him; and, as he +smiled at her, she, too, smiled back, tremblingly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII.</h2> + + +<p>Althea had not seen Gerald after the day that they came up from +Merriston together. The breaking of their engagement was duly announced, +and, with his little note to her, thanking her for her frankness and +wishing her every happiness, Gerald and all things connected with him +seemed to pass out of her life. She saw no more of the frivolous +relations who were really serious, nor of the serious ones who were +really frivolous. She did not even see Helen. Helen's engagement to +Franklin had never been formally announced, and few, beyond her circle +of nearest friends, knew of it; the fact that Franklin had now returned +to his first love was not one that could, at the moment, be made +appropriately public. But, of course, Helen had had to be told, not only +that Franklin had gone from her, but that he had come back to Althea, +and Althea wondered deeply how this news had been imparted. She had not +felt strength to impart it herself. When she asked Franklin, very +tentatively, about it, he said: 'That's all right, dear. I've explained. +Helen perfectly understands.'</p> + +<p>That it was all right seemed demonstrated by the little note, kind and +sympathetic, that Helen wrote to her, saying that she did understand, +perfectly, and was so glad for her and for Franklin, and that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> it was +such a good thing when people found out mistakes in time. There was not +a trace of grievance; Helen seemed to relinquish a good which, she +recognised, had only been hers because Althea hadn't wanted it. And this +was natural; how could one show one's grievance in such a case? Helen, +above all, would never show it; and Althea was at once oppressed, and at +the same time oddly sustained by the thought that she had, all +inevitably, done her friend an injury. She lay awake at night, turning +over in her mind Helen's present plight and framing loving plans for the +future. She took refuge in such plans from a sense of having come to an +end of things. To think of Helen, and of what, with their wealth, she +and Franklin could do for Helen, seemed, really, her strongest hold on +life. It was the brightest thing that she had to look forward to, and +she looked forward to it with complete self-effacement. She saw the +beautiful Italian villa where Helen should be the fitting centre, the +English house where Helen, rather than she, should entertain. She felt +that she asked nothing more for herself. She was safe, if one liked to +put it so, and in that safety she felt not only her ambitions, but even +any personal desires, extinguished. Her desire, now, was to unite with +Franklin in making the proper background for Helen. But at the moment +these projects were unrealisable; taste, as well as circumstance, +required a pause, a lull. It was a relief—so many things were a relief, +so few things more than merely that—to know that Helen was in the +country somewhere, and would not be back for ten days or a fortnight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span></p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Miss Harriet Robinson, very grave but very staunch, sustained +Althea through all the outward difficulties of her <i>volte-face</i>. Miss +Robinson, of course, had had to be told of the reason for the +<i>volte-face</i>, the fact that Althea had found, after all, that she cared +more for Franklin Winslow Kane. It was in regard to the breaking of her +engagement that Miss Robinson was staunch and grave; in regard to the +new engagement, Althea saw that, though still staunch, she was much +disturbed. Miss Robinson found Franklin hard to place, and found it hard +to understand why Althea had turned from Gerald Digby to him. Franklin's +millions didn't count for much with Miss Robinson, nor could she suspect +them of counting for anything, where marriage was concerned, with her +friend. She had not, indeed, a high opinion of the millionaire type of +her compatriots. Her standards were birth and fashion, and poor Franklin +could not be said to embody either of these claims. His mitigating +qualities could hardly shine for Miss Robinson, who, accustomed to +continually seeing and frequently evading the drab, dry, utilitarian +species of her country-people, could not be expected to find in him the +flavour of oddity and significance that his English acquaintance prized. +Franklin didn't make any effort to place himself more favourably. He was +very gentle and very attentive, and he followed all Althea's directions +as to clothes and behaviour with careful literalness; but even barbered +and tailored by the best that London had to offer, he seemed to sink +inevitably into the discreetly effaced position that the American +husband so often assumes behind his more brilliant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> mate, and Althea +might have been more aware of this had she not been so sunken in an +encompassing consciousness of her own obliteration. She felt herself +nearer Franklin there, and the sense of relief and safety came most to +her when she could feel herself near Franklin. It didn't disturb her, +standing by him in the background, that Miss Robinson should not +appreciate him. After all, deeper than anything, was the knowledge that +Helen had appreciated him. Recede as far as he would from the gross +foreground places, Helen's choice of him, Helen's love—for after a +fashion, Helen must have loved him—gave him a final and unquestionable +value. It was in this assurance of Helen's choice that she found a +refuge when questionings and wonders came to drag her down to suffering +again. There were many things that menaced the lull of safety, things +she could not bear yet to look at. The sense of her own abandonment to +weak and disingenuous impulses was one; another shadowed her unstable +peace more darkly. Had Helen really minded losing Franklin—apart from +his money? What had his value really been to her? What was she feeling +and doing now? What was Gerald doing and feeling, and what did they both +think or suspect of her? The answer to some of these questionings came +to her from an unsuspected quarter. It was on a morning of chill mists +and pale sunlight that Althea, free of Miss Robinson, walked down +Grosvenor Street towards the park. She liked to go into the park on such +mornings, when Miss Robinson left her free, and sit on a bench and +abandon herself to remote, impersonal dreams. It was just as she entered +Berkeley Square that she met Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> Mallison, that aunt of Gerald's who +had struck her, some weeks ago, as so disconcerting, with her skilfully +preserved prettiness and her ethical and metaphysical aspirations. This +lady, furred to her ears, was taking out two small black pomeranians for +an airing. She wore long pearl ear-rings, and her narrow, melancholy +face was delicately rouged and powdered. Althea's colour rose painfully; +she had seen none of Gerald's relatives since the severance. Mrs. +Mallison, however, showed no embarrassment. She stopped at once and took +Althea's hand and gazed tenderly upon her. Her manner had always +afflicted Althea, with its intimations of some deep, mystical +understanding.</p> + +<p>'My dear, I'm so glad—to meet you, you know. How nice, how right you've +been.' Mrs. Mallison murmured her words rather than spoke them and could +pronounce none of her r's. 'I'm so glad to be able to tell you so. +You're walking? Come with me, then; I'm just taking the dogs round the +square. Do you love dogs too? I am sure you must. You have the eyes of +the dog-lover. I don't know how I could live without mine; they +understand when no one else does. I didn't write, because I think +letters are such soulless things, don't you? They are the tombs of the +spirit—little tombs for failed things—too often. I've thought of you, +and felt for you—so much; but I couldn't write. And now I must tell you +that I agree with you with all my heart. Love's the <i>only</i> thing in +life, isn't it?' Mrs. Mallison smiled, pressing Althea's arm +affectionately. Althea remembered to have heard that Mrs. Mallison had +made a most determined <i>mariage de convenance</i> and had sought love in +other direc<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span>tions; but, summoning what good grace she could, she +answered that she, too, considered love the only thing.</p> + +<p>'You didn't love him enough, and you found it out in time, and you told +him. How brave; how right. And then—am I too indiscreet? but I know you +feel we are friends—you found you loved some one else; the reality came +and showed you the unreality. That enchanting Mr. Kane—oh, I felt it +the moment I looked at him—there was an affinity between us, our souls +understood each other. And so deliciously rich you'll be, not that money +makes any difference, does it? but it is nice to be able to do things +for the people one loves.'</p> + +<p>Althea struggled in a maze of discomfort. Behind Mrs. Mallison's +caressing intonations was something that perplexed her. What did Mrs. +Mallison know, and what did she guess? She was aware, evidently, of her +own engagement to Franklin and, no doubt, of Franklin's engagement to +Helen and its breaking off. What did she know about the cause of that +breaking off? Her troubled cogitations got no further, for Mrs. Mallison +went on:</p> + +<p>'And how happily it has all turned out—all round—hasn't it? How horrid +for you and Mr. Kane, if it hadn't; not that you'd have had anything to +reproach yourselves with—really—I know—because love <i>is</i> the only +thing; but if Helen and Gerald had just been left <i>plantés là</i>, it would +have been harder, wouldn't it? I've been staying with them at the same +house in the country and it's quite obvious what's happened. You knew +from the first, no doubt; but of course they are saying nothing, just as +you and Mr. Kane are saying nothing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> They didn't tell me, but I guessed +at once. And the first thing I thought was: Oh—how happy—how perfect +this makes it for Miss Jakes and Mr. Kane. They've <i>all</i> found out in +time.'</p> + +<p>Althea grew cold. She commanded her voice. 'Helen? Gerald?' she said. +'Haven't you mistaken? They've always been the nearest friends.'</p> + +<p>'Oh no—no,' smiled Mrs. Mallison, with even greater brightness and +gentleness, 'I never mistake these things; an affair of the heart is the +one thing that I always see. Helen, perhaps, could hide it from me; she +is a woman and can hide things—Helen is cold too—I am never very sure +of Helen's heart—of course I love her dearly, every one must who knows +her; but she is cold, unawakened, the type that holds out the cheek, not +the type that kisses. I confess that I love most the reckless, loving +type; and I believe that you and I are unlike Helen there—we kiss, we +don't hold out the cheek. But, no, I never would have guessed from +Helen. It was Gerald who gave them both away. Poor, dear Gerald, never +have I beheld such a transfigured being—he is radiantly in love, quite +radiantly; it's too pretty to see him.'</p> + +<p>The vision of Gerald, radiantly in love, flashed horridly for Althea. It +was dim, yet bright, scintillating darkly; she could only imagine it in +similes; she had never seen anything that could visualise it for her. +The insufferable dogs, like tethered bubbles, bounded before them, +constantly impeding their progress. Althea was thankful for the excuse +afforded her by the tangling of her feet in the string to pause and +stoop; she felt that her rigid face must betray her. She stooped for a +long moment and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> hoped that her flush would cover her rigidity. It was +when she raised herself that she saw suddenly in Mrs. Mallison's face +something that gave her more than a suspicion. She didn't suspect her of +cruelty or vulgar vengeance—Gerald's aunt was quite without rancour on +the score of her jilting of him; but she did suspect, and more than +suspect her—it was like the unendurable probing of a wound to feel +it—of idle yet implacable curiosity, and of a curiosity edged, perhaps, +with idle malice. She summoned all her strength. She smiled and shook +her head a little. 'Faithless Gerald! So soon,' she said. 'He is +consoled quickly. No, I never guessed anything at all.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mallison had again passed her arm through hers and again pressed +it. 'It <i>is</i> soon, isn't it? A sort of <i>chassé-croisé</i>. But how strange +and fortunate that it should be soon—I know you feel that too.'</p> + +<p>'Oh yes, of course, I feel it; it is an immense relief. But they ought +to have told me,' Althea smiled.</p> + +<p>'I wonder at that too,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'It is rather bad of them, I +think, when they must know what it would mean to you of joy. When did it +happen, do you suppose?'</p> + +<p>Althea wondered. Wonders were devouring her.</p> + +<p>'It happened with you quite suddenly, didn't it?' said Mrs. Mallison, +who breathed the soft fragrance of her solicitude into Althea's face as +she leaned her head near and pressed her arm closely.</p> + +<p>'Quite suddenly,' Althea replied, 'that is, with me it was sudden. +Franklin, of course, has loved me for a great many years.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span></p> + +<p>'So he was faithless too, for his little time?'</p> + +<p>Althea's brain whirled. 'Faithless? Franklin?'</p> + +<p>'I mean, while he made his mistake—while he thought he was in love with +Helen.'</p> + +<p>'It wasn't a question of that. It was to be a match of reason, and +friendship—everybody knew,' Althea stammered.</p> + +<p>'<i>Was</i> it?' said Mrs. Mallison with deep interest. 'I see, like yours +and Gerald's.'</p> + +<p>'Oh——' Althea was not able in her headlong course to do more than +glance at the implications that whizzed past. 'Gerald and I made the +mistake, I think; we believed ourselves in love.'</p> + +<p>'<i>Did</i> you?' Mrs. Mallison repeated her tone of affectionate and +brooding interest. 'What a strange thing the human heart is, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>'Very, very strange.'</p> + +<p>'How dear and frank of you to see it all as you do. And there are no +more mistakes now,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'No one is reasonable and every +one is radiant.'</p> + +<p>'Every one is radiant and reasonable too, I hope,' said Althea. Her head +still whirled as she heard herself analysing for Mrs. Mallison's +correction these sanctities of her life. Odious, intolerable, insolent +woman! She could have burst into tears as she walked beside her, held by +her, while her hateful dogs, shrilly barking, bounded buoyantly around +them.</p> + +<p>'It's dear of you too, to tell me all about it,' said Mrs. Mallison. +'Have you seen Helen yet? She is just back.'</p> + +<p>'No, I've not seen her.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span></p> + +<p>'You will meet? I am sure you will still be friends—two such real +people as you are.'</p> + +<p>'Of course we shall meet. Helen is one of my dearest friends.'</p> + +<p>'I see. It is so beautiful when people can rise above things. You make +me very happy. Don't tell Helen what I've told you,' Mrs. Mallison with +gentle gaiety warned her. 'I knew—in case you hadn't heard—that it +would relieve you so intensely to hear that she and Gerald were happy, +in spite of what you had to do to them. But it would make Helen cross +with me if she knew I'd told you when she hadn't. I'm rather afraid of +Helen, aren't you? I'm sure she'll give Gerald dreadful scoldings +sometimes. Poor, dear Gerald!' Mrs. Mallison laughed reminiscently. +'Never have I beheld such a transfigured being. I didn't think he had it +in him to be in love to such an extent. Oh, it was all in his face—his +eyes—when he looked at her.'</p> + +<p>Yes, malicious, malicious to the point of vulgarity; that was Althea's +thought as, like an arrow released from long tension, she sped away, the +turn of the square once made and Mrs. Mallison and her dogs once more +received into the small house in an adjacent street. Tears were in +Althea's eyes, hot tears, of fury, of humiliation, and—oh, it flooded +over her—of bitterest sorrow and yearning. Gerald, radiant Gerald—lost +to her for ever; not even lost; never possessed. And into the sorrow and +humiliation, poisonous suspicions crept. When did it happen? Where was +she? What had been done to her? She must see; she must know. She hailed +a hansom and was driven to old Miss Buchanan's house in Belgravia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV.</h2> + + +<p>Helen was sitting at her writing-table before the window, and the +morning light fell on her gracefully disordered hair and gracefully +shabby shoulders. The aspect of her back struck on Althea's bitter, +breathless mood. There was no effort made for anything with Helen. She +was the sort of person who would get things without seeking for them and +be things without caring to be them. She had taken what she wanted, when +she wanted it; first Franklin, and then—and perhaps it had been before +Franklin had failed her, perhaps it had been before she, Althea, had +failed Gerald—she had taken Gerald. Althea's mind, reeling, yet +strangely lucid after the shock of the last great injury, was also +aware, in the moment of her entrance, of many other injuries, old ones, +small ones, yet, in their summing up—and everything seemed to be summed +up now in the cruel revelation—as intolerable as the new and great one. +More strongly than ever before she was aware that Helen was hard, that +there was nothing in her soft or tentative or afraid; and the +realisation, though it was not new, came with an added bitterness this +morning. It did not weaken her, however; on the contrary, it nerved her +to self-protection. If Helen was hard, she would not, to-day, show +herself soft. It was she who must assume<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span> the air of success, and of +rueful yet helpless possessorship. These impressions and resolutions +occupied but an instant. Helen rose and came to her, and what Althea saw +in her face armed her resolutions with hostility. Helen's face confirmed +what Mrs. Mallison had said. It was not resentful, not ironically calm. +A solicitous interest, even a sort of benignity, was in her bright gaze. +Helen was hard; she did not really care at all; but she was kind, kinder +than ever before; and Althea found this kindness intolerable.</p> + +<p>'Dear Helen,' she said, 'I'm so glad to see you. I had to come at once +when I heard that you were back. You don't mind seeing me?'</p> + +<p>'Not a bit,' said Helen, who had taken her hand. 'Why should I?'</p> + +<p>'I was afraid that perhaps you might not want to—for a long time.'</p> + +<p>'We aren't so foolish as that,' said Helen smiling.</p> + +<p>'No, that is what I hoped you would feel too. We have been in the hands +of fate, haven't we, Helen? I've seemed weak and disloyal, I know—to +you and to Gerald; but I think it was only seeming. When I found out my +mistake I couldn't go on. And then the rest all followed—inevitably.'</p> + +<p>Helen had continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and she continued +to gaze at her for another moment before, pressing it, she let it fall +and said: 'Of course you couldn't go on.'</p> + +<p>Helen was as resolved—Althea saw that clearly—to act her part of +unresentful kindness as she to act hers of innocent remorse. And the +swordthrust in the sight was to suspect that had Helen been in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> reality +the dispossessed and not the secretly triumphant, she might have been as +kind and as unresentful.</p> + +<p>'It's all been a dreadful mistake,' Althea said, going to a chair and +loosening her furs. 'From the very beginning I felt doubt. From the very +beginning I felt that Gerald and I did not really make each other happy. +And I believe that you wondered about it too.'</p> + +<p>Helen had resumed her seat at the writing-table, sitting turned from it, +her hand hanging over the back of the chair, her long legs crossed, and +she faced her friend with that bright yet softened gaze, interested, +alert, but too benign, too contented, to search or question closely. She +was evidently quite willing that Althea should think what she chose, +and, this was becoming evident, she intended to help her to think it. So +after a little pause she answered, 'I did wonder, rather; it didn't seem +to me that you and Gerald were really suited.'</p> + +<p>'And you felt, didn't you,' Althea urged, 'that it was only because I +had been so blind, and had not seen where my heart really was, you know, +that your engagement was possible? I was so afraid you'd think we'd been +faithless to you—Franklin and I; but, when I stopped being blind——'</p> + +<p>'Of course,' Helen helped her on, nodding and smiling gravely, 'of +course you took him back. I don't think you were either of you +faithless, and you mustn't have me a bit on your minds; it was +startling, of course; but I'm not heart-broken,' Helen assured her.</p> + +<p>Oh, there was no malice here; it was something far worse to bear, this +wish to lift every shadow and smooth every path. Althea's eyes fixed +themselves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> hard on her friend. Her head swam a little and some of her +sustaining lucidity left her.</p> + +<p>'I was so afraid,' she said, 'that you, perhaps, cared for Franklin—had +come to care so much, I mean—that it might have been hard for you to +forgive. I can't tell you the relief it is——'</p> + +<p>'To see that I didn't care so much as that?' Helen smiled brightly, +though with a brightness, now, slightly wary, as though with all her +efforts to slide and not to press, she felt the ice cracking a little +under her feet, and as though some care might be necessary if she were +to skate safely away. 'Don't have that in the least on your mind, it was +what you always disapproved of, you know, an arrangement of convenience. +Franklin and I both understood perfectly. You know how mercenary I +am—though I told you, I remember, that I couldn't think of marrying +anybody I didn't like. I liked Franklin, more than I can say; but it was +never a question of love.'</p> + +<p>In Althea's ears, also, the ice seemed now to crack ominously. 'You +mean,' she said, 'that you wouldn't have thought of marrying Franklin if +it hadn't been for his money?'</p> + +<p>There was nothing for Helen but to skate straight ahead. 'No, I don't +suppose I should.'</p> + +<p>'But you had become the greatest friends.'</p> + +<p>She was aware that she must seem to be trying, strangely, incredibly, to +prove to Helen that she had been in love with Franklin; to prove to her +that she had no right not to resent anything; no right to find +forgiveness so easy. But there was no time now to stop.</p> + +<p>'Of course we became the greatest friends,' Helen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> said, and it was as +if with relief for the outlet. She was bewildered, and did not know +where they were going. 'I don't need to tell you what I think of +Franklin. He is the dearest and best of men, and you are the luckiest of +women to have won him.'</p> + +<p>'Ah,' uncontrollably Althea rose to her feet with almost the cry, 'I +see; you think me lucky to have won a man who, in himself, without +money, wasn't good enough for you. Thank you.'</p> + +<p>For a long moment—and in it they both recognised that the crash had +come, and that they were struggling in dark, cold water—Helen was +silent. She kept her eyes on Althea and she did not move. Then, while +she still looked steadily upon her, a slow colour rose in her cheeks. It +was helplessly, burningly, that she blushed, and Althea saw that she +blushed as much for anger as for shame, and that the shame was for her.</p> + +<p>She did not need Helen's blush to show her what she had done, what +desecration she had wrought. Her own blood beat upwards in hot surges +and tears rushed into her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and +dropped again into her chair, sobbing.</p> + +<p>Helen did not help her out. She got up and went to the mantelpiece and +looked down at the fire for some moments. And at last she spoke, 'I +didn't mean that either. I think that Franklin is too good for either of +us.'</p> + +<p>'Good!' wept Althea. 'He is an angel. Do you suppose I don't see that? +But why should I pretend when you don't. I'm not in love with Franklin. +I'm unworthy of him—more unworthy of him than you were—but I'm not in +love with him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span> even though he is an angel. So don't tell me that I am +lucky. I am a most miserable woman.' And she wept on, indifferent now to +any revelations.</p> + +<p>Presently she heard Helen's voice. It was harder than she had ever known +it. 'May I say something? It's for his sake—more than for yours. What I +advise you to do is not to bother so much about love. You couldn't stick +to Gerald because you weren't loved enough; and you're doubting your +feeling for Franklin, now, because you can't love him enough. Give it +all up. Follow my second-rate example. Be glad that you're marrying an +angel and that he has all that money. And do remember that though you're +not getting what you want, you are getting a good deal and he is getting +nothing, so try to play the game and to see if you can't make it up to +him; see if you can't make him happy.'</p> + +<p>Althea's sobbing had now ceased, though she kept her face still covered. +Bitter sadness, too deep now for resentment, was in her silence, a +silence in which she accepted what Helen's words had of truth. The +sadness was to see at last to the full, that she had no place in Helen's +life. There was no love, there was hardly liking, behind Helen's words. +And so it had been from the very first, ever since she had loved and +Helen accepted; ever since she had gone forth carrying gifts, and Helen +had stood still and been vaguely aware that homage was being offered. It +had, from the very beginning, been this; Helen, hard, self-centred, +insensible, so that anything appealing or uncertain was bound to be +shattered against her. And was not this indifference to offered love a +wrong done to it, something that all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> life cried out against? Had not +weakness and fear and the clinging appeal of immaturity their rights, so +that the strong heart that was closed to them, that did not go out to +them in tenderness and succour, was the dull, the lesser heart? Dimly +she knew, not exculpating herself, not judging her beautiful Helen, that +though she had, in her efforts towards happiness, pitifully failed, +there was failure too in being blind, in being unconscious of any effort +to be made. The more trivial, the meaner aspect of her grief was merged +in a fundamental sincerity.</p> + +<p>'What you say is true,' she said, 'for I know that I am a poor creature. +I know that I give Franklin nothing, and take everything from him. But +it is easy for you to talk of what is wise and strong, Helen, and to +tell me what I ought to do and feel. You have everything. You have the +man who loves you and the man you love. It is easy for you to be clear +and hard and see other people's faults. I know—I know about you and +Gerald.'</p> + +<p>Helen turned to her. Althea had dropped her hands. She did not look at +her friend, but, with tear-disfigured eyes, out of the window; and there +was a desolate dignity in her aspect. For the first time in their +unequal intercourse they were on an equal footing. Helen was aware of +Althea, and, in a vague flash, for self-contemplation was difficult to +her, she was aware of some of the things that Althea saw: the lack of +tenderness; the lack of imagination; the indifference to all that did +not come within the circle of her own tastes and affections. It was just +as Franklin had said, and Gerald, and now Althea; her heart was hard. +And she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> sorry, though she did not know what she was to do; for +though she was sorry for Althea her heart did not soften for her as it +had softened for Franklin, and for the thought of Franklin—too good for +them all, sacrificed to them all. It was the thought of the cruelty of +nature, making of Franklin, with all his wealth of love, a creature +never to be desired, that gave to her vision of life, and of all this +strange predicament in which life had involved them, an ironic colour +incompatible with the warmth of trust and tenderness which Franklin had +felt lacking in her. She was ironic, she was hard, and she must make the +best of it. But it was in a gentle voice that, looking at her friend's +melancholy head, she asked: 'Who told you that?'</p> + +<p>'Mrs. Mallison,' said Althea. 'I've been a hypocrite to you all the +morning.'</p> + +<p>'And I have been an odious prig to you. That ass of a Kitty Mallison. I +had not intended any one to know for months.' Even in her discomfiture +Helen retained her tact. She did not say 'we.'</p> + +<p>'For my sake, I suppose?'</p> + +<p>'Oh no! why for yours?' Helen was determined that Althea should be hurt +no further. If pity for Franklin had edged her voice, pity for Althea +must keep from her the blighting knowledge of Franklin's sacrifice.</p> + +<p>'It was we who were left, wasn't it—Gerald and I? I don't want us to +appear before people's eyes at once as consolation prizes to each +other.'</p> + +<p>Althea now turned a sombre gaze upon her. 'He couldn't be that to you, +since you've never loved Franklin; and I know that you are not that to +him; Gerald didn't need to be consoled for losing me. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> did need to be +consoled when he heard that you were marrying Franklin. I remember the +day that your letter came—the letter that said you were engaged. That +really ended things for us.' Her lip trembled. 'It is easy for you to +say that I didn't stick to Gerald because he didn't love me enough. How +could I have stuck to some one who, I see it well enough now, was +beginning to love some one else?'</p> + +<p>Helen contemplated her and the truths she put before her. 'Try to +forgive me,' she said.</p> + +<p>'There's nothing to forgive,' said Althea, rising. 'You told me the +truth, and what I had said was so despicable that I deserved to have it +told to me. All the mistakes are mine. I've wanted things that I've no +right to; I suppose it's that. You and I weren't made for each other, +just as Gerald and I weren't, and it's all only my mistake and my +misfortune—for wanting and loving people who couldn't want or love me. +I see it all at last, and it's all over. Good-bye, Helen.' She put out +her hand.</p> + +<p>'Oh, but don't—don't——' Helen clasped her hand, strangely shaken by +impulses of pity and self-reproach that yet left her helpless before her +friend's sincerity. 'Don't say you are going to give me up,' she +finished, and tears stood in her eyes.</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid I must give up all sorts of things,' said Althea, smiling +desolately. 'If we hadn't got so near, we might have gone on. I'm afraid +when people aren't made for each other they can't get so near without +its breaking them. Good-bye. I shall try to be worthy of Franklin. I +shall try to make him happy.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV.</h2> + + +<p>She drove back to her hotel. She felt very tired. The world she gazed at +seemed vast and alien, a world in which she had no place. The truth had +come to her and she looked at it curiously, almost indifferently. London +flowed past her, long tides of purpose to right and left. The trees in +Green Park were softly blurred on the chill, white sky. She looked at +the trees and sky and at the far lift of Piccadilly, blackened with +traffic, and, at the faces that went by, as if it were all a vast +cinematograph and she the idlest of spectators. And it was here that +love had first come to her, and here that despair had come. Now both +were over and she accepted her defeat.</p> + +<p>She thought, when the hotel was reached, and as she went upstairs, that +she would go to bed and try to sleep. But when she entered her little +sitting-room she found Franklin there waiting for her. He had been +reading the newspapers before the fire and had risen quickly on hearing +her step. It was as if she had forgotten Franklin all this time.</p> + +<p>She stood by the door that she had closed, and gazed at him. It was +without will, or hope, or feeling that she gazed, as if he were a part +only of that alien world she had looked at, and this outward seeing was +relentless. A meagre, commonplace,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> almost comic little man. She saw +behind him his trite and colourless antecedents; she saw before him—and +her—the future, trite and colourless too, but for the extraneous +glitter of the millions that surrounded him as incongruously as a halo +would have done. He was an angel, of course; he was good; but he was +only that; there were no varieties, no graces, no mysteries. His very +interests were as meagre as his personality; he had hardly a taste, +except the taste for doing his best. Books, music, pictures—all the +great world of beauty and intellect that the world of goodness and +workaday virtues existed, perhaps, only to make possible—its finer, +more ethereal superstructure—only counted for Franklin as recreations, +relaxations, things half humorously accepted as one accepts a glass of +lemonade on a hot day. Not only was he without charm, but he was unaware +of charm; he didn't see it or feel it or need it. And she, who had seen +and felt, she who had known Gerald and Helen, must be satisfied with +this. It was this that she must strive to be worthy of. She was +unworthy, and she knew it; but that acceptation was only part of the +horror of defeat. And the soulless gaze with which she looked at him +oddly chiselled her pallid face. She was like a dumb, classic mask, too +impersonal for tragedy. Her lips were parted in their speechlessness and +her eyes vacant of thought.</p> + +<p>Then, after that soulless seeing, she realised that she had frightened +Franklin. He came to her. 'Dear—what is the matter?' he asked.</p> + +<p>He came so near that she looked into his eyes. She looked deeply, for a +long time, in silence. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span> while she looked, while Franklin's hands +gently found and held hers, life came to her with dreadful pain again. +She felt, rather than knew—and with a long shudder—that the world was +vast; she felt and feared it as vast and alien. She felt that she was +alone, and the loneliness was a terror, beating upon her. And she +felt—no longer seeing anything but the deeps of Franklin's eyes—that +he was her only refuge; and closing her own eyes she stumbled towards +him and he received her in his arms.</p> + +<p>They sat on the sofa, and Franklin clasped her while she wept, and she +seemed to re-enter childhood where all that she wanted was to cry her +heart out and have gentle arms around her while she confessed every +wrong-doing that had made a barrier between herself and her mother's +heart. 'O Franklin,' she sobbed, 'I'm so unhappy!'</p> + +<p>He said nothing, soothing her as a mother might have done.</p> + +<p>'Franklin, I loved him!' she sobbed. 'It was real: it was the reallest +thing that ever happened to me. I only sent for you because I knew that +he didn't love me. I loved him too much to go on if he didn't love me. +What I have suffered, Franklin. And now he is going to marry Helen. He +loves Helen. And I am not worthy of you.'</p> + +<p>'Poor child,' said Franklin. He pressed his lips to her hair.</p> + +<p>'You know, Franklin?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, I know, dear.'</p> + +<p>'I am not worthy of you,' Althea repeated. 'I have been weak and +selfish. I've used you—to hide from myself—because I was too +frightened to stand alone and give up things.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span></p> + +<p>'Well, you shan't stand alone any more,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>'But, Franklin—dear—kind Franklin—why should you marry me? I don't +love you—not as I loved him. I only wanted you because I was afraid. I +must tell you all the truth. I only want you now, and cling to you like +this, because I am afraid, because I can't go on alone and have nothing +to live for.'</p> + +<p>'You'll have me now, dear,' said Franklin. 'You'll try that, won't you, +and perhaps you'll find it more worth while than you think.'</p> + +<p>Something more now than fear and loneliness and penitence was piercing +her. His voice: poor Franklin's voice. What had she done to him? What +had they all done to him among them? And dimly, like the memory of a +dream, yet sharply, too, as such memory may be sharp, there drifted for +Althea the formless fear that hovered—formless yet urgent—when +Franklin had come to her in her desperate need. It hovered, and it +seemed to shape itself, as if through delicate curves of smoke, into +Helen's face—Helen's eyes and smile. Helen, charm embodied; Helen, all +the things that Franklin could never be; all the things she had believed +till now, Franklin could never feel or need. What did she know of +Franklin? so the fear whispered softly. What had Helen done to Franklin? +What had it meant to Franklin, that strange mingling with magic?</p> + +<p>She could never ask. She could never know. It would hover and whisper +always, the fear that had yet its beauty. It humbled her and it lifted +Franklin. He was more than she had believed. She had believed him all +hers, to take; but it was he who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> given himself to her, and there +was an inmost shrine—ah, was there not?—that was not his to give. And +pity, deep pity, and sadness immeasurable for a loss not hers alone, was +in her as she sobbed: 'Ah, it is only because you are sorry for me. I +have killed all the rest. You are not in love with me any +longer—poor—poor Franklin—and everything is spoiled.'</p> + +<p>But Franklin could show her that he had seen the fear, and yet that life +was not spoiled by shrines in each heart from which the other was shut +out. It was difficult to know how to say it; difficult to tell her that +some truth she saw and yet that there was more truth for them +both—plenty of truth, as he would have said, for them both to live on. +And though it took him a little while to find the words, he did find +them at last, completely, for her and for himself, saying gently, while +he held her, 'No, it isn't, dear. It's not spoiled. It's not the +same—for either of us—is it?—but it isn't spoiled. We've taken +nothing from each other; some things weren't ours, that's all. And even +if you don't much want to marry me, you must please have me, now; +because I want to marry you. I want to live for you so much that by +degrees, I feel sure of it, you'll want to live for me, too. We must +live for each other; we've got each other. Isn't that enough, Althea?'</p> + +<p>'Is it—<i>is</i> it enough?' she sobbed.</p> + +<p>'I guess it is,' said Franklin.</p> + +<p>His voice was sane and sweet, even if it was sad. It seemed the voice of +life. Althea closed her eyes and let it fold her round. Only with +Franklin could she find consolation in her defeat, or strength to live +without the happiness that had failed her. Only Franklin could console +her for having to take Frank<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span>lin. Was that really all that it came to? +No, she felt it growing, as they sat in silence, her sobs quieting, her +head on his shoulder; it came to more. But she saw nothing clearly after +the hateful, soulless seeing. The only clear thing was that it was good +to be with Franklin.</p> + + + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + + +<p class='center'>PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[Pg i]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class='center'>ESTABLISHED 1798</p> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/img377.jpg" alt="Motif" title="Motif" /></div> + + +<p class='center'>T. NELSON AND SONS<br /> +PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ii" id="Page_ii">[Pg ii]</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE</h3> +<h2>NELSON LIBRARY</h2> +<h3>OF COPYRIGHT FICTION</h3> + +<h4>Uniform with this Volume and same Price.</h4> + +<p class='center'><i>FORTHCOMING VOLUMES</i>.</p> + + +<p>MANALIVE. G. K. Chesterton.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chesterton is avowedly the maker of fantasies, half allegorical in +motive; but like all true allegories, they touch ordinary life at many +points. This story will be found as daring and subtle in conception, and +as brilliant in presentation as his best work. (<i>May 19.</i>)</p> + + +<p>WHITE WINGS. William Black.</p> + +<p>William Black's famous novel may be described as a classic of yachting. +No sunnier tale of the seas has ever been written. (<i>June 2.</i>)</p> + + +<p>SCARLET RUNNER. C. N. and A. M. Williamson.</p> + +<p>In this book Mr. and Mrs. Williamson describe the various doings of a +young gentleman whose sole worldly possession is a large touring car. +Adventures are to the adventurous, and Christopher Race found them in +full. (<i>June 16.</i>)<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p> + +<p class='center'><i>Already Published.</i></p> + +<p>TRENT'S LAST CASE. E. C. Bentley.</p> + +<p>This has been by far the most successful detective novel of recent +years. Mr. Lewis Hind in <i>The Daily Chronicle</i> described it as the best +detective story of the century.</p> + + +<p>THE OPEN QUESTION. Elizabeth Robins.</p> + +<p>This was the book with which Miss Robins first won her great reputation +as a novelist. The scene is laid in America, and the story is described +by the author as a "study of two temperaments."</p> + + +<p>THE MONEY MARKET. E. F. Benson.</p> + +<p>A brilliant study of London society and of the strife between love and +the power of purse.</p> + + +<p>THE LUCK OF THE VAILS. E. F. Benson.</p> + +<p>In this story of modern country-house life Mr. Benson mingles mystery, +intrigue, and comedy with the skill of which he alone has the secret.</p> + + +<p>THE POTTER'S THUMB. Flora Annie Steel.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes the potter's thumb slips in the moulding, so in the firing +the pot cracks." Mrs. Steel's brilliant study of Anglo-Indian life is +based upon this text. It is one of the most dramatic and moving of her +Indian novels.</p> + + +<p>ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. Flora Annie Steel.</p> + +<p>This book is generally regarded as Mrs. Steel's masterpiece. It is a +story of the Indian Mutiny, and contains a wonderful picture of the +heroism of English men and women in that time of terror.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p> + +<p>THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. Stanley J. Weyman.</p> + +<p>This, one of the first of Mr. Weyman's famous novels, deals with France +in the time of the Huguenot wars, and contains a brilliant picture of +the massacre of St. Bartholomew.</p> + + +<p>MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD. A. Courlander.</p> + +<p>This realistic story of life on a great London newspaper is probably the +best novel of journalism ever written.</p> + + +<p>A WALKING GENTLEMAN. James Prior.</p> + +<p>In this delightful fantasia a young peer, on the eve of his marriage, +walks out of his park into the world of common folk, and in the +adventures which follow finds that zest for life which he had hitherto +found wanting.</p> + + +<p>BROTHERS. H. A. Vachell.</p> + +<p>The publishers are happy to be able to add to the Nelson Library Mr. +Vachell's most famous novel, one of the most successful of recent years. +It is a brilliant study of character, full of drama and profound +humanity.</p> + + +<p>THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. A. Conan Doyle.</p> + +<p>The doings of this soldier of Napoleon have long been among Sir A. Conan +Doyle's most popular achievements in the art of fiction. As Mr. +Merriman's Barlasch represents the graver type of French veteran, so +Brigadier Gerard represents the dash and braggadocio of the Grande +Armée.</p> + + +<p>WHITE HEATHER. William Black.</p> + +<p>This charming love story is one of the most popular of Mr. Black's +romances of Highland life and sport.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p> + +<p>SIMON DALE. Anthony Hope.</p> + +<p>This is Mr. Anthony Hope's only historical novel. It deals with the +Court of Charles II., and gives a brilliant picture of that complex age, +relieved by a charming love story.</p> + + +<p>A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Stanley J. Weyman.</p> + +<p>This is the first novel by which Mr. Weyman won his great reputation. It +is a tale of France during the religious wars of the sixteenth century, +and has long ranked as one of the most brilliant historical romances of +our day.</p> + + +<p>THE WAR IN THE AIR. H. G. Wells.</p> + +<p>"The War in the Air" is a story of the awful devastation following a +conflict between two first-class powers with the resources of the air at +their command. It is one of the most brilliant and successful of Mr. +Wells's studies in futurity.</p> + + +<p>RUPERT OF HENTZAU. Anthony Hope.</p> + +<p>This is a sequel to the famous "Prisoner of Zenda," already published in +the Nelson Library. It tells of the end of the long vendetta between +young Rupert of Hentzau and the Englishman, Rudolph Rassendyll. It is +needless to praise a book which, with its predecessor, has been +recognized as one of the greatest of modern romances.</p> + + +<p>SALT OF THE SEA. Morley Roberts.</p> + +<p>This is a collection of Mr. Morley Roberts's best sea stories selected +from half a dozen of his former volumes. "The Promotion of the Admiral" +and its sequel have been ranked by good critics as among the best modern +short stories. Mr. Roberts is scarcely less fine in his eerie tales, as +in the wonderful tale of "Billy be-damned."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p> + +<p>THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. A. Conan Doyle.</p> + +<p>The publishers are happy to be able to add to their Nelson Library the +first collection of those stories which have made the name of Sherlock +Holmes a household word throughout the world.</p> + + +<p>THE PALADIN. H. A. Vachell.</p> + +<p>Mr. Vachell's gift of sympathetic understanding has rarely appeared to +better advantage than in this story. It is a fascinating study of +quixotry and idealism.</p> + + +<p>THE OSBORNES. E. F. Benson.</p> + +<p>In this book Mr. Benson has provided a careful and sympathetic study of +a middle-class family who rise to affluence. It is full of brilliant +humour and wide human sympathy.</p> + + +<p>THE RETURN OF THE EMIGRANT. Lydia M. Mackay.</p> + +<p>This is a story of modern Highland life, full of carefully studied +types, and lit with all the glamour of the Western Highlands. It is the +most important recent contribution to Scottish fiction.</p> + + +<p>PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT.</p> + +<p>By the Author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." This tale, famous +both as a book and as a play, tells how a young and beautiful German +princess, growing weary of Court restrictions, flies from her home, and +with her maid seeks refuge in an English village. Her royal generosity +soon leads her into financial straits, and she is rescued and restored +to her family by her lover. The humour and piquancy of the situations +are not less great than the charm of the heroine.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<p>LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. "Q" (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch).</p> + +<p>Sir Oliver Vyell, the British Collector of Customs at Boston, rescues a +poor girl from the stocks, educates her, and makes her mistress of his +household. The scene moves to Lisbon, and there is a wonderful picture +of the earthquake.</p> + + +<p>HETTY WESLEY. "Q."</p> + +<p>This love story of one of the members of the Wesley family is perhaps +"Q's" most brilliant novel, as distinct from those romances with which +his name is chiefly associated.</p> + + +<p>HURRISH. Hon. Emily Lawless.</p> + +<p>This is a tale of peasant life in Ireland which has few rivals in Irish +literature. It is done with the dignity and restraint of a Greek +tragedy.</p> + + +<p>JEMMY ABERCRAW. Bernard Capes.</p> + +<p>In this brilliant romance the chief figure is a highwayman who conducts +his profession in a spirit of light-hearted chivalry. The last of the +Jacobite plots in England is introduced into the narrative.</p> + + +<p>RULES OF THE GAME. Stewart Edward White.</p> + +<p>Mr. S. E. White is one of the best of those younger American novelists +who deal with man in his conflicts with nature. This is a story of the +Californian Sierras and the great duel between the financial trusts and +the Government for the preservation of the forests. Like all Mr. White's +books it is full of swift incident and the magic of the wilds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p> + +<p>WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC. Sir Gilbert Parker.</p> + +<p>In this charming story Sir Gilbert Parker tells of the fortunes of a +young adventurer in Canada in the early nineteenth century who claimed +to be the son of the great Napoleon. The mystery of his life and his +tragic death make up one of the most original and moving of recent +romances. The author does for Quebec what in other works he has done for +the Western and Northern wilds—he interprets to the world its essential +romance.</p> + + +<p>THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Booth Tarkington.</p> + +<p>In this book the author of "Monsieur Beaucaire" tells a story of his own +country. "The Gentleman from Indiana" is a tale of a young university +graduate who becomes a newspaper owner and editor in a Western town, and +wages war against "graft" and corruption. His crusade brings him into +relations with the girl who had captured his heart at college, and their +love story is subtly interwoven with his political campaign. It is one +of the best of modern American novels, and readers will delight not only +in the stirring drama of the plot, but in the fresh and sympathetic +pictures given of the young townships of the West.</p> + + +<p>THE INVIOLABLE SANCTUARY. George A. Birmingham.</p> + +<p>Mr. Birmingham's novel takes us to the west of Ireland. The heroine is a +young lady of fifteen, who, with the help of a boy cousin, discovers a +mystery in the bay, and lands the whole parish in a bog of intrigue. It +is in every way as amusing and delightful as "Spanish Gold" and "The +Simpkins Plot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>THE NELSON LIBRARY.</h3> + +<p class='center'><i>Uniform with this Volume and same Price.</i></p> + +<p class='center'>CONDENSED LIST.</p> + +<p class='center'><i>Arranged alphabetically under Authors' Names.</i></p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BAILEY, H. C.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Springtime.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beaujeu.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BECKE, LOUIS.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Edward Barry, South Sea Pearler.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BELLOC, HILAIRE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mr. Clutterbuck's Election.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Girondin.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BENSON, E. F.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Daisy's Aunt.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Luck of the Vails.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Money Market.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Osbornes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Princess Sophia.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BENTLEY, E. C.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Trent's Last Case.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE A.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Simpkins Plot.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Inviolable Sanctuary.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BLACK, WILLIAM.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">White Heather.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BRADDON, Miss.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady Audley's Secret.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Vixen.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BRAMAH, ERNEST.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Secret of the League.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BUCHAN, JOHN.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Prester John.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">BURNETT, MRS. F. H.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Making of a Marchioness.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By The Author of "Elizabeth and</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">her German Garden."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Princess Priscilla's Fortnight.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CAINE, HALL.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Son of Hagar.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CAPES, BERNARD.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Jemmy Abercraw.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CARR, M. E.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Poison of Tongues.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CASTLE, A. and E.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If Youth but Knew.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Incomparable Bellairs.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">French Nan.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Rose of the World.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Panther's Cub.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CHILDERS, ERSKINE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Riddle of the Sands.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CHOLMONDELEY, MARY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Red Pottage.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CLIFFORD, MRS. W. K.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Woodside Farm.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">CONRAD, JOSEPH.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Romance.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">COPPING, A.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gotty and the Guv'nor.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">COURLANDER, A.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mightier than the Sword.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">DOUGLAS, GEORGE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The House with the Green Shutters.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">DOYLE, A. CONAN.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Refugees.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Great Shadow.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Micah Clarke.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Sign of Four.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Hound of the Baskervilles.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">DUNCAN, SARA JEANETTE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Set in Authority.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">FALKNER, J. MEADE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Moonfleet.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">FINDLATER, MARY AND JANE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Crossriggs.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">FORREST, R. E.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eight Days.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">FUTRELLE, JACQUES.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Lady in the Case.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GARNETT, MRS.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Infamous John Friend.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GISSING, GEORGE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Odd Women.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Born in Exile.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">GRIER, SYDNEY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Warden of the Marches.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HARLAND, HENRY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Cardinal's Snuff-Box.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">My Friend Prospero.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HARRADEN, BEATRICE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Katharine Frensham.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Interplay.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Out of the Wreck I Rise.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HOBBES, JOHN OLIVER.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love and the Soul-hunters.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HOPE, ANTHONY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Intrusions of Peggy.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Quisanté.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The King's Mirror.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The God in the Car.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Count Antonio.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Dolly Dialogues.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Prisoner of Zenda.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Man of Mark.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rupert of Hentzau.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sophy of Kravonia.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tristram of Blent.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Great Miss Driver.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Simon Dale.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tales of Two People.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HORNUNG, E. W.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Raffles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mr. Justice Raffles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Thief in the Night: the Last Chronicles of Raffles.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stingaree.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">HYNE, C. J. CUTCLIFFE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Thompson's Progress.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mr. Horrocks, Purser.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">JACOB, VIOLET.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Interloper.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">JACOBS, W. W.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Lady of the Barge.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Skipper's Wooing.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">JAMES, HENRY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The American.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">LAWLESS, Hon. EMILY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hurrish.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">LONDON, JACK.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">White Fang.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Adventure.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Daughter of the Snows.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">LORIMER, G. H.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Old Gorgon Graham.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MACNAUGHTAN, S.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Fortune of Christina M'Nab.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Lame Dog's Diary.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Selah Harrison.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Expensive Miss Du Cane.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Gift.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MACKAY, L. MILLER.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Return of the Emigrant.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MALET, LUCAS.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Wages of Sin.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Gateless Barrier.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Exton Manor.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MASEFIELD, JOHN.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Captain Margaret.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Multitude and Solitude.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MASON, A. E. W.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Clementina.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Four Feathers.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Broken Road.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MERRICK, LEONARD.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The House of Lynch.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Call from the Past.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MERRIMAN, H. SETON.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Last Hope.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Isle of Unrest.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Vultures.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In Kedar's Tents.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Roden's Corner.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Barlasch of the Guard.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Velvet Glove.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">MORRISON, ARTHUR.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Child of the Jago.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">NICHOLSON, MEREDITH.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The War of the Carolinas.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The House of a Thousand Candles.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">NORRIS, FRANK.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Octopus.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Pit.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shanghaied.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">OLLIVANT, ALFRED.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Owd Bob.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">PAIN, BARRY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The One Before.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">PARKER, SIR GILBERT.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Battle of the Strong.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Translation of a Savage.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An Adventurer of the North.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When Valmond came to Pontiac.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Right of Way.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Donovan Pasha.</span><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span><span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Seats of the Mighty.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">PASTURE, Mrs. H. De La.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Man from America.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Grey Knight.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">PHILLPOTTS, EDEN.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The American Prisoner.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Farm of the Dagger.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">PRIOR, JAMES.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Forest Folk.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Walking Gentleman.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">"Q."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sir John Constantine.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Major Vigoureux.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Shining Ferry.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">True Tilda.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady Good-for-Nothing.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Hetty Wesley.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">RIDGE, W. PETT.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Mrs. Galer's Business.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ROBERTS, MORLEY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Salt of the Sea.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">ROBINS, E.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Come and Find Me.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Open Question.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SAVILE, FRANK.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Road.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SEDGWICK, Miss A. D.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Valerie Upton.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SIDGWICK, Mrs. A.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cynthia's Way.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Cousin Ivo.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SILBERRAD, UNA L.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Good Comrade.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">John Bolsover.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ordinary People.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">SNAITH, J. C.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Fortune.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">STEEL, FLORA ANNIE.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Potter's Thumb.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On the Face of the Waters.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">TARKINGTON, BOOTH.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Monsieur Beaucaire, and The Beautiful Lady.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Gentleman from Indiana.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">TWAIN, MARK.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Tom Sawyer.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Huckleberry Finn.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">VACHELL, H. A.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">John Charity.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Waters of Jordan.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Other Side.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Paladin.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Brothers.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">VERNEDE, R. E.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">WARD, MRS. HUMPHRY.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Marriage of William Ashe.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Robert Elsmere.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Marcella.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lady Rose's Daughter.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sir George Tressady.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Helbeck of Bannisdale.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Eleanor.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">WELLS, H. G.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Kipps.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Food of the Gods.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love and Mr. Lewisham.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The First Men in the Moon.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Sleeper Awakes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Invisible Man.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The History of Mr. Polly.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Country of the Blind.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The War in the Air.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">WEYMAN, STANLEY J.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The House of the Wolf.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A Gentleman of France.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sophia.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">WHITE, STEWART E.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Blazed Trail.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rules of the Game.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">WHITEING, RICHARD.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No. 5 John Street.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">WILLIAMSON, C. N. and A. M.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Princess Passes.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love and the Spy.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Lightning Conductor.</span><br /><br /><br /> +</p> + + +<p class='center'>T. NELSON & SONS, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Franklin Kane, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKLIN KANE *** + +***** This file should be named 18886-h.htm or 18886-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/8/18886/ + +Produced by Louise Pryor, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Franklin Kane + +Author: Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +Release Date: July 22, 2006 [EBook #18886] +[Last updated: December 30, 2012] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKLIN KANE *** + + + + +Produced by Louise Pryor, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +[Illustration: 'My dear Mr. Kane, I do congratulate you,' Helen said.] + + +FRANKLIN + +KANE + + +BY + +ANNE DOUGLAS + +SEDGWICK + +(MRS. BASIL DE SELINCOURT) + + + +T. NELSON & SONS +LONDON AND EDINBURGH +PARIS: 189, rue Saint-Jacques +LEIPZIG: 35-37 Koenigstrasse + + + + +FRANKLIN KANE. + + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +Miss Althea Jakes was tired after her long journey from Basle. It was a +brilliant summer afternoon, and though the shutters were half closed on +the beating Parisian sunlight, the hotel sitting-room looked, in its +brightness, hardly shadowed. Unpinning her hat, laying it on the table +beside her, passing her hands over the undisordered folds of her hair, +Miss Jakes looked about her at the old-gold brocade of the furniture, +the many mirrors in ornate gold frames, the photographs from Bougereau, +the long, crisp lace curtains. It was the same sitting-room that she had +had last year, the same that she had had the year before last--the same, +indeed, to which she had been conducted on her first stay at the Hotel +Talleyrand, eight years ago. The brocade looked as new, the gilded +frames as glittering, the lace curtains as snowy as ever. Everything was +as she had always seen it, from the ugly Satsuma vases flanking the ugly +bronze clock on the mantelpiece, to the sheaf of pink roses lying beside +her in their white paper wrappings. Even Miss Harriet Robinson's choice +of welcoming flowers was the same. So it had always been, and so, no +doubt, it would continue to be for many years to come; and she, no +doubt, for many summers, would arrive from Basle to sit, jadedly, +looking at it. + +Amelie, her maid, was unpacking in the next room; the door was ajar, and +Miss Jakes could hear the creaking of lifted trays and the rustling of +multitudinous tissue-paper layers. The sounds suggested an answer to a +dim question that had begun to hover in her travel-worn mind. One came +back every summer to the Hotel Talleyrand for the purpose of getting +clothes; that, perhaps, was a sufficient answer. Yet, to-day, it did not +seem sufficient. She was not really so very much interested in her +clothes; not nearly enough interested to make them a compensation for +such fatigue and loneliness as she was now feeling. And as she realised +this, a further question followed: in what was she particularly +interested? What was a sufficient motive for all the European +journeyings with which her life, for the past ten or twelve years, had +been filled? In a less jaded mood, in her usual mood of mild, if rather +wistful, assurance, she would have answered at once that she was +interested in everything--in everything that was of the best--pictures, +music, places, and people. These surely were her objects. + +She was that peculiarly civilised being, the American woman of +independent means and discriminating tastes, whose cosmopolitan studies +and acquaintances give, in their multiplicity, the impression of a full, +if not a completed, life. But to-day the gloomy question hovered: was +not the very pilgrimage to Bayreuth, the study of archaeology in Rome, +and of pictures in Florence, of much the same nature as the yearly visit +to Paris for clothes? What was attained by it all? Was it not something +merely superficial, to be put on and worn, as it were, not to be lived +for with a growing satisfaction? Miss Jakes did not answer this +question; she dismissed it with some indignation, and she got up and +rang rather sharply for tea, which was late; and after asking the +garcon, with a smile that in its gentleness contrasted with the +sharpness of the pull, that it might be brought at once, she paused near +the table to lean over and smell her sheaf of roses, and to read again, +listlessly, Miss Harriet Robinson's words of affectionate greeting. Miss +Robinson was a middle-aged American lady who lived in Paris, and had +long urged Althea to settle there near her. Ten years ago, when she had +first met Miss Robinson in Boston, Althea had thought her a brilliant +and significant figure; but she had by now met too many of her kind--in +Rome, in Florence, in Dresden--to feel any wish for a more intimate +relationship. She was fond of Miss Robinson, but she prayed that fate +did not reserve for her a withering to the like brisk, colourless +spinsterhood. This hope, the necessity for such hope, was the final +depth of her gloomy mood, and she found herself looking at something +very dark as she stood holding Miss Robinson's expensive roses. For, +after all, what was going to become of her? The final depth shaped +itself to-day in more grimly realistic fashion than ever before: what +was she going to do with herself, in the last resort, unless something +happened? Her mind dwelt upon all the visible alternatives. There was +philanthropic lunch-going and lunch-giving spinsterhood in Boston; there +was spinsterhood in Europe, semi-social, semi-intellectual, and +monotonous in its very variety, for Althea had come to feel change as +monotonous; or there was spinsterhood in England established near her +friend, Miss Buckston, who raised poultry in the country, and went up to +London for Bach choir practices and Woman's Suffrage meetings. Althea +couldn't see herself as taking an interest in poultry or in Woman's +Suffrage, nor did she feel herself fitted for patriotic duties in +Boston. There was nothing for it, then, but to continue her present +nomadic life. After seeing herself shut in to this conclusion, it was a +real relief to her to hear the tea-tray chink outside, and to see it +enter, high on the garcon's shoulder, as if with a trivial but cheerful +reply to her dreary questionings. Tea, at all events, would always +happen and always be pleasant. Althea smiled sadly as she made the +reflection, for she was not of an Epicurean temperament. After she had +drunk her tea she felt strengthened to go in and ask Amelie about her +clothes. She might have to get a great many new ones, especially if she +went home for the autumn and winter, as she half intended to do. She +took up the roses, as she passed them, to show to Amelie. Amelie was a +bony, efficient Frenchwoman, with high cheek-bones and sleek black hair. +She had come to Althea first, many years ago, as a courier-maid, to take +her back to America. Althea's mother had died in Dresden, and Althea had +been equipped by anxious friends with this competent attendant for her +sad return journey. Amelie had proved intelligent and reliable in the +highest degree, and though she had made herself rather disagreeable +during her first year in Boston, she had stayed on ever since. She still +made herself disagreeable from time to time, and Althea had sometimes +lacked only the courage to dismiss her; but she could hardly imagine +herself existing without Amelie, and in Europe Amelie was seldom +disagreeable. In Europe, at the worst, she was gruff and ungracious, and +Althea was fond enough of her to ignore these failings, although they +frightened her a little; but though an easily intimidated person, and +much at a loss in meeting opposition or rudeness, she was also +tenacious. She might be frightened, but people could never make her do +what she didn't want to do, not even Amelie. Her relations with Amelie +were slightly strained just now, for she had not taken her advice as to +their return journey from Venice. Amelie had insisted on Mont Cenis, and +Althea had chosen the St. Gothard; so that it was as a measure of +propitiation that she selected three of the roses for Amelie as she went +into the bedroom. Amelie, who was kneeling before one of the larger +boxes and carefully lifting skirts from its trays, paused to sniff at +the flowers, and to express a terse thanks and admiration. 'Ah, bien +merci, mademoiselle,' she said, laying her share on the table beside +her. + +She was not very encouraging about the condition of Althea's wardrobe. + +'Elles sont defraichies--demodees--en verite, mademoiselle,' she +replied, when Althea asked if many new purchases were necessary. + +Althea sighed. 'All the fittings!' + +'Il faut souffrir pour etre belle,' said Amelie unsympathetically. + +Althea had not dared yet to tell her that she might be going back to +America that winter. The thought of Amelie's gloom cast a shadow over +the project, and she could not yet quite face it. She wandered back to +the sitting-room, and, thinking of Amelie's last words, she stood for +some time and looked at herself in the large mirror which rose from +mantelpiece to cornice, enclosed in cascades of gilt. One of the things +that Althea, in her mild assurance, was really secure of--for, as we +have intimated, her assurance often covered a certain insecurity--was +her own appearance. She didn't know about 'belle,' that seemed rather a +trivial term, and the English equivalent better to express the +distinctive characteristic of her face. She had so often been told she +was nobly beautiful that she did not see herself critically, and she now +leaned her elbow on the mantelpiece and gazed at herself with sad +approbation. The mirror reflected only her head and shoulders, and Miss +Jakes's figure could not, even by a partisan, have been described as +beautiful; she was short, and though immature in outline, her form was +neither slender nor graceful. Althea did not feel these defects, and was +well satisfied with her figure, especially with her carriage, which was +full of dignity; but it was her head that best pleased her, and her +head, indeed, had aspects of great benignity and sweetness. It was a +large head, crowned with coils of dull gold hair; her clothing followed +the fashions obediently, but her fashion of dressing her hair did not +vary, and the smooth parting, the carved ripples along her brow became +her, though they did not become her stiffly conventional attire. Her +face, though almost classic in its spaces and modelling, lacked in +feature the classic decision and amplitude, so that the effect was +rather that of a dignified room meagrely furnished. For these +deficiencies, however, Miss Jakes's eyes might well be accepted as +atonement. They were large, dark, and innocent; they lay far apart, +heavily lidded and with wistful eyebrows above them; their expression +varied easily from lucid serenity to a stricken, expectant look, like +that of a threatened doe, and slight causes could make Miss Jakes's eyes +look stricken. They did not look stricken now, but they looked +profoundly melancholy. + +Here she stood, in the heartless little French sitting-room, meaning so +well, so desirous of the best, yet alone, uncertain of any aim, and very +weary of everything. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +Althea, though a cosmopolitan wanderer, had seldom stayed in an hotel +unaccompanied. She did not like, now, going down to the _table d'hote_ +dinner alone, and was rather glad that her Aunt Julia and Aunt Julia's +two daughters were to arrive in Paris next week. It was really almost +the only reason she had for being glad of Aunt Julia's arrival, and she +could imagine no reason for being glad of the girls'. Tiresome as it was +to think of going to tea with Miss Harriet Robinson, to think of hearing +from her all the latest gossip, and all the latest opinions of the +latest books and pictures--alert, mechanical appreciations with which +Miss Robinson was but too ready--it was yet more tiresome to look +forward to Aunt Julia's appreciations, which were dogmatic and often +belated, and to foresee that she must run once more the gauntlet of Aunt +Julia's disapproval of expatriated Americans. Althea was accustomed to +these assaults and met them with weary dignity, at times expostulating: +'It is all very well for you, Aunt Julia, who have Uncle Tom and the +girls; I have nobody, and all my friends are married.' But this brought +upon her an invariable retort: 'Well, why don't you get married then? +Franklin Winslow Kane asks nothing better.' This retort angered Althea, +but she was too fond of Franklin Winslow Kane to reply that perhaps +she, herself, did ask something better. So that it was as a convenience, +and not as a comfort, that she looked forward to Aunt Julia; and to the +girls she did not look forward at all. They were young, ebullient, +slangy; they belonged to a later generation than her own, strange to her +in that it seemed weighted with none of the responsibilities and +reverences that she had grown up among. It was a generation that had no +respect for and no anxiety concerning Europe; that played violent +outdoor games, and went without hats in summer. + +The dining-room was full when she went down to dinner, her inward tremor +of shyness sustained by the consciousness of the perfect fit and cut of +her elaborate little dress. People sat at small tables, and the general +impression was one of circumspection and withdrawal. Most of the +occupants were of Althea's type--richly dressed, quiet-voiced Americans, +careful of their own dignity and quick at assessing other people's. A +French family loudly chattered and frankly stared in one corner; for the +rest, all seemed to be compatriots. + +But after Althea had taken her seat at her own table near the pleasantly +open window, and had consulted the menu and ordered a half-bottle of +white wine, another young woman entered and went to the last vacant +table left in the room, the table next Althea's--so near, indeed, that +the waiter found some difficulty in squeezing himself between them when +he presented the _carte des vins_ to the newcomer. + +She was not an American, Althea felt sure of this at once, and the mere +negation was so emphatic that it almost constituted, for the first +startled glance, a complete definition. But, glancing again and again, +while she ate her soup, Althea realised there were so many familiar +things the newcomer was not, that she seemed made up of differences. The +fact that she was English--she spoke to the waiter absent-mindedly in +that tongue--did not make her less different, for she was like no +English person that Althea had ever seen. She engaged at once the whole +of her attention, but at first Althea could not have said whether this +attention were admiring; her main impression was of oddity, of something +curiously arresting and noticeable. + +The newcomer sat in profile to Althea, her back to the room, facing the +open window, out of which she gazed vaguely and unseeingly. She was +dressed in black, a thin dress, rather frayed along the edges--an +evening dress; though, as a concession to Continental custom, she had a +wide black scarf over her bare shoulders. She sat, leaning forward, her +elbows on the table, and once, when she glanced round and found Althea's +eyes fixed on her, she looked back for a moment, but with something of +the same vagueness and unseeingness with which she looked out of the +window. + +She was very odd. An enemy might say that she had Chinese eyes +and a beak-like nose. The beak was small, as were all the +features--delicately, decisively placed in the pale, narrow face--yet it +jutted over prominently, and the long eyes were updrawn at the outer +corners and only opened widely with an effect of effort. She had +quantities of hair, dense and dark, arranged with an ordered +carelessness, and widely framing her face and throat. She was very +thin, and she seemed very tired; and fatigue, which made Althea look +wistful, made this young lady look bored and bitter. Her grey eyes, +perhaps it was the strangeness of their straight-drawn upper lids, were +dazed and dim in expression. She ate little, leaned limply on her +elbows, and sometimes rubbed her hands over her face, and sat so, her +fingers in her hair, for a languid moment. Dinner was only half over +when she rose and went away, her black dress trailing behind her, and a +moon-like space of neck visible between her heavily-clustered hair and +the gauze scarf. + +Althea could not have said why, but for the rest of the meal, and after +she had gone back to her sitting-room, the thought of the young lady in +black remained almost oppressively with her. + +She had felt empty and aimless before seeing her; since seeing her she +felt more empty, more aimless than ever. It was an absurd impression, +and she tried to shake it off with the help of a recent volume of +literary criticism, but it coloured her mind as though a drop of some +potent chemical had been tipped into her uncomfortable yet indefinable +mood, and had suddenly made visible in it all sorts of latent elements. + +It was curious to feel, as a deep conviction about a perfect stranger, +that though the young lady in black might often know moods, they would +never be undefined ones; to be sure that, however little she had, she +would always accurately know what she wanted. The effect of seeing some +one so hard, so clear, so alien, was much as if, a gracefully moulded +but fragile earthenware pot, she had suddenly, while floating down the +stream, found herself crashing against the bronze vessel of the fable. + +A corrective to this morbid state of mind came to her with the evening +post, and in the form of a thick letter bearing the Boston postmark. +Franklin Winslow Kane had not occurred to Althea as an alternative to +the various forms of dignified extinction with which her imagination had +been occupied that afternoon. Franklin often occurred to her as a +solace, but he never occurred to her as an escape. + +He was a young man of very homespun extraction, who hovered in Boston on +the ambiguous verge between the social and the scholastic worlds; the +sort of young man whom one asked to tea rather than to dinner. He was an +earnest student, and was attached to the university by an official, +though unimportant, tie. A physicist, and, in his own sober way, with +something of a reputation, he was profoundly involved in theories that +dealt with the smallest things and the largest--molecules and the +formation of universes. + +He had first proposed to Althea when she was eighteen. She was now +thirty-three, and for all these years Franklin had proposed to her on +every occasion that offered itself. He was deeply, yet calmly, +determinedly, yet ever so patiently, in love with her; and while other +more eligible and more easily consoled aspirants had drifted away and +got married and become absorbed in their growing families, Franklin +alone remained admirably faithful. She had never given him any grounds +for expecting that she might some day marry him, yet he evidently found +it impossible to marry anybody else. This was the touching fact about +Franklin, the one bright point, as it were, in his singularly colourless +personality. His fidelity was like a fleck of orange on the wing of some +grey, unobtrusive moth; it made him visible. + +Althea's compassionate friendship seemed to sustain him sufficiently on +his way; he did not pine or protest, though he punctually requested. He +frequently appeared and he indefatigably wrote, and his long constancy, +the unemotional trust and closeness of their intimacy, made him seem +less a lover than the American husband of tradition, devoted and +uncomplaining, who had given up hoping that his wife would ever come +home and live with him. + +Althea rather resented this aspect of their relation; she was well aware +of its comicality; but though Franklin's devotion was at times something +of a burden, though she could expect from him none of the glamour of +courtship, she could ill have dispensed with his absorption in her. +Franklin's absorption in her was part of her own personality; she would +hardly have known herself without it; and her relation to him, irksome, +even absurd as she sometimes found it, was perhaps the one thing in her +life that most nearly linked her to reality; it was a mirage, at all +events, of the responsible affections that her life lacked. + +And now, in her mood of positive morbidity, the sight of Franklin's +handwriting on the thick envelope brought her the keenest sense she had +ever had of his value. One might have no aim oneself, yet to be some one +else's aim saved one from that engulfing consciousness of nonentity; one +might be uncertain and indefinite, but a devotion like Franklin's +really defined one. She must be significant, after all, since this very +admirable person--admirable, though ineligible--had found her so for so +many years. It was with a warming sense of restoration, almost of +reconstruction, that she opened the letter, drew out the thickly-folded +sheets of thin paper and began to read the neat, familiar writing. He +told her everything that he was doing and thinking, and about everything +that interested him. He wrote to her of kinetics and atoms as if she had +been a fellow-student. It was as if, helplessly, he felt the whole bulk +of his outlook to be his only chance of interesting her, since no detail +was likely to do so. Unfortunately it didn't interest her much. +Franklin's eagerness about some local election, or admiration for some +talented pupil, or enthusiasm in regard to a new theory that delved +deeper and circled wider than any before, left her imagination inert, as +did he. But to-night all these things were transformed by the greatness +of her own need and of her own relief. And when she read that Franklin +was to be in Europe in six weeks' time, and that he intended to spend +some months there, and, if she would allow it, as near her as was +possible, a sudden hope rose in her and seemed almost a joy. + +Was it so impossible, after all, as an alternative? Equipped with her +own outlooks, with her wider experience, and with her ample means, might +not dear Franklin be eligible? To sink back on Franklin, after all these +years, would be, of course, to confess to failure; but even in failure +there were choices, and wasn't this the best form of failure? Franklin +was not, could never be, the lover she had dreamed of; she had never met +that lover, and she had always dreamed of him. Franklin was +dun-coloured; the lover of her dreams a Perseus-like flash of purple and +gold, ardent, graceful, compelling, some one who would open doors to +large, bright vistas, and lead her into a life of beauty. But this was a +dream and Franklin was the fact, and to-night he seemed the only fact +worth looking at. Wasn't dun-colour, after all, preferable to the +trivial kaleidoscope of shifting tints which was all that the future, +apart from Franklin, seemed to offer her? Might not dun-colour, even, +illuminated by joy, turn to gold, like highway dust when the sun shines +upon it? Althea wondered, leaning back in her chair and gazing before +her; she wondered deeply. + +If only Franklin would come in now with the right look. If only he would +come in with the right word, or, if not with the word, with an even more +compelling silence! Compulsion was needed, and could Franklin compel? +Could he make her fall in love with him? So she wondered, sitting alone +in the Paris hotel, the open letter in her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +When Althea went in to lunch next day, after an arduous morning of +shopping, she observed, with mingled relief and disappointment, that the +young lady in black was not in her place. She might very probably have +gone away, and it was odd to think that an impression so strong was +probably to remain an impression merely. On the whole, she was sorry to +think that it might be so, though the impression had not been altogether +happy. + +After lunch she lay down and read reviews for a lazy hour, and then +dressed to receive Miss Harriet Robinson, who, voluble and beaming, +arrived punctually at four. + +Miss Robinson looked almost exactly as she had looked for the last ten +years. She changed as little as the hotel drawing-room, but that the +pictures on the wall, the vases on the shelf of her mental decoration +varied with every season. She was always passionately interested in +something, and it was surprising to note how completely in the new she +forgot last year's passion. This year it was eugenics and Strauss; the +welfare of the race had suddenly engaged her attention, and the menaced +future of music. She was slender, erect, and beautifully dressed. Her +hands were small, and she constantly but inexpressively gesticulated +with them; her elaborately undulated hair looked like polished, fluted +silver; her eyes were small, dark, and intent; she smiled as constantly +and as inexpressively as she gesticulated. + +'And so you really think of going back for the winter?' she asked Althea +finally, when the responsibilities of parenthood and the impermanency of +modern musical artifices had been demonstrated. 'Why, my dear? You see +everybody here. Everybody comes here, sooner or later.' + +'I don't like getting out of touch with home,' said Althea. + +'I confess that I feel this home,' said Miss Robinson. 'America is so +horribly changed, so vulgarised. The people they accept socially! And +the cost of things! My dear, the last time I went to the States I had to +pay five hundred francs--one hundred dollars--for my winter hat! _Je +vous demande!_ If they will drive us out they must take the +consequences.' + +Althea felt tempted to inquire what these might be. Miss Robinson +sometimes roused a slight irony in her; but she received the +expostulation with a dim smile. + +'Why won't you settle here?' Miss Robinson continued, 'or in Rome--there +is quite a delightful society in Rome--or Florence, or London. Not that +I could endure the English winter.' + +'I've sometimes thought of England,' said Althea. + +'Well, do think of it. I'm perfectly disinterested. Rather than have you +unsettled, I would like to have you settled there. You have interesting +friends, I know.' + +'Yes, very interesting,' said Althea, with some satisfaction. + +'You would probably make quite a place for yourself in London, if you +went at it carefully and consideringly, and didn't allow the wrong sort +of people to _accaparer_ you. We always count, when we want to, we +American women of the good type,' said Miss Robinson, with frank +complacency; 'and I don't see why, with your gifts and charm, you +shouldn't have a salon, political or artistic.' + +Althea was again tempted to wonder what it was Miss Robinson counted +for; but since she had often been told that her gifts and charm demanded +a salon, she was inclined to believe it. 'It's only,' she demurred, +'that I have so many friends, in so many places; it is hard to decide on +settling.' + +'One never does make a real life for oneself until one does settle. I've +found that out for myself,' said Miss Robinson. + +It did not enter into her mind that Althea might still settle, in a +different sense. She was of that vast army of rootless Europeanised +Americans, who may almost be said to belong to a celibate order, so +little does the question of matrimony and family life affect their +existence. For a younger, more frivolous type, Europe might have a +merely matrimonial significance; but to Miss Robinson, and to thousands +of her kind, it meant an escape from displeasing circumstance and a +preoccupation almost monastic with the abstract and the aesthetic. To +Althea it had never meant merely that. Her own people in America were +fastidious and exclusive; from choice, they considered, but, in reality, +partly from necessity; they had never been rich enough or fashionable +enough to be exposed to the temptation of great European alliances. +Althea would have scorned such ambitions as basely vulgar; she had never +thought of Europe as an arena for social triumphs; but it had assuredly +been coloured for her with the colour of romance. It was in Europe, +rather than in America, that she expected to find, if ever, her ardent, +compelling wooer. And it irritated her a little that Miss Robinson +should not seem to consider such a possibility for her. + +She did not accept her friend's invitation to go with her to the +Francais that evening; the weariness of the morning of shopping was her +excuse. She wanted to study a little; she never neglected to keep her +mind in training; and after dinner she sat down with a stout tome on +political economy. She had only got through half a chapter when Amelie +came to her and asked her if she could suggest a remedy for a young lady +next door who, the _femme de chambre_ said, was quite alone, and had +evidently succumbed to a violent attack of influenza. + +'C'est une dame anglaise,' said Amelie, 'et une bien gentille.' + +Althea sprang up, strangely excited. Was it the lady in black? Had she +then not gone yet? 'Next door, you say?' she asked. Yes; the stranger's +bedroom was next her own, and she had no _salon_. + +'I will go in myself and see her,' said Althea, after a moment of +reflection. + +She was not at all given to such impulses, and, under any other +circumstances, would have sent Amelie with the offer of assistance. But +she suddenly felt it an opportunity, for what she could not have said. +It was like seeing a curious-looking book opened before one; one wanted +to read in it, if only a snatched paragraph here and there. + +Amelie protested as to infection, but Althea was a resourceful traveller +and had disinfectants for every occasion. She drenched her handkerchief, +gargled her throat, and, armed with her little case of remedies, knocked +at the door near by. A languid voice answered her and she entered. + +The room was lighted by two candles that stood on the mantelpiece, and +the bed in its alcove was dim. Tossed clothes lay on the chairs; a +battered box stood open, its tray lying on the floor; the dressing-table +was in confusion, and the scent of cigarette smoke mingled with that of +a tall white lily that was placed in a vase on a little table beside the +bed. To the well-maided Althea the disorder was appalling, yet it +expressed, too, something of charm. The invalid lay plunged in her +pillows, her dark hair tossed above her head, and, as Althea approached, +she did not unclose her eyes. + +'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Althea, feeling some trepidation. 'My maid +told me that you were ill--that you had influenza, and I know just what +to do for it. May I give you some medicine? I do hope I have not waked +you up,' for the invalid was now looking at her with some astonishment. + +'No; I wasn't asleep. How very kind of you. I thought it was the +chambermaid,' she said. 'Forgive me for seeming so rude.' + +Her eyes were more dazed than ever, and she more mysterious, with her +unbound hair. + +'You oughtn't to lie with your arms outside the covers like that,' said +Althea. 'It's most important not to get chilled. I'm afraid you don't +know how to take care of yourself.' She smiled a little, gentle and +assured, though inwardly with still a tremor; and she drew the clothes +about the invalid, who had relapsed passively on to her pillows. + +'I'm afraid I don't. How very kind of you!' she murmured again. + +Althea brought a glass of water and, selecting her little bottle, poured +out the proper number of drops. 'You were feeling ill last night, +weren't you?' she said, after the dose had been swallowed. 'I thought +that you looked ill.' + +'Last night?' + +'Yes, don't you remember? I sat next you in the dining-room.' + +'Oh yes; of course, of course! I remember now. You had this dress on; I +noticed all the little silver tassels. Yes, I've been feeling wretched +for several days; I've done hardly anything--no shopping, no +sight-seeing, and I ought to be back in London to-morrow; but I suppose +I'll have to stay in bed for a week; it's very tiresome.' She spoke +wearily, yet in decisive little sentences, and her voice, its hardness +and its liquid intonations, made Althea think of wet pebbles softly +shaken together. + +'You haven't sent for a doctor?' she inquired, while she took out her +small clinical thermometer. + +'No, indeed; I never send for doctors. Can't afford 'em,' said the young +lady, with a wan grimace. 'Must I put that into my mouth?' + +'Yes, please; I must take your temperature. I think, if you let me +prescribe for you, I can see after you as well as a doctor,' Althea +assured her. 'I'm used to taking care of people who are ill. The friend +I've just been staying with in Venice had influenza very badly while I +was with her.' + +She rather hoped, after the thermometer was removed, that the young lady +would ask her some question about Venice and her present destination; +but, though so amiable and so grateful, she did not seem to feel any +curiosity about the good Samaritan who thus succoured her. + +Althea found her patient less feverish next morning when she went in +early to see her, and though she said that her body felt as though it +were being beaten with red-hot hammers, she smiled in saying it, and +Althea then, administering her dose, asked her what her name might be. + +It was Helen Buchanan, she learned. + +'And mine is Althea Jakes. You are English, aren't you?' + +'Oh no, I'm Scotch,' said Miss Buchanan. + +'And I am American. Do you know any Americans?' + +'Oh yes, quite a lot. One of them is a Mrs. Harrison, and lives in +Chicago,' said Miss Buchanan, who seemed in a more communicative mood. +'I met her in Nice one winter; a very nice, kind woman, who gives most +sumptuous parties. Her husband is a millionaire; one never sees him. Do +you come from Chicago? Do you know her?' + +Althea, with some emphasis, said that she came from Boston. + +'Another,' Miss Buchanan pursued, 'lives in New York, though she is +usually over here; she is immensely rich, too. She hunts every winter +in England, and is great fun and is frightfully well up in +everything--pictures, books, music, you know: Americans usually are well +up, aren't they? She wants me to stay with her some day in New York; +perhaps I shall, if I can manage to afford the voyage. Her name is +Bigham; perhaps you know her.' + +'No. I know of her, though; she is very well known,' said Althea rather +coldly; for Mrs. Bigham was an excessively fashionable and reputedly +reckless lady who had divorced one husband and married another, and +whose doings filled more scrupulous circles with indignation and +unwilling interest. + +'Then I met a dear little woman in Oxford once,' said Miss Buchanan. +'She was studying there--she had come from a college in America. She was +so nice and clever, and charming, too; quaint and full of flavour. She +was going to teach in a college when she went back. She was very poor, +quite different from the others. Her father, she told me, kept a shop, +but didn't get on at all; and her brother, to whom she was devoted, sold +harmoniums. It was just like an American novel. Wayman was her +name--Miss Carrie Wayman; perhaps you know her. I forget the name of the +town she came from, but it was somewhere in the western part of +America.' + +No, Althea said, she did not know Miss Wayman, and she felt some little +severity for the confusion that Miss Buchanan's remarks indicated. With +greater emphasis than before, she said that she did not know the West at +all. + +'It must be rather nice--plains and cowboys and Rocky Mountains,' Miss +Buchanan said. 'I've a cousin on a ranch in Dakota, and I've often +thought I'd like to go out there for a season; he says the riding is +wonderful, and the scenery and flowers. Oh, my wretched head; it feels +as if it were stuffed with incandescent cotton-wool.' + +'You must remember to keep your arms under the covers,' said Althea, as +Miss Buchanan lifted her hands and pressed them to her brows. 'And let +me plait your hair for you; it must be so hot and uncomfortable.' + +And now again, looking up at her while the friendly office was +performed, Miss Buchanan said, 'How kind you are! too kind for words. I +can't think what I should have done without you.' + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It became easy after this for Althea to carry into effect all her +beneficent wishes. The friends who had taken Miss Buchanan to the +Riviera had gone on to London, leaving her alone in Paris for a week's +shopping, and there was no one else to look after her. She brought her +fruit and flowers and sat with her in all her spare moments. The feeling +of anxiety that had oppressed her on the evening of gloom when she had +first seen her was transformed into a soft and delightful perturbation. +As the unknown lady in black Miss Buchanan had indeed charmed as well as +oppressed her, and the charm grew while the oppression, though it still +hovered, was felt more as a sense of alluring mystery. She had never in +her life met any one in the least like Miss Buchanan. She was at once so +open and so impenetrable. She replied to all questions with complete +unreserve, but she had never, with all her candour, the air of making +confidences. It hurt Althea a little, and yet was part of the +allurement, to see that she was, probably, too indifferent to be +reticent. Lying on her pillows, a cigarette--all too frequently, Althea +considered--between her lips, and her hair wound in a heavy wreath upon +her head, she would listen pleasantly, and as pleasantly reply; and +Althea could not tell whether it was because she really found it +pleasant to talk and be talked to, or whether, since she had nothing +better to do, she merely showed good manners. Althea was sensitive to +every shade in manners, and was sure that Miss Buchanan, however great +her tact might be, did not find her a bore; yet she could not be at all +sure that she found her interesting, and this disconcerted her. +Sometimes the suspicion of it made her feel humble, and sometimes it +made her feel a little angry, for she was not accustomed to being found +uninteresting. She herself, however, was interested; and it was when she +most frankly owned to this, laying both anger and humility aside, that +she was happiest in the presence of her new acquaintance. She liked to +talk to her, and she liked to make her talk. From these conversations +she was soon able to build up a picture of Miss Buchanan's life. She +came of an old Scotch family, and she had spent her childhood and +girlhood in an old Scotch house. This house, Althea was sure, she really +did enjoy talking about. She described it to Althea: the way the rooms +lay, and the passages ran, and the queer old stairs climbed up and down. +She described the ghost that she herself had seen once--her +matter-of-fact acceptance of the ghost startled Althea--and the hills +and moors that one looked out on from the windows. Led by Althea's +absorbed inquiries, she drifted on to detailed reminiscence--the dogs +she had cared for, the flowers she had grown, and the dear red lacquer +mirror that she had broken. 'Papa did die that year,' she added, after +mentioning the incident. + +'Surely you don't connect the two things,' said Althea, who felt some +remonstrance necessary. Miss Buchanan said no, she supposed not; it was +silly to be superstitious; yet she didn't like breaking mirrors. + +Her brother lived in the house now. He had married some one she didn't +much care about, though she did not enlarge on this dislike. 'Nigel had +to marry money,' was all she said. 'He couldn't have kept the place +going if he hadn't. Jessie isn't at all a bad sort, and they get on very +well and have three nice little boys; but I don't much take to her nor +she to me, so that I'm not much there any more.' + +'And your mother?' Althea questioned, 'where does she live? Don't you +stay with her ever?' She had gathered that the widowed Mrs. Buchanan was +very pretty and very selfish, but she was hardly prepared for the +frankness with which Miss Buchanan defined her own attitude towards her. + +'Oh, I can't stand Mamma,' she said; 'we don't get on at all. I'm not +fond of rowdy people, and Mamma knows such dreadful bounders. So long as +people have plenty of money and make things amusing for her, she'll put +up with anything.' + +Althea had all the American reverence for the sanctities and loyalties +of the family, and these ruthless explanations filled her with uneasy +surprise. Miss Buchanan was ruthless about all her relatives; there were +few of them, apparently, that she cared for except the English cousins +with whom she had spent many years of girlhood, and the Aunt Grizel who +made a home for her in London. To her she alluded with affectionate +emphasis: 'Oh, Aunt Grizel is very different from the rest of them.' + +Aunt Grizel was not well off, but it was she who made Helen the little +allowance that enabled her to go about; and she had insured her life, so +that at her death, when her annuity lapsed, Helen should be sure of the +same modest sum. 'Owing to Aunt Grizel I'll just not starve,' said +Helen, with the faint grimace, half bitter, half comic, that sometimes +made her strange face still stranger. 'One hundred and fifty pounds a +year: think of it! Isn't it damnable? Yet it's better than nothing, as +Aunt Grizel and I often say after groaning together.' + +Althea, safely niched in her annual three thousand, was indeed +horrified. + +'One hundred and fifty,' she repeated helplessly. 'Do you mean that you +manage to dress on that now?' + +'Dress on it, my dear! I pay all my travelling expenses, my cabs, my +stamps, my Christmas presents--everything out of it, as well as buy my +clothes. And it will have to pay for my rent and food besides, when Aunt +Grizel dies--when I'm not being taken in somewhere. Of course, she still +counts on my marrying, poor dear.' + +'Oh, but, of course you _will_ marry,' said Althea, with conviction. + +Miss Buchanan, who was getting much better, was propped high on her +pillows to-day, and was attired in a most becoming flow of lace and +silk. Nothing less exposed to the gross chances of the world could be +imagined. She did not turn her eyes on her companion as the confident +assertion was made, and she kept silence for a moment. Then she +answered placidly: + +'Of course, if I'm to live--and not merely exist--I must try to, I +suppose.' + +Althea was taken aback and pained by the wording of this speech. Her +national susceptibilities were again wounded by the implication that a +rare and beautiful woman--for so she termed Helen Buchanan--might be +forced, not only to hope for marriage, but to seek it; the implication +that urgency lay rather in the woman's state than in the man's. She had +all the romantic American confidence in the power of the rare and +beautiful woman to marry when and whom she chose. + +'I am sure you need never try,' she said with warmth. 'I'm sure you have +dozens of delightful people in love with you.' + +Miss Buchanan turned her eyes on her and laughed as though she found +this idea amusing. 'Why, in heaven's name, should I have dozens of +delightful people in love with me?' + +'You are so lovely, so charming, so distinguished.' + +'Am I? Thanks, my dear. I'm afraid you see things _en couleur de rose_.' +And, still smiling, her eyes dwelling on Althea with their indifferent +kindness, she went on: 'Have you delightful dozens in love with you?' + +Althea did not desert her guns. She felt that the very honour of their +sex--hers and Helen's--was on trial in her person. She might not be as +lovely as her friend--though she might be; that wasn't a matter for her +to inquire into; but as woman--as well-bred, highly educated, refined +and gentle woman--she, too, was chooser, and not seeker. + +'Only one delightful person is in love with me at this moment, I'm sorry +to say,' she answered, smiling back; 'but I've had very nearly my proper +share in the past.' It had been necessary thus to deck poor Franklin out +if her standpoint were to be maintained; and, indeed, could not one deem +him delightful, in some senses--in moral senses; he surely was +delightfully good. The little effort to see dear Franklin's goodness as +delightful rather discomposed her, and as Miss Buchanan asked no further +question as to the one delightful suitor, the little confusion mounted +to her eyes and cheeks. She wondered if she had spoken tastelessly, and +hastened away from this personal aspect of the question. + +'You don't really mean--I'm sure you don't mean that you would marry +just for money.' + +Miss Buchanan kept her ambiguous eyes half merrily, half pensively upon +her. 'Of course, if he were very nice. I wouldn't marry a man who wasn't +nice for money.' + +'Surely you couldn't marry a man unless you were in love with him?' + +'Certainly I could. Money lasts, and love so often doesn't.' Helen +continued to smile as she spoke. + +There was now a tremor of pain in Althea's protest. 'Dear Miss Buchanan, +I can't bear to hear you speak like that. I can't bear to think of any +one so lovely doing anything so sordid, so miserable, as making a +_mariage de convenance_.' Tears rose to her eyes. + +Miss Buchanan was again silent for a moment, and it was now her turn to +look slightly confused. 'It's very nice of you to mind,' she said; and +she added, as if to help Althea not to mind, 'But, you see, I am sordid; +I am miserable.' + +'Sordid? Miserable? Do you mean unhappy?' Poor Althea gazed, full of her +most genuine distress. + +'Oh no; I mean in your sense. I'm a poor creature, quite ordinary and +grubby; that's all,' said Miss Buchanan. + +They said nothing more of it then, beyond Althea's murmur of now +inarticulate protest; but the episode probably remained in Miss +Buchanan's memory as something rather puzzling as well as rather +pitiful, this demonstration of a feeling so entirely unexpected that she +had not known what to do with it. + +If, in these graver matters, she distressed Althea, in lesser ones she +was continually, if not distressing her, at all events calling upon her, +in complete unconsciousness, for readjustments of focus that were +sometimes, in their lesser way, painful too. When she asserted that she +was not musical, Althea almost suspected her of saying it in order to +evade her own descriptions of experiences at Bayreuth. Pleasantly as she +might listen, it was sometimes, Althea had discovered, with a restive +air masked by a pervasive vagueness; this vagueness usually drifted over +her when Althea described experiences of an intellectual or aesthetic +nature. It could be no question of evasion, however, when, in answer to +a question of Althea's, she said that she hated Paris. Since girlhood +Althea had accepted Paris as the final stage in a civilised being's +education: the Theatre Francais, the lectures at the Sorbonne, the +Louvre and the Cluny, and, for a later age, Anatole France--it seemed +almost barbarous to say that one hated the splendid city that clothed, +as did no other place in the world, one's body and one's mind. 'How can +you hate it?' she inquired. 'It means so much that is intellectual, so +much that is beautiful.' + +'I suppose so,' said Miss Buchanan. 'I do like to look at it sometimes; +the spaces and colour are so nice.' + +'The spaces, and what's in them, surely. What is it that you don't like? +The French haven't our standards of morality, of course, but don't you +think it's rather narrow to judge them by our standards?' + +Althea was pleased to set forth thus clearly her own liberality of +standard. She sometimes suspected Miss Buchanan of thinking her naive. +But Miss Buchanan now looked a little puzzled, as if it were not this at +all that she had meant, and said presently that perhaps it was the +women's faces--the well-dressed women. 'I don't mind the poor ones so +much; they often look too sharp, but they often look kind and +frightfully tired. It is the well-dressed ones I can't put up with. And +the men are even more horrid. I always want to spend a week in walking +over the moors when I've been here. It leaves a hot taste in my mouth, +like some horrid liqueur.' + +'But the beauty--the intelligence,' Althea urged. 'Surely you are a +little intolerant, to see only people's faces in Paris. Think of the +Salon Carree and the Cluny; they take away the taste of the liqueur. +How can one have enough of them?' + +Miss Buchanan again demurred. 'Oh, I think I can have enough of them.' + +'But you care for pictures, for beautiful things,' said Althea, half +vexed and half disturbed. But Miss Buchanan said that she liked having +them about her, not having to go and look at them. 'It is so stuffy in +museums, too; they always give me a headache. However, I don't believe I +really do care about pictures. You see, altogether I've had no +education.' + +Her education, indeed, contrasted with Althea's well-ordered and +elaborate progression, had been lamentable--a mere succession of +incompetent governesses. Yet, on pressing her researches, Althea, though +finding almost unbelievable voids, felt, more than anything else, tastes +sharp and fine that seemed to cut into her own tastes and show her +suddenly that she did not really like what she had thought she liked, or +that she liked what she had hardly before been aware of. All that Helen +could be brought to define was that she liked looking at things in the +country: at birds, clouds, and flowers; but though striking Althea as a +creature strangely untouched and unmoulded, she struck her yet more +strongly as beautifully definite. She marvelled at her indifference to +her own shortcomings, and she marvelled at the strength of personality +that could so dispense with other people's furnishings. + +Among the things that Helen made her see, freshly and perturbingly, was +the sheaf of friends in England of whom she had thought with such +security when Miss Robinson had spoken of the London _salon_. + +Althea had been trained in a school of severe social caution. Social +caution was personified to her in her memory of her mother--a slender, +black-garbed lady, with parted grey hair, neatly waved along her brow, +and a tortoiseshell lorgnette that she used to raise, mildly yet +alarmingly, at foreign _tables d'hotes_, for an appraising survey of the +company. The memory of this lorgnette operated with Althea as a sort of +social standard; it typified delicacy, dignity, deliberation, a +scrupulous regard for the claims of heredity, and a scrupulous avoidance +of uncertain or all too certain types. Althea felt that she had carried +on the tradition worthily. The lorgnette would have passed all her more +recent friends--those made with only its inspiration as a guide. She was +as careful as her mother as to whom she admitted to her +acquaintanceship, eschewing in particular those of her compatriots whose +accents or demeanour betrayed them to her trained discrimination as +outside the radius of acceptance. But Althea's kindness of heart was +even deeper than her caution, and much as she dreaded becoming involved +with the wrong sort of people, she dreaded even more hurting anybody's +feelings, with the result that once or twice she had made mistakes, and +had had, under the direction of Lady Blair, to withdraw in a manner as +painful to her feelings as to her pride. 'Oh no, my dear,' Lady Blair +had said of some English acquaintances whom Althea had met in Rome, and +who had asked her to come and see them in England. 'Quite impossible; +most worthy people, I am sure, and no doubt the daughter took honours +at Girton--the middle classes are highly educated nowadays; but one +doesn't know that sort of people.' + +Lady Blair was the widow of a judge, and, in her large velvet +drawing-room, a thick fog outside and a number of elderly legal ladies +drinking tea about her, Althea had always felt herself to be in the very +heart of British social safety. Lady Blair was an old friend of her +mother's, and, with Miss Buckston, was her nearest English friend. She +also felt safe on the lawn under the mulberry-tree at Grimshaw Rectory, +and when ensconced for her long visit in Colonel and Mrs. Colling's +little house in Devonshire, where hydrangeas grew against a blue +background of sea, and a small white yacht rocked in the bay at the foot +of the garden. + +It was therefore with some perplexity that, here too, she brought from +her interviews with Helen an impression of new standards. They were not +drastic and relegating, like those of Lady Blair's; they did not make +her feel unsafe as Lady Blair's had done; they merely made her feel that +her world was very narrow and she herself rather ingenuous. + +Helen herself seemed unaware of standards, and had certainly never +experienced any of Althea's anxieties. She had always been safe, partly, +Althea had perceived, because she had been born safe, but, in the main, +because she was quite indifferent to safety. And with this indifference +and this security went the further fact that she had, probably, never +been ingenuous. With all her admiration, her affection for her new +friend, this sense of the change that she was working in her life +sometimes made Althea a little afraid of her, and sometimes a little +indignant. She, herself, was perfectly safe in America, and when she +felt indignant she asked herself what Helen Buchanan would have done had +she been turned into a strange continent with hardly any other guides +than the memory of a lorgnette and a Baedeker. + +It was when she was bound to answer this question, and to recognise that +in such circumstances Miss Buchanan would have gone her way, entirely +unperturbed, and entirely sure of her own preferences, that Althea felt +afraid of her. In all circumstances, she more and more clearly saw it, +Miss Buchanan would impose her own standards, and be oppressed or +enlightened by none. Althea had always thought of herself as very calm +and strong; it was as calm and strong that Franklin Winslow Kane so +worshipped her; but when she talked to Miss Buchanan she had sharp +shoots of suspicion that she was, in reality, weak and wavering. + +Althea's accounts of her friends in England seemed to interest Miss +Buchanan even less than her accounts of Bayreuth. She had met Miss +Buckston, but had only a vague and, evidently, not a pleasant impression +of her. Lady Blair she had never heard of, nor the inmates of Grimshaw +Rectory. The Collings were also blanks, except that Mrs. Colling had an +uncle, an old Lord Taunton; and when Althea put forward this identifying +fact, Helen said that she knew him and liked him very much. + +'I suppose you know a great many people,' said Althea. + +Yes, Miss Buchanan replied, she supposed she did. 'Too many, sometimes. +One gets sick of them, don't you think? But perhaps your people are +more interesting than mine; you travel so much, and seem to know such +heaps of them all over the world.' + +But Althea, from these interviews, took a growing impression that though +Miss Buchanan might be sick of her own people, she would be far more +sick of hers. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +Miss Buchanan was well on the way to complete recovery, was able to have +tea every afternoon with Althea, and to be taken for long drives in the +Bois, when Aunt Julia and the girls arrived at the Hotel Talleyrand. + +Mrs. Pepperell was a sister of Althea's mother, and lived soberly and +solidly in New York, disapproving as much of millionaires and their +manners as of expatriated Americans. She was large and dressed with +immaculate precision and simplicity, and had it not been for a homespun +quality of mingled benevolence and shrewdness, she might have passed as +stately. But Mrs. Pepperell had no wish to appear stately, and was +rather intolerant of the pretension in others. Her sharp tongue had +indulged itself in a good many sallies on this score at her sister +Bessie's expense; Bessie being the lady of the lorgnette, Althea's +deceased mother. + +Althea, remembering that dear mother so well, all dignified elegance as +she had been--too dignified, too elegant, perhaps, to be either so +shrewd or so benevolent as her sister--always thought of Aunt Julia as +rather commonplace in comparison. Yet, as she followed in her wake on +the evening of her arrival, she felt that Aunt Julia was obviously and +eminently 'nice.' The one old-fashioned diamond ornament at her throat, +the ruffles at her wrist, the gloss of her silver-brown hair, reminded +her of her own mother's preferences. + +The girls were 'nice,' too, as far as their appearance and breeding +went, but Althea found their manners very bad. They were not strident +and they were not arrogant, but so much noisiness and so much innocent +assurance might, to unsympathetic eyes, seem so. They were handsome +girls, fresh-skinned, athletic, tall and slender. They wore beautifully +simple white lawn dresses, and their shining fair hair was brushed off +their foreheads and tied at the back with black bows in a very becoming +fashion, though Althea thought the bows too large and the fashion too +obviously local. + +Helen was in her old place that night, and she smiled at Althea as she +and her party took their places at a table larger and at a little +distance. She was to come in for coffee after dinner, so that Althea +adjourned introductions. Aunt Julia looked sharply and appraisingly at +the black figure, and the girls did not look at all. They were filled +with young delight and excitement at the prospect of a three weeks' romp +in Paris, among dressmakers, tea-parties, and the opera. 'And Herbert +Vaughan is here. I've just had a letter from him, forwarded from +London,' Dorothy announced, to which Mildred, with glad emphasis, cried +'Bully!' + +Althea sighed, crumbled her bread, and looked out of the window +resignedly. + +'You mustn't talk slang before Cousin Althea,' said Dorothy. + +'What Cousin Althea needs is slang,' said Mildred. + +'I shan't lack it with you, shall I, Mildred?' Althea returned, with, a +rather chilly smile. She knew that Dorothy and Mildred considered her, +as they would have put it, 'A back number'; they liked to draw her out +and to shock her. She wanted to make it clear that she wasn't shocked, +but that she was wearied. At the same time it was true that Mildred and +Dorothy made her uncomfortable in subtler ways; she was, perhaps, a +little afraid of them, too. They, too, imposed their own standards, and +were oppressed and enlightened by none. + +Aunt Julia smiled indulgently at her children, and asked Althea if she +did not think that they were looking very well. They certainly were, and +Althea had to own it. 'But don't let them overdo their athletics, Aunt +Julia,' she said. 'It is such a pity when girls get brawny.' + +'I'm brawny; feel my muscle,' said Mildred, stretching a hard young arm +across the table. Althea shook her head. She did not like being made +conspicuous, and already the girls' loud voices had drawn attention; the +French family were all staring. + +'Who is the lady in black, Althea?' Mrs. Pepperell asked. 'A friend of +yours?' + +'Yes, a most charming friend,' said Althea. 'Helen Buchanan is her name; +she is Scotch--a very old family--and she is one of the most interesting +people I've ever known. You will meet her after dinner. She is coming in +to spend the evening.' + +'Where did you meet her? How long have you known her?' asked Aunt Julia, +evidently unimpressed. + +Althea said that she had met her here, but that they had mutual +friends, thinking of Miss Buckston in what she felt to be an emergency. + +Aunt Julia, with her air of general scepticism as to what she could find +so worth while in Europe, often made her embark on definitions and +declarations. She could certainly tolerate no uncertainty on the subject +of Helen's worth. + +'Very odd looking,' said Aunt Julia, while the girls glanced round +indifferently at the subject of discussion. + +'And peculiarly distinguished looking,' said Althea. 'She makes most +people look so half-baked and insignificant.' + +'I think it a rather sinister face,' said Aunt Julia. 'And how she +slouches! Sit up, Mildred. I don't want you to catch European tricks.' + +But, after dinner, Althea felt that Helen made her impression. She was +still wan and weak; she said very little, though she smiled very +pleasantly, and she sat--as Aunt Julia had said, 'slouched,' yet so +gracefully--in a corner of the sofa. The charm worked. The girls felt +it, Aunt Julia felt it, though Aunt Julia held aloof from it. Althea saw +that Aunt Julia, most certainly, did not interest Helen, but the girls +amused her; she liked them. They sat near her and made her laugh by +their accounts of their journey, the funny people on the steamer, their +plans for the summer, and life in America, as they lived it. Dorothy +assured her that she didn't know what fun was till she came to America, +and Mildred cried: 'Oh, do come! We'll give you the time of your life!' +Helen declared that she hoped some day to experience this climax. + +Before going to bed, and attired in her dressing-gown, Althea went to +Helen's room to ask her how she felt, but also to see what impression +her relatives had made. Helen was languidly brushing her hair, and +Althea took the brush from her and brushed it for her. + +'Isn't it lamentable,' she said, 'that Aunt Julia, who is full of a +certain sort of wise perception about other things, doesn't seem to see +at all how bad the children's manners are. She lets them monopolise +everybody's attention with the utmost complacency.' + +Helen, while her hair was being brushed, put out her hand for her watch +and was winding it. 'Have they bad manners?' she said. 'But they are +nice girls.' + +'Yes, they are nice. But surely you don't like their slang?' + +Helen smiled at the recollection of it. 'More fun than a goat,' she +quoted. 'Why shouldn't they talk slang?' + +'Dear Helen,'--they had come quite happily to Christian names--'surely +you care for keeping the language pure. Surely you think it regrettable +that the younger generation should defile and mangle it like that.' + +But Helen only laughed, and confessed that she really didn't care what +happened to the language. 'There'll always be plenty of people to talk +it too well,' she said. + +Mrs. Pepperell, on her side, had her verdict, and she gave it some days +later when she and her niece were driving to the dressmaker's. + +'She is a very nice girl, Miss Buchanan, and clever, too, in her quiet +English way, though startlingly ignorant. Dorothy actually told me that +she had never read any Browning, and thought that Sophocles was +Diogenes, and lived in a tub. But frankly, Althea, I can't say that I +take to her very much.' + +Aunt Julia, often irritating to Althea, was never more so than when, as +now, she assumed that her verdicts and opinions were of importance to +her niece. Althea shrank from open combat with anybody, yet she could, +under cover of gentle candour, plant her shafts. She planted one now in +answering: 'I don't think that you would, either of you, take to one +another. Helen's flavour is rather recondite.' + +'Recondite, my dear,' said Aunt Julia, who never pretended not to know +when a shaft had been planted. 'I think, everyday _mere de famille_ as I +am, that I am quite capable of appreciating the recondite. Miss +Buchanan's appearance is striking, and she is an independent creature; +but, essentially, she is the most commonplace type of English +girl--well-bred, poor, idle, uneducated, and with no object in life +except to amuse herself and find a husband with money. And under that +air of sleepy indifference she has a very sharp eye to the main chance, +you may take my word for it.' + +Althea was very angry, the more so for the distorted truth this judgment +conveyed. 'I'm afraid I shouldn't take your word on any matter +concerning my friend,' she returned; 'and I think, Aunt Julia, that you +forget that it is my friend you are speaking of.' + +'My dear, don't lose your temper. I only say it to put you on your +guard. You are so given to idealisation, and you may find yourself +disappointed if you trust to depths that are not there. As to +friendship, don't forget that she is, as yet, the merest acquaintance.' + +'One may feel nearer some people in a week than to others after years.' + +'As to being near in a week--she doesn't feel near _you_; that is all I +mean. Don't cast your pearls too lavishly.' + +Althea made no reply, but under her air of unruffled calm, Aunt Julia's +shaft rankled. + +She found herself that afternoon, when she and Helen were alone at tea, +sounding her, probing her, for reassuring symptoms of warmth or +affection. 'I so hope that we may keep really in touch with one +another,' she said. 'I couldn't bear not to keep in touch with you, +Helen.' + +Helen looked at her with the look, vague, kind, and a little puzzled, +that seemed to plant Aunt Julia's shaft anew. 'Keep in touch,' she +repeated. 'Of course. You'll be coming to England some day, and then +you'll be sure to look me up, won't you?' + +'But, until I do come, we will write? You will write to me a great +deal?' + +'Oh, my dear, I do so hate writing. I never have anything to say in a +letter. Let us exchange postcards, when our doings require it.' + +'Postcards!' Althea could not repress a disconsolate note. 'How can I +tell from postcards what you are thinking and feeling?' + +'You may always take it for granted that I'm doing very little of +either,' said Helen, smiling. + +Althea was silent for a moment, and then, with a distress apparent in +voice and face, she said: 'I can't bear you to say that.' + +Helen still smiled, but she was evidently at a loss. She added some milk +to her tea and took a slice of bread and butter before saying, more +kindly, yet more lightly than before: 'You mustn't judge me by yourself. +I'm not a bit thoughtful, you know, or warm-hearted and intellectual, +like you. I just rub along. I'm sure you'll not find it worth while +keeping in touch with me.' + +'It's merely that I care for you very much,' said Althea, in a slightly +quivering voice. 'And I can't bear to think that I am nothing to you.' + +There was again a little pause in which, because her eyes had suddenly +filled with tears, Althea looked down and could not see her friend. +Helen's voice, when she spoke, showed her that she was pained and +disconcerted. 'You make me feel like such a clumsy brute when you say +things like that,' she said. 'You are so kind, and I am so selfish and +self-centred. But of course I care for you too.' + +'Do you really?' said Althea, who, even if she would, could not have +retained the appearance of lightness and independence. 'You really feel +me as a friend, a true friend?' + +'If you really think me worth your while, of course. I don't see how you +can--an ill-tempered, ignorant, uninteresting woman, whom you've run +across in a hotel and been good to.' + +'I don't think of you like that, as you know. I think you a strangely +lovely and strangely interesting person. From the first moment I saw you +you appealed to me. I felt that you needed something--love and sympathy, +perhaps. The fact that it's been a sort of chance--our meeting--makes +it all the sweeter to me.' + +Again Helen was silent for a moment, and again Althea, sitting with +downcast eyes, knew that, though touched, she was uncomfortable. 'You +are too nice and kind for words,' she then said. 'I can't tell you how +kind I think it of you.' + +'Then we are friends? You do feel me as a friend who will always be +interested and always care?' + +'Yes, indeed; and I do so thank you.' + +Althea put out her hand, and Helen gave her hers, saying, 'You _are_ a +dear,' and adding, as though to take refuge from her own discomposure, +'much too dear for the likes of me.' + +The bond was thus sealed, yet Aunt Julia's shaft still stuck. It was she +who had felt near, and who had drawn Helen near. Helen, probably, would +never have thought of keeping in touch. She was Helen's friend because +she had appealed for friendship, and because Helen thought her a dear. +The only comfort was to know that Helen's humility was real. She might +have offered her friendship could she have realised that it was of value +to anybody. + +It was a few evenings after this, and perhaps as a result of their talk, +that, as they sat in Althea's room over coffee, Helen said: 'Why don't +you come to England this summer, Althea?' + +Aunt Julia had proposed that Althea should go on to Bayreuth with her +and the girls, and Althea was turning over the plan, thinking that +perhaps she had had enough of Bayreuth, so that Helen's suggestion, +especially as it was made in Aunt Julia's presence, was a welcome one. +'Perhaps I will,' she said. 'Will you be there?' + +'I'll be in London, with Aunt Grizel, until the middle of July; after +that, in the country till winter. You ought to take a house in the +country and let me come to stay with you,' said Helen, smiling. + +'Will you pay me a long visit?' Althea smiled back. + +'As long as you'll ask me for.' + +'Well, you are asked for as long as you will stay. Where shall I get a +house? There are some nice ones near Miss Buckston's.' + +'Oh, don't let us be too near Miss Buckston,' said Helen, laughing. + +'But surely, Althea, you won't give up Bayreuth,' Aunt Julia interposed. +'It is going to be specially fine this year. And then you know so few +people in England, you will be very lonely. Nothing is more lonely than +the English country when you know nobody.' + +'Helen is a host in herself,' said Althea; and though Helen did not +realise the full force of the compliment, it was more than satisfactory +to have her acquiesce with: 'Oh, as to people, I can bring you heaps of +them, if you want them.' + +'It is a lovely idea,' said Althea; 'and if I must miss Bayreuth, Aunt +Julia, I needn't miss you and the girls. You will have to come and stay +with me. Do you know of a nice house, Helen, in pretty country, and not +too near Miss Buckston?' It was rather a shame of her, she felt, this +proviso, but indeed she had never found Miss Buckston endearing, and +since knowing Helen she had seen more clearly than before that she was +in many ways oppressive. + +Helen was reflecting. 'I do know of a house,' she said, 'in a very nice +country, too. You might have a look at it. It's where I used to go, as a +girl, you know, and stay with my cousins, the Digbys.' + +'That would be perfect, Helen.' + +'Oh, I don't know that you would find it perfect. It is a plain stone +house, with a big, dilapidated garden, nice trees and lawns, miles from +everything, and with old-fashioned, shabby furniture. Since Gerald came +into the place, he's not been able to keep it up, and he has to let it. +He hasn't been able to let it for the last year or so, and would be glad +of the chance. If you like the place you'll only have to say the word.' + +'I know I shall like it. Don't you like it?' + +'Oh, I love it; but that's a different matter. It is more of a home to +me than any place in the world.' + +'I consider it settled. I don't need to see it.' + +'No; it certainly isn't settled,' Helen replied, with her pleasant +decisiveness. 'You certainly shan't take it till you see it. I will +write to Gerald and tell him that no one else is to have it until you +do.' + +'I am quite determined to have that house,' said Althea. 'A place that +you love must be lovely. Write if you like. But the matter is settled in +my mind.' + +'Don't be foolish, my dear,' said Aunt Julia. 'Miss Buchanan is quite +right. You mustn't think of taking a house until you see it. How do you +know that the drainage is in order, or even that the beds are +comfortable. Miss Buchanan says that it is miles away from everything, +too. You may find the situation very dismal and unsympathetic.' + +'It's pretty country, I think,' said Helen, 'and I'm sure the drainage +and the beds are all right. But Althea must certainly see it first.' + +It was settled, however, quite settled in Althea's mind that she was to +take Merriston House. She bade Helen farewell three days later, and they +had arranged that they were, within a fortnight, to meet in London, and +go together to look at it. + +And Althea wrote to Franklin Winslow Kane, and informed him of her new +plans, and that he must be her guest at Merriston House for as long as +his own plans allowed him. Her mood in regard to Franklin had greatly +altered since that evening of gloom a fortnight ago. Franklin, then, had +seemed the only fact worth looking at; but now she seemed embarked on a +voyage of discovery, where bright new planets swam above the horizon +with every forward rock of her boat. Franklin was by no means dismissed; +Franklin could never be dismissed; but he was relegated; and though, as +far as her fondness went, he would always be firmly placed, she could +hardly place him clearly in the new and significantly peopled +environment that her new friendship opened to her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +Helen Buchanan was a person greatly in demand, and, in her migratory +existence, her pauses at her Aunt Grizel's little house near Eaton +Square were, though frequent, seldom long. When she did come, her +bedroom and her sitting-room were always waiting for her, as was Aunt +Grizel with her cheerful 'Well, my dear, glad to see you back again.' +Their mutual respect and trust were deep; their affection, too, though +it was seldom expressed. She knew Aunt Grizel to the ground, and Aunt +Grizel knew her to the ground--almost; and they were always pleased to +be together. + +Helen's sitting-room, where she could see any one she liked and at any +time she liked, was behind the dining-room on the ground floor, and from +its window one saw a small neat garden with a plot of grass, bordering +flower-beds, a row of little fruit-trees, black-branched but brightly +foliaged, and high walls that looked as though they were built out of +sooty plum cake. Aunt Grizel's cat, Pharaoh, sleek, black, and stalwart, +often lay on the grass plot in the sunlight; he was lying there now, +languidly turned upon his side, with outstretched feet and drowsily +blinking eyes, when Helen and her cousin, Gerald Digby, talked together +on the day after her return from Paris. + +Gerald Digby stood before the fireplace looking with satisfaction at his +companion. He enjoyed looking at Helen, for he admired her more than any +woman he knew. It was always a pleasure to see her again; and, like Aunt +Grizel, he trusted and respected her deeply, though again, like Aunt +Grizel, he did not, perhaps, know her quite down to the ground. He +thought, however, that he did; he knew that Helen was as intimate with +nobody in the world as with him, not even with Aunt Grizel, and it was +one of his most delightful experiences to saunter through all the +chambers of Helen's mind, convinced that every door was open to him. + +Gerald Digby was a tall and very slender man; he tilted forward when he +walked, and often carried his hands in his pockets. He had thick, +mouse-coloured hair, which in perplexed or meditative moments he often +ruffled by rubbing his hand through it, and even when thus disordered it +kept its air of fashionable grace. His large, long nose, his finely +curved lips and eyelids, had a delicately carved look, as though the +sculptor had taken great care over the details of his face. His brown +eyes had thick, upturned lashes, and were often in expression absent and +irresponsible, but when he looked at any one, intent and merry, like a +gay dog's eyes. And of the many charming things about Gerald Digby the +most charming was his smile, which was as infectious as a child's, and +exposed a joyous array of large white teeth. + +He was smiling at his cousin now, for she was telling him, dryly, yet +with a mocking humour all her own, of her Paris fiasco that had delayed +her return to London by a fortnight, and, by the expense it had +entailed upon her, had deprived her of the new hat and dress that she +had hoped in Paris to secure. Talking of Paris led to the letter she had +sent him four or five days ago. 'About this rich American,' said Gerald; +'is she really going to take Merriston, do you think? It's awfully good +of you, Helen, to try and get a tenant for me.' + +'I don't know that you'd call her rich--not as Americans go; but I +believe she will take Merriston. She wanted to take it at once, on +faith; but I insisted that she must see it first.' + +'You must have cried up the dear old place for her to be so eager.' + +'I think she is eager about pleasing me,' said Helen. 'I told her that I +loved the place and hadn't been there for years, and that moved her very +much. She has taken a great fancy to me.' + +'Really,' said Gerald. 'Why?' + +'I'm sure I don't know. She is a dear little person, but rather funny.' + +'Of course, there is no reason why any one shouldn't take a fancy to +you,' said Gerald, smiling; 'only--to that extent--in so short a time.' + +'I appealed to her pity, I think; she came in and took care of me, and +was really unspeakably kind. And she seemed to get tremendously +interested in me. But then, she seemed capable of getting tremendously +interested in lots of things. I've noticed that Americans often take +things very seriously.' + +'And you became great pals?' + +'Yes, I suppose we did.' + +'She interested you?' + +Helen smiled a little perplexedly, and lit a cigarette before +answering. 'Well, no; I can't say that she did that; but that, probably, +was my own fault.' + +'Why didn't she interest you?' Gerald went on, taking a cigarette from +the case she offered. He was fond of such desultory pursuit of a +subject; he and Helen spent hours in idle exchanges of impression. + +Helen's answer was hardly illuminating: 'She wasn't interesting.' + +'It was rather interesting of her to take such an interest in you,' said +Gerald subtly. + +'No.' Helen warmed to the theme. It had indeed perplexed her, and she +was glad to unravel her impressions to this understanding listener. 'No, +that's just what it wasn't; it might have been if one hadn't felt her a +person so easily affected. She had--how can I put it?--it seems brutal +when she is such a dear--but she had so little stuff in her; it was as +if she had to find it all the time in other things and people. She is +like a glass of water that would like to be wine, and she has no wine in +her; it could only be poured in, and there's not room for much. At best +she can only be _eau rougie_.' + +Gerald laughed. 'How you see things, and say them! Poor Miss +Jakes!--that's her name, isn't it? She sounds tame.' + +'She is tame.' + +'Is she young, pretty?' + +'Not young, about my age; not pretty, but it's a nice face; wistful, +with large, quite lovely eyes. She knows a lot about everything, and has +been everywhere, and has kept all her illusions intact--a queer mixture +of information and innocence. It's difficult to keep one's mind on what +she's saying; there is never any background to it. She wants something, +but she doesn't know whether it's what other people want or whether it's +what she wants, so that she can't want anything very definitely.' + +Gerald still laughed. 'How you must have been taking her in!' + +'I suppose I must have been, though I didn't know it. But I did like +her, you know. I liked her very much. A glass of water is a nice thing +sometimes.' + +'Nicer than _eau rougie_; I'm afraid she's _eau rougie_.' + +'_Eau rougie_ may be nice, too, if one is tired and thirsty and needs +mild refreshment, not altogether tasteless, and not at all intoxicating. +She was certainly that to me. I was very much touched by her kindness.' + +'I shall be touched if she'll take Merriston. I'm fearfully hard up. I +suppose it would only be a little let; but that would be better than +nothing.' + +'She might stay for the winter if she liked it. I shan't try to make her +like it, but I'll do my best to make her stay on if she does, and with a +clear conscience, for I think that her staying will depend on her seeing +me.' + +'Wouldn't that mean that she'd be a great deal on your hands?' + +'I shouldn't mind that; we get on very well. She will be here next week, +you know. You must come to tea and meet her.' + +'Well, I don't know. I don't think that I'm particularly eager to meet +her,' Gerald confessed jocosely. + +'You'll have to meet her a good deal if you are to see much of me,' said +Helen; on which he owned that, with that compulsion put upon him, he +and Miss Jakes might become intimates. + +Gerald Digby was a young man who did very little work. He had been +vaguely intended, by an affectionate but haphazard family, for the +diplomatic service, but it was found, after he had done himself some +credit at Eton and Oxford, that the family resources didn't admit of +this obviously suitable career for him; and an aged and wealthy uncle, +who had been looked to confidently for succour, married at the moment, +most unfeelingly, so that Gerald's career had to be definitely +abandoned. Another relation found him a berth in the City, where he +might hope to amass quite a fortune; but Gerald soon said that he far +preferred poverty. He thought that he would like to paint and be an +artist; he had a joyful eye for delicate, minute forms of beauty, and +was most happily occupied when absorbed in Japanese-like studies of +transient loveliness--a bird in flight, a verdant grasshopper on a +wheat-blade, the tangled festoons of a wild convolvulus spray. His +talent, however, though genuine, could hardly supply him with a +livelihood, and he would have been seriously put to it had not his +father's death left him a tiny income, while a half-informal +secretaryship to a political friend, offered him propitiously at the +same time, gave him leisure for his painting as well as for a good many +other pleasant things. He had leisure, in especial, for going from +country-house to country-house, where he was immensely in demand, and +where he hunted, danced, and acted in private theatricals--usually in +company with his cousin Helen. Helen's position in life was very much +like his own, but that she hadn't even an informal secretaryship to +depend upon. He had known Helen all his life, and she was almost like a +sister, only nicer; for he associated sisters with his own brood, who +were lean, hunting ladies, pleasant, but monotonous and inarticulate. +Helen was very articulate and very various. He loved to look at her, as +he loved to look at birds and flowers, and he loved to talk with her. He +had many opportunities to look and talk. They stayed at the same houses +in the country, and in London, when she was with old Miss Buchanan, he +usually saw her every day. If he didn't drop in for a moment on his way +to work at ten-thirty in the morning, he dropped in to tea; and if his +or Helen's day were too full to admit of this, he managed to come in for +a goodnight chat after a dinner or before a dance. He enjoyed Helen's +talk and Helen's appearance most of all, he thought, at these late +hours, when, a little weary and jaded, in evening dress and cloak, she +lit her invariable cigarette, and mused with him over the events and +people of the day. He liked Helen's way of talking about people; they +knew an interminable array of them, many involved in enlivening +complications, yet Helen never gossiped; the musing impersonality and +impartiality with which she commented and surmised lifted her themes to +a realm almost of art; she was pungent, yet never malicious, and the +tolerant lucidity of her insight was almost benign. + +Her narrow face, leaning back in its dark aureole of hair, her strange +eyes and bitter-sweet lips--all dimmed, as it were, by drowsiness and +smoke, and yet never more intelligently awake than at these nocturnal +hours--remained with him as most typical of Helen's most significant and +charming self. It was her aspect of mystery and that faint hint of +bitterness that he found so charming; Helen herself he never thought of +as mysterious. Mystery was a mere outward asset of her beauty, like the +powdery surface of a moth's wing. He didn't think of Helen as +mysterious, perhaps because he thought little about her at all; he only +looked and listened while she made him think about everything but +herself, and he felt always happy and altogether at ease in her +presence. There seemed, indeed, no reason for thinking about a person +whom one had known all one's life long. + +And Helen was more than the best of company and the loveliest of +objects; she was at once comrade and counsellor. He depended upon her +more than upon any one. Comically helpless as he often found himself, he +asked her advice about everything, and always received the wisest. + +He had had often, though not so much in late years, to ask her advice +about girls, for in spite of his financial ineligibility he was so +engaging a person that he found himself continually drawn to the verge +of decisive flirtations. His was rarely the initiative; he was +responsive and affectionate and not at all susceptible, and Helen, who +knew girls of her world to the bone, could accurately gauge the effect +upon him of the pleading coquetry at which they were such adepts. She +could gauge them the better, no doubt, from having herself no trace of +coquetry. Men often liked her, but often found her cold and cynical, and +even suspected her of conceit, especially since it was known that she +had refused many excellent opportunities for establishing herself in +life. She was also suspected by many of abysmal cleverness, and this +reputation frightened admiring but uncomplicated young men more than +anything else. Now, when her first youth was past, men more seldom fell +in love with her and more frequently liked her; they had had time to +find out that if she were cold she was also very kind, and that if +abysmally clever, she could adapt her cleverness to pleasant, trivial +uses. + +Gerald, when he thought at all about her, thought of Helen as indeed +cold, clever, and cynical; but these qualities never oppressed him, +aware from the first, as he had been, of the others, and he found in +them, moreover, veritable shields and bucklers for himself. It was to +some one deeply experienced, yet quite unwarped by personal emotions, +that he brought his recitals of distress and uncertainty. Lady Molly was +a perfect little dear, but could he go on with it? How could he if he +would? She hadn't any money, and her people would be furious; she +herself, he felt sure, would be miserable in no time, if they did marry. +They wouldn't even have enough--would they, did Helen think?--for love +in a cottage, and Molly would hate love in a cottage. They would have to +go about living on their relations and friends, as he now did, more or +less; but with a wife and babies, how could one? Did Helen think one +could? Gerald would finish dismally, standing before her with his hands +thrust deeply into his pockets and a ruffled brow of inquiry. Or else it +was the pretty Miss Oliver who had him--half alarmed, half enchanted--in +her toils, and Gerald couldn't imagine what she was going to do with +him. For such entanglements Helen's advice had always shown a way out, +and for his uncertainties--though she never took the responsibility of +actual guidance--her reflective questionings, her mere reflective +silences, were illuminating. They made clear for him, as for her, that +recklessness could only be worth while if one were really--off one's own +bat, as it were--'in love'; and that, this lacking, recklessness was +folly sure to end in disaster. 'Wait, either until you care so much that +you must, or else until you meet some one so nice, so rich, and so +suitable that you may,' said Helen. 'If you are not careful you will +find yourself married to some one who will bore you and quarrel with you +on twopence a year.' + +'You must be careful for me,' said Gerald. 'Please warn and protect.' + +And Helen replied that she would always do her best for him. + +It had never occurred to Gerald to turn the tables on Helen and tell her +that she ought to marry. His imagination was not occupied with Helen's +state, though once, after a conversation with old Miss Buchanan, he +remarked to Helen, looking at her with a vague curiosity, that it was a +pity she hadn't taken Lord Henry or Mr. Fergusson. 'Miss Buchanan tells +me you might have been one of the first hostesses in London if you +hadn't thrown away your chances.' + +'I'm all right,' said Helen. + +'Yes, you yourself are; but after she dies?' + +Helen owned, with a smile, that she could certainly do with some few +thousands a year; but that, in default of them, she could manage to +scrape along. + +'But you've never had any better chances, have you?' said Gerald rather +tentatively. He might confide everything in Helen, but he realised, as a +restraining influence, that she never made any confidences, even to him, +who, he was convinced, knew her down to the ground. + +Helen owned that she hadn't. + +'Your aunt thinks it a dreadful pity. She's very much worried about +you.' + +'It's late in the day for the poor dear to worry. The chances were over +long ago.' + +'You didn't care enough?' + +'I was young and foolish enough to want to be in love when I married,' +said Helen, smiling at him with her half-closed eyes. + +And Gerald said that, yes, he would have expected that from her; and +with this dismissed the subject from his mind, taking it for granted +that Helen's disengaged, sustaining, and enlivening spinsterhood would +always be there for his solace and amusement. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +Helen was on one side of her and Mr. Digby sat in an opposite corner of +the railway carriage, and they were approaching the end of the journey +to Merriston House on a bright July day soon after Althea's arrival in +England. She had met Mr. Digby at Helen's the day before and had +suggested that he should come with them. Gerald had remarked that it +might be tiresome if she hated Merriston, and he were there to see that +she hated it; but Althea was so sure of liking it that her conviction +imposed itself. + +Mr. Digby and Helen were both smoking; they had asked her very +solicitously whether she minded, and she had said she didn't, although +in fact she did not like the smell of tobacco, and Helen's constant +cigarette distressed her quite unselfishly on the score of health. The +windows were wide open, and though the gale that blew through ruffled +her smooth hair and made her veil tickle disagreeably, these minor +discomforts could not spoil her predominant sense of excitement and +adventure. Mr. Digby's presence, particularly, roused it. He was so +long, so limp, so graceful, lounging there in his corner. His socks and +his tie were of such a charming shade of blue and his hair such a +charming shade of light mouse-colour. He was vague and blithe, immersed +in his own thoughts, which, apparently, were pleasant and superficial. +When his eyes met Althea's, he smiled at her, and she thought his smile +the most engaging she had ever seen. For the rest, he hardly spoke at +all, and did not seem to consider it incumbent on him to make any +conversational efforts, yet his mere presence lent festivity to the +occasion. + +Helen did not talk much either; she smoked her cigarette and looked out +of the window with half-closed eyes. Her slender feet, encased in grey +shoes, were propped on the opposite seat; her grey travelling-dress hung +in smoke-like folds about her; in her little hat was a bright green +wing. + +Althea wondered if Mr. Digby appreciated his cousin's appearance, or if +long brotherly familiarity had dimmed his perception of it. She wondered +how her own appearance struck him. She knew that she was very trim and +very elegant, and in mere beauty--quite apart from charm, which she +didn't claim--she surely excelled Helen; Helen with her narrow eyes, odd +projecting nose, and small, sulkily-moulded lips. Deeply though she felt +the fascination of her friend's strange visage, she could but believe +her own the lovelier. So many people--not only Franklin Winslow +Kane--had thought her lovely. There was no disloyalty in recognising the +fact for oneself, and an innocent satisfaction in the hope that Mr. +Digby might recognise it too. + +The day that flashed by on either side had also a festive quality: blue +skies heaped with snowy clouds; fields brimmed with breeze-swept grain, +green and silver, or streaked with the gold of butter-cups; swift +streams and the curves of summer foliage. It was a country remote, +wooded and pastoral, and Althea, a connoisseur in landscapes, was +enchanted. + +'Do you like it?' Helen asked her as they passed along the edge of a +little wood, glimpses of bright meadow among its clearings. 'We are +almost there now, and it's like this all about Merriston.' + +'I've hardly seen any part of England I like so much,' said Althea. 'It +has a sweet, untouched wildness rather rare in England.' + +'I always think that it's a country to love and live in,' said Helen. +'Some countries seem made only to be looked at.' + +Althea wondered, as she then went on looking at this country, whether +she were thinking of her girlhood and of her many journeys to Merriston. +She wondered if Mr. Digby were thinking of his boyhood. Ever since +seeing those two together yesterday afternoon she had wondered about +them. She had never encountered a relationship quite like theirs; it was +so close, so confident, yet so untender. She could hardly make out that +they liked each other; all that one saw was that they trusted, so that +it had something of the businesslike quality of a partnership. Yet she +found herself building up an absurd little romance about their past. It +might be, who knew, that Mr. Digby had once been in love with Helen and +that she had refused him; he was poor, and she had said that she must +marry money. Althea's heart tightened a little with compassion for Mr. +Digby. Only, if this ever had been, it was well over now; and more +narrowly observing Mr. Digby's charming and irresponsible face, she +reflected that he was hardly the sort of person to illustrate large +themes of passion and fidelity. + +A fly was waiting for them at the station, and as they jolted away +Gerald remarked that she was now to see one of the worst features of +Merriston; it was over an hour from the station, and if one hadn't a +motor the drive was a great bore. Althea, however, didn't find it a +bore. Her companions talked now, their heads at the windows; it had been +years since they had traversed that country together; every inch of it +was known to them and significant of weary waits, wonderful runs, feats +and misadventures at gates and ditches; for their reminiscences were +mainly sportsmanlike. Althea listened, absorbed, but distressed. It was +Gerald who caught and interpreted the expression of her large, gentle +eyes. + +'I don't believe you like fox-hunting, Miss Jakes,' he said. + +'No, indeed, I do not,' said Althea, shaking her head. + +'You mean you think it cruel?' + +'Very cruel.' + +'Yet where would we be without it?' said Gerald. 'And where would the +foxes be? After all, while they live, their lives are particularly +pleasant.' + +'With possible intervals of torture? Don't you think that, if they could +choose, they would rather not live at all?' + +'Oh, a canny old fox doesn't mind the run so much, you know--enjoys it +after a fashion, no doubt.' + +'Don't salve your conscience by that sophism, Gerald; the fox is canny +because he has been terrified so often,' said Helen. 'Let us own that it +is barbarous, but such glorious sport that one tries to forget the fox.' + +It required some effort for Althea to testify against her and Mr. Digby, +but she felt so strongly on the subject of animals, foxes in particular, +that her courage did not fail her. 'I think it is when we forget, that +the dreadful things in life, the sins and cruelties, happen,' she said. + +Gerald's gay eyes were cogitatingly fixed on her, and Helen continued to +look out of the window; but she thought that they both liked her the +better for her frankness, and she felt in the little ensuing silence +that it had brought them nearer--bright, alien creatures that they were. + +Her first view of Merriston House hardly confirmed her hopes of it, +though she would not have owned to herself that this was so. It was +neither so beautiful nor so imposing as she had expected; it was even, +perhaps, rather commonplace; but in a moment she was able to +overcome this slight disloyalty and to love it the more for its +unpretentiousness. A short, winding avenue of limes led to it, and it +stood high among lawns that fell away to lower shrubberies and woods. It +was a square stone house, covered with creepers, a white rose clustering +over the doorway and a group of trees over-topping its chimneys. + +Inside, where the housekeeper welcomed them and tea waited for them, was +the same homely brightness. Hunting prints hung in the hall; rows of +mediocre, though pleasing, family portraits in the dining-room. The long +drawing-room at the back of the house, overlooking the lawns and a far +prospect, was a much inhabited room, cheerful and shabby. There were +old-fashioned water-colour landscapes, porcelain in cabinets and on +shelves, and many tables crowded with ivory and silver bric-a-brac; +things from India and things from China, that Digbys in the Army and +Digbys in the Navy had brought home. + +'What a Philistine room it is,' said Gerald, smiling as he looked around +him; 'but I must say I like it just as it is. It has never made an +aesthetic effort.' + +Gerald's smile irradiated the whole house for Althea, and lit up, in +especial, the big, sunny school-room where he and Helen found most +memories of all. 'The same old table, Helen,' he said, 'and other +children have spilled ink on it and scratched their initials just as we +used to; here are yours and mine. Do you remember the day we did them +under Fraeulein's very nose? And here are all our old books, too. Look, +Helen, the Roman history with your wicked drawings on the fly-leaves: +Tullia driving over her poor old father, and Cornelia--ironic little +wretch you were even then--what a prig she is with her jewels! And what +splendid butter-scotch you used to make over the fire on winter +evenings.' + +Helen remembered everything, smiling as she followed Gerald about the +room and looked at ruthless Tullia; and Althea, watching them, was +touched--for them, and then, with a little counter-stroke of memory, for +herself. She remembered her old home too--the dignified old house in +steep Chestnut Street, and the little house on the blue Massachusetts +coast where she had often passed long days playing by herself, for she +had been an only child. She loved it here, for it was like a home, +peaceful and sheltering; but where in all the world had she really a +home? Where in all the world did she belong? The thought brought tears +to her eyes as she looked out of the schoolroom window and listened to +Gerald and Helen. It had ended, of course, for of course it had really +begun, in Althea's decision to take Merriston House. It was quite fixed +now, and on the way back she had made her new friends promise to be +often together with her in the home of their youth. She had made them +promise this so prettily and with such gentle warmth that it was very +natural that Gerald, in talking over the event with Helen that evening, +should say, strolling round Helen's little sitting-room, 'She's rather a +dear, that little friend of yours.' + +Helen was tired and lay extended on the divan in the grey dress she had +not had time to change. She had doffed her hat and, thrusting its +hatpins through it, had laid it on her knees, so that, as Gerald had +remarked, she looked rather like Bruenhilde on her rocky couch. But, +unlike Bruenhilde, her hands were clasped behind her neck, and she looked +up at the ceiling. 'A perfect little dear,' she assented. + +'Did you notice her eyes when she was talking about the foxes? They were +as sorrowful and piteous as a Mater Dolorosa's. She is definite enough +about some things, isn't she? Things like right and wrong, I mean, as +she sees them.' + +'Yes; she is clear about outside things, like right and wrong.' + +'It's a good deal to be clear about, isn't it?' + +'I suppose so,' Helen reflected. 'I don't feel that I really understand +Althea. People who aren't clear about themselves are difficult to +understand, I think.' + +'It's that that really gives them a mystery. I feel that she really is a +little mysterious,' said Gerald. 'One wonders what she would do in +certain cases, and feel in certain situations, and one can't remotely +imagine. She is a sealed book.' + +'_She_ wonders,' said Helen. + +'And you suspect that her pages are empty?' + +Helen reflected, but nothing seemed to come. She closed her eyes, +smiling, and said, 'Be off, please. I'm getting too sleepy to have +suspicions. We have plenty of time to find out whether anything is +written on Althea's pages.' + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +But, when Gerald was gone, Helen found that she was no longer sleepy. +She lay, her eyes closed, straight and still, like an effigy on a tomb, +and she thought, intently and quietly. It was more a series of pictures +than a linking of ideas with which her mind was occupied--pictures of +her childhood and girlhood in Scotland and at Merriston House. It was +dispassionately that she watched the little figure, lonely, violent, +walking over the moors, hiding in the thickets of the garden, choking +with tears of fury, clenching teeth over fierce resentments. She almost +smiled at the sight of her. What constant resentments, what frequent +furies! They centred, of course, about the figure of her mother, lovely, +vindictive, and stony-hearted, as she had been and was. Helen's life had +dawned in the consciousness of love for this beautiful mother, whom she +had worshipped with the ardent humility of a little dog. Afterwards, +with a vehemence as great, she had grown to hate her. All her girlhood +had been filled with struggles against her mother. Sometimes for weeks +they had not spoken to each other, epochs during which, completely +indifferent though she was, Mrs. Buchanan had given herself the +satisfaction of smartly boxing her daughter's ears when her mute, +hostile presence too much exasperated her. There had been no refuge for +Helen with her father, a gloomy man, immersed in sport and study, nor in +her brother Nigel, gay and pleasant though he was. When once Nigel got +away to school and college, he spent as little time at home as possible. +Helen was as solitary as a sea-bird, blown far inland and snared. Then +came the visits to Merriston House--the cheerful, chattering houseful of +happy girls, the kind father and mother, and Gerald. Gerald! From the +time that he came into her life all the pictures were full of him, so +full that she hardly saw herself any longer; she was only some one who +watched and felt. + +Her violent nature, undisciplined except by its own pride, did not +submit easily to the taming processes of a wholesome family life; she +dominated the girl cousins, and they only counted as chorus in the drama +of her youth. It was Gerald who counted, at once, counted for everything +else. She cared so much for him that, feeling her independence slipping +from her, she at first quarrelled with him constantly, as far as he +would let her quarrel with him. Her brooding bitterness amazed and +amused him. While she stormed, he would laugh at her, gaily and +ironically, and tell her that she was an absurd little savage. And, +after she had burst into a frenzy of tears and fled from him, he would +seek her out, find her hidden in some corner of the garden or +shrubberies, and, grieved and alarmed, put his arms around her, kiss her +and say: 'Look here, I'm awfully sorry. I can't bear to have you take +things like this. Please make up.' + +He could not bear to see her suffering, ludicrous though he thought her +suffering to be. And it was this sweetness, this comprehension and +tenderness, like sunlight flooding her gloomy and petrified young heart, +that filled Helen with astonished bliss. She was tamed at last to the +extent of laughing with Gerald at herself; and, though the force of her +nature led him, the sweetness of his nature controlled her. They became +the dearest of friends. + +Yes, so it had always been; so it had always looked--to all the rest of +the world, and to Gerald. Helen, lying on her divan, saw the pictures of +comradeship filling the years. It was her consciousness of what the real +meaning of the pictures was that supplied something else, something +hidden and desperate that pulsed in them all. How she remembered the +first time that she had drawn away when Gerald kissed her, putting up +between them the shield of a lightly yet decisively accepted +conventionality. They were 'growing up'; this was her justification. How +she remembered what it had cost her to keep up the lightness of her +smile so that he should not guess what lay beneath. Her nature was all +passion, and enclosing this passion, like a steady hand held round a +flame, was a fierce purity, a fierce pride. Gerald had never guessed. No +one had ever guessed. It seemed to Helen that the pain of it had broken +her heart in the very spring of her years; that it was only a maimed and +cautious creature that the world had ever known. + +She lay, and drew long quiet breaths in looking at it all. The day of +reawakened memories had been like a sword in her heart, and now she +seemed to draw it out slowly, and let the blood come with a sense of +peace. She could even, as often, lend to the contemplation of her +tragedy the bitter little grimace of mockery with which she met so much +of life. She could tell herself, as often, that she had never outgrown +love-sick girlhood, and that she was merely in love with Gerald's smile. +Yet Gerald was all in his smile; and Gerald, it seemed, was made to be +loved, all of him, helplessly and hopelessly, by unfortunate her. She +felt her love as a misfortune; it was too strong and too unsatisfied to +be felt in any sense as joy, though it strung her nature to a painful +appreciation of joy. She saw life with a cold, appraising eye; it was +like a landscape robbed of all sunlight, and, so robbed, so bleak, and +so bereft, it was easy to appraise it, to see, since one could have no +warmth or light, what were the next best things to have. She had missed +the next best things again and again, when the moment had come for +taking them; she had drawn back sick, blanched, shaken with the throes +of desperate hope. Only in these last years, when next best things were +no longer so plentiful, had hope really died. Her heart still beat, but +it seemed to beat thinly, among all the heaped-up ashes of dead hopes. +She was free to go forth into the sunless world and choose what place +should be hers. She did not care much for anything that world had to +give her. But she intended to choose carefully and calmly. She was aware +in herself of firm, well-knit faculty, of tastes, sharp and sensitive, +demanding only an opportunity to express themselves in significant and +finished forms of life; and though Helen did not think of it in these +terms, saying merely to herself that she wanted money and power, the +background of her intention was a consciousness of capacity for power. +Reflecting on this power, and on the paths to its realisation, she was +led far, indeed, from any thought of Althea; and Althea was not at all +in her mind as, sleepy at last, and very weary, she remembered Gerald's +last words. It was the thought of Gerald that brought the thought of +Althea, and of Althea's pages. Fair and empty they were, she felt sure, +adorned only here and there with careful and becoming maxims. She smiled +a little, not untenderly, as she thought of Althea. But, just before +sinking to deeper drowsiness, and deciding that she must rouse herself +and go upstairs to bed, a further consciousness came to her. The sunny +day at Merriston had not, in her thoughts, brought them near to one +another--Gerald, and Althea, and her; yet something significant ran +through her sudden memory of it. She had moments of her race's sense of +second-sight, and it never came without making her aware of a pause--a +strange, forced pause--where she had to look at something, touch +something, in the dark, as it were. It was there as she roused herself +from her half-somnolent state; it was there in the consciousness of a +turning-point in her life--in Gerald's, in Althea's. 'We may write +something on Althea's pages,' was the thought with which, smiling over +its inappropriateness, she went upstairs. And the fancy faded from her +memory, as if it had been a bird's wing that brushed her cheek in the +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Althea went down to Merriston House in the middle of July. Helen +accompanied her to see her safely installed and to set the very torpid +social ball rolling. There were not many neighbours, but Helen assembled +them all. She herself could stay only a few days. She was bound, until +the middle of August, in a rush of engagements, and meanwhile Althea, +rather ruefully, was forced to fall back on Miss Buckston for +companionship. She had always, till now, found Miss Buckston's cheerful +dogmatism fortifying, and, even when it irritated her, instructive; but +she had now new standards of interest, and new sources of refreshment, +and, shut up with Miss Buckston for a rainy week, she felt as never +before the defects of this excellent person's many qualities. + +She had fires lighted, much to Miss Buckston's amusement, and sat a good +deal by the blaze in the drawing-room, controlling her displeasure when +Miss Buckston, dressed in muddy tweed and with a tweed cap pulled down +over her brows, came striding in from a ten-mile tramp and said, pulling +open all the windows, 'You are frightfully frusty in here.' + +It was not 'frusty.' Althea had a scientific regard for ventilation, and +a damp breeze from the garden blew in at the furthest window. She had +quite enough air. + +Miss Buckston was also very critical of Merriston House, and pointed out +the shabbiness of the chintz and faded carpets. The garden, she said, +was shamefully neglected, and she could not conceive how people could +bear to let a decent place like this go to ruin. 'But he's a slack +creature, Gerald Digby, I've heard.' + +Althea coldly explained that Mr. Digby was too poor to live at Merriston +and to keep it up. She did not herself in the least mind the shabbiness. + +'Oh, I don't mind it,' said Miss Buckston. 'I only think he's done +himself very well in getting you to take the place in this condition. +How much do you give for it?' + +Althea, more coldly, named the sum. It was moderate; Miss Buckston had +to grant that, though but half-satisfied that there was no intention to +'do' her friend. 'When once you get into the hands of hard-up +fashionable folk,' she said, 'it's as well to look sharp.' + +Althea did not quite know what to say to this. She had never in the past +opposed Miss Buckston, and it would be difficult to tell her now that +she took too much upon herself. At a hint of hesitancy, she knew, Miss +Buckston would pass to and fro over her like a steam-roller, nearly as +noisy, and to her own mind as composedly efficient. Hesitancy or +contradiction she flattened and left behind her. + +She had an air of owning Bach that became peculiarly vexatious to +Althea, who, in silence, but armed with new standards, was assembling +her own forces and observed, in casting an eye over them, that she had +heard five times as much music as Miss Buckston and might be granted the +right of an opinion on it. She took satisfaction in a memory of Miss +Buckston's face singing in the Bach choir--even at the time it had +struck her as funny--at a concert to which Althea had gone with her some +years ago in London. It was to see, for her own private delectation, a +weak point in Miss Buckston's iron-clad personality to remember how very +funny she could look. Among the serried ranks of singing heads hers had +stood out with its rubicund energy, its air of mastery, the shining of +its eye-glasses and of its large white teeth; and while she sang Miss +Buckston had jerked her head rhythmically to one side and beaten time +with her hand as if to encourage and direct her less competent +companions. Sometimes, now, she looked almost as funny, when she sat +down to the piano and gave forth a recitative. + +After Bach, Woman's Suffrage was Miss Buckston's special theme, and, +suspecting a new hint of uncertainty in Althea, whose conviction she had +always taken for granted, she attacked her frequently and mercilessly. + +'Pooh, my dear,' she would say, 'don't quote your frothy American women +to me. Americans have no social conscience. That's the trouble with you +all; rank individualists, every one of you. When the political attitude +of the average citizen is that of the ostrich keeping his head in the +sand so that he shan't see what the country's coming to, what can you +expect of the women? Your arguments don't affect the suffrage question, +they merely dismiss America. I shall lose my temper if you trot them +out to me.' Miss Buckston never lost her temper, however; other people's +opinions counted too little with her for that. + +At the end of the first week Althea felt distinctly that though the +country, even under these dismal climatic conditions, might be +delightful if shared with some people, it was not delightful shared with +Miss Buckston. She did not like walking in the rain; she was a creature +of houses, cabs and carriages. The sober beauty of blotted silhouettes, +and misty, rolling hills at evening when the clouds lifted over the +sunset, did not appeal to her. She wished that she had stayed in London; +she wished that Helen and Mr. Digby were with her; she was even glad +that Aunt Julia and the girls were coming. + +There was a welcome diversion afforded for her, when Aunt Julia came, by +the prompt hostility that declared itself between her and Miss Buckston. +Aunt Julia was not a person to allow a steam-roller to pass over her +without protest, and Althea felt that she herself had been cowardly when +she saw how Aunt Julia resented, for them both, Miss Buckston's methods. +Miss Buckston had a manner of saying rude things in sincere +unconsciousness that they could offend anybody. She herself did not take +offence easily; she was, as she would have said, 'tough.' But Mrs. +Pepperell had all the sensitiveness--for herself and for others--of her +race, the British race, highly strung with several centuries of +transplantation to an electric climate. If she was rude it was never +unconsciously so. After her first talk with Miss Buckston, in which the +latter, as was her wont, told her a number of unpleasant facts about +America and the Americans, Mrs. Pepperell said to her niece, 'What an +intolerable woman!' + +'She doesn't mean it,' said Althea feebly. + +'Perhaps not,' said Aunt Julia; 'but I intend that she shall see what I +mean.' + +Althea's feeling was of mingled discomfort and satisfaction. Her +sympathies were with Aunt Julia, yet she felt a little guilty towards +Miss Buckston, for whom her affection was indeed wavering. Inner loyalty +having failed she did not wish outer loyalty to be suspected, and in all +the combats that took place she kept in the background and only hoped to +see Aunt Julia worst Miss Buckston. But the trouble was that Aunt Julia +never did worst her. Even when, passing beyond the bounds of what she +considered decency, she became nearly as outspoken as Miss Buckston, +that lady maintained her air of cheerful yet impatient tolerance. She +continued to tell them that the American wife and mother was the most +narrow, the most selfish, the most complacent of all wives and mothers; +and, indeed, to Miss Buckston's vigorous virginity, all wives and +mothers, though sociologically necessary, belonged to a slightly +inferior, more rudimentary species. The American variety, she said, were +immersed in mere domesticity or social schemes and squabbles. 'Oh, they +talked. I never heard so much talk in all my life as when I was over +there,' said Miss Buckston; 'but I couldn't see that they got anything +done with it. They had debates about health, and yet one could hardly +for love or money get a window open in a train; and they had debates on +the ethics of citizenship, and yet you are governed by bosses. Voluble +and inefficient creatures, I call them.' + +Aunt Julia, conscious of her own honourable career, with its +achievements in enlightened philanthropy and its background of careful +study, heard this with inexpressible ire; but when she was dragged to +the execrable taste of a retaliation, and pointed to the British +countryside matron, as they saw her at Merriston--a creature, said Aunt +Julia, hardly credible in her complacency and narrowness, Miss Buckston +rejoined with an unruffled smile: 'Ah, we'll wake them up. They've good +stuff in them--good, staying stuff; and they do a lot of useful work in +keeping down Radicalism and keeping up the sentiment of our imperial +responsibilities and traditions. They are solid, at all events, not +hollow.' And to this poor Aunt Julia, whose traditions did not allow her +the retort of sheer brutality, could find no answer. + +The absurd outcome of the situation was that Althea and Aunt Julia came +to look for succour to the girls. The girls were able--astonishingly so, +to cope with Miss Buckston. In the first place, they found her +inexpressibly funny, and neither Althea nor Aunt Julia quite succeeded +at that; and in the second, they rather liked her; they did not argue +with her, they did not take her seriously for a moment; they only played +buoyantly about her. A few months before, Althea would have been gravely +disturbed by their lack of reverence; she saw it now with guilty +satisfaction. Miss Buckston, among the nets they spread for her, plunged +and floundered like a good-tempered bull--at first with guileless +acquiescence in the game, and then with growing bewilderment. They +flouted gay cloaks before her dizzy eyes, and planted ribboned darts in +her quivering shoulders. Even Althea could not accuse them of +aggressiveness or rudeness. They never put themselves forward; they were +there already. They never twisted the tail of the British lion; they +never squeezed the eagle; they were far too secure under his wings for +that. The bird, indeed, had grown since Althea's youth, and could no +longer be carried about as a hostile trophy. They took it for granted, +gaily and kindly, that America was 'God's country,' and that all others +were schools or playgrounds for her children. They were filled with a +confident faith in her future and in their own part in making that +future better. And something in the faith was infectious. Even Miss +Buckston felt it. Miss Buckston felt it, indeed, more than Althea, whose +attitude towards her own native land had always been one of affectionate +apology. + +'Nice creatures,' said Miss Buckston, 'undisciplined and mannerless as +they are; but that's a failing they share with our younger generation. I +see more hope for your country in that type than in anything else you +can show me. They are solid, and don't ape anything.' + +So by degrees a species of friendship grew up between Miss Buckston and +the girls, who said that she was a jolly old thing, and more fun than a +goat, especially when she sang Bach. Mildred and Dorothy sang +exceptionally well and were highly equipped musicians. + +Althea could not have said why it was, but this progress to friendliness +between her cousins and Miss Buckston made her feel, as she had felt in +the Paris hotel drawing-room over a month ago, jaded and unsuccessful. +So did the fact that the vicar's eldest son, a handsome young soldier +with a low forehead and a loud laugh, fell in love with Dorothy. That +young men should fall in love with them was another of the pleasant +things that Mildred and Dorothy took for granted. Their love affairs, +frank and rather infantile, were of a very different calibre from the +earnest passions that Althea had aroused--passions usually initiated by +intellectual sympathy and nourished on introspection and a constant +interchange of serious literature. + +It was soon evident that Dorothy, though she and Captain Merton became +the best of friends, had no intention of accepting him. Mrs. Merton, the +vicar's wife, had at first been afraid lest she should, not having then +ascertained what Mrs. Pepperell's fortune might be; but after satisfying +herself on this point by a direct cross-examination of Althea, she was +as much amazed as incensed when her boy told her ruefully that he had +been refused three times. Althea was very indignant when she realised +that Mrs. Merton, bland and determined in her latest London hat, was +trying to find out whether Dorothy was a good enough match for Captain +Merton, and it was pleasant to watch Mrs. Merton's subsequent +discomfiture. At the same time, she felt that to follow in Mildred and +Dorothy's triumphant wake was hardly what she had expected to do at +Merriston House. + +Other things, too, were discouraging. Helen had hardly written at all. +She had sent a postcard from Scotland to say that she would have to put +off coming till later in August. She had sent another, in answer to a +long letter of Althea's, in which Gerald had been asked to come with +her, to say that Gerald was yachting, and that she was sure he would +love to come some time in the autumn, if his plans allowed it; and +Althea, on reading this, felt certain that if she counted for little +with Helen, she counted for nothing with Mr. Digby. Whom did she count +with? That was the question that once more assailed her as she saw +herself sink into insignificance beside Mildred and Dorothy. If Mildred +and Dorothy counted for more than she, where was she to look for +response and sympathy? And now, once again, as if in answer to these +dismal questionings, came a steamer letter from Franklin Winslow Kane, +announcing his immediate arrival. Althea had thought very little about +Franklin in these last weeks; her mind had been filled with those +foreground figures that now seemed to have become uncertain and +vanishing. And it was not so much that Franklin came forward as that +there was nothing else to look at; not so much that he counted, as that +to count so much, in every way, for him might almost atone for counting +with no one else. Physically, mentally, morally, Franklin's +appreciations of her were deep; they were implied all through his +letter, which was at once sober and eager. He said that he would stay at +Merriston House for 'just as long as ever she would let him.' Merely to +be near her was to him, separated as he was from her for so much of his +life, an unspeakable boon. Franklin rarely dealt in demonstrative +speeches, but, in this letter, after a half-shy prelude to his own +daring, he went on to say: 'Perhaps, considering how long it's been +since I saw you, you'll let me kiss your beautiful hands when we meet.' + +Franklin had only once kissed her beautiful hands, years ago, on the +occasion of her first touched refusal of him. She had severe scruples as +to encouraging, by such graciousness, a person you didn't intend to +marry; but she really thought, thrilling a little as she read the +sentence, that this time, perhaps, Franklin might. Franklin himself +never thrilled her; but the words he wrote renewed in her suddenly a +happy self-confidence. Who, after all, was Franklin's superior in +insight? Wrapped in the garment of his affection, could she not see with +equanimity Helen's vagueness and Gerald's indifference? Why, when one +came to look at it from the point of view of the soul, wasn't Franklin +their superior in every way? It needed some moral effort to brace +herself to the inquiry. She couldn't deny that Franklin hadn't their +charm; but charm was a very superficial thing compared to moral beauty. + +Althea could not have faced the perturbing fact that charm, to her, +counted for more than goodness. She clung to her ethical valuations of +life, feeling, instinctively, that only in this category lay her own +significance. To abandon the obvious weights and measures was to find +herself buffeted and astray in a chaotic and menacing universe. Goodness +was her guide, and she could cling to it if the enchanting +will-o'-the-wisp did not float into sight to beckon and bewilder her. +She indignantly repudiated the conception of a social order founded on +charm rather than on solid worth; yet, like other frail mortals, she +found herself following what allured her nature rather than what +responded to the neatly tabulated theories of her mind. It was her +beliefs and her instincts that couldn't be made to tally, and in her +refusal to see that they did not tally lay her danger, as now, when with +an artificially simplified attitude she waited eagerly for the coming of +somebody who would restore to her her own sense of significance. + +Franklin Winslow Kane arrived late one afternoon, and Althea arranged +that she should greet him alone. Miss Buckston, Aunt Julia, the girls, +and Herbert Vaughan had driven over to a neighbouring garden-party, and +Althea alleged the arrival of her old friend as a very valid excuse. She +walked up and down the drawing-room, dressed in one of her prettiest +dresses; the soft warmth and light of the low sun filled the air, and +her heart expanded with it. She wondered if--ah, if only!--Franklin +would himself be able to thrill her, and her deep expectation almost +amounted to a thrill. Expectation culminated in a wave of excitement and +emotion as the door opened and her faithful lover stood before her. + +Franklin Winslow Kane (he signed himself more expeditiously as Franklin +W. Kane) was a small, lean man. He had an air of tension, constant, yet +under such perfect control, that it counted as placidity rather than as +strain. His face was sallow and clean-shaven, and the features seemed +neatly drawn on a flat surface rather than modelled, so discreet and so +meagre were the sallies and shadows. His lips were calm and firmly +closed, and had always the appearance of smiling; of his eyes one felt +the bright, benignant beam rather than the shape or colour. His straight +stiff hair was shorn in rather odd and rather ugly lines along his +forehead and temples, and of his clothes the kindest thing to say was +that they were unobtrusive. Franklin had once said of himself, with +comic dispassionateness, that he looked like a cheap cigar, and the +comparison was apt. He seemed to have been dried, pressed, and moulded, +neatly and expeditiously, by some mechanical process that turned out +thousands more just like him. A great many things, during this process, +had been done to him, but they were commonplace, though complicated +things, and they left him, while curiously finished, curiously +undifferentiated. The hurrying streets of any large town in his native +land would, one felt, be full of others like him: good-tempered, shrewd, +alert, yet with an air of placidity, too, as though it were a world that +required effort and vigilance of one, and yet, these conditions +fulfilled, would always justify one's expectations. If differences there +were in Franklin Kane, they were to be sought for, they did not present +themselves; and he himself would have been the last to be conscious of +them. He didn't think of himself as differentiated; he didn't desire +differentiation. + +He advanced now towards his beloved, after a slight hesitation, for the +sunlight in which she stood as well as her own radiant appearance seemed +to have dazzled him a little. Althea held out her hands, and the tears +came into her eyes; it was as if she hadn't known, until then, how +lonely she was. 'O Franklin, I'm so glad to see you,' she said. + +He held her hands, gazing at her with a gentle yet intent rapture, and +he forgot, in a daring greater than any he had ever known, to kiss them. +Franklin never took anything for granted, and Althea knew that it was +because he saw her tears and saw her emotion that he could ask her now, +hesitatingly, yet with sudden confidence: 'Althea, it's been so +long--you are so lovely--it will mean nothing to you, I know; so may I +kiss you?' + +Put like that, why shouldn't he? Conscience had not a qualm, and +Franklin had never seemed so dear to her. She smiled a sisterly benison +upon his request, and, still holding her hands, he leaned to her and +kissed her. Closing her eyes she wondered intently for a moment, able, +in the midst of her motion, to analyse it; for, yes, it had thrilled +her. She needed to be kissed, were it only Franklin who kissed her. + +They went, hand in hand, to a sofa, and there she was able to show him +only the sisterly benignity that he knew so well. She questioned him +sweetly about his voyage, his health, his relatives--his only near +relative was a sister who taught in a college--and about their mutual +friends and his work. To all he replied carefully and calmly, though +looking at her delightedly while he spoke. He had a very deliberate, +even way of speaking, and in certain words so broadened the a's that, +almost doubled in length by this treatment, they sounded like little +bleats. His 'yes' was on two notes and became a dissyllable. + +After he had answered all her questions he took up the thread himself. +He had tactfully relinquished her hand at a certain moment in her talk. +Althea well remembered his sensitiveness to any slightest mood in +herself; he was wonderfully imaginative when it came to any human +relation. He did not wait for her to feel consciously that it was not +quite fitting that her hand should be held for so long. + +'This is a nice old place you've got, Althea,' he said, looking about. +'Homelike and welcoming. I liked the look of it as I drove up. Have you +a lot of English people with you?' + +'Only one; Miss Buckston, you know. Aunt Julia and the girls are here, +and Herbert Vaughan, their friend. You know Herbert Vaughan; such a nice +young creature; his mother is a Bostonian.' + +'I know about him; I don't know him,' said Franklin, who indeed, as she +reflected, would not be likely to have met the fashionable Herbert. 'And +where is that attractive new friend of yours you wrote to me about--the +one you took care of in Paris--the Scotch lady?' + +'Helen Buchanan? She is coming; she is in Scotland now.' + +'Oh, she's coming. I am to see her, I hope.' + +'You are to see everybody, dear Franklin,' said Althea, smiling upon +him. 'You are to stay, you know, for as long as you will.' + +'That's sweet of you, Althea.' He looked at her. Her kindness still +buoyed him above his wonted level. He had never allowed himself to +become utterly hopeless, yet he had become almost resigned to hope +deferred; a pressing, present hope grew in him now. 'But it's ambiguous, +you know,' he went on, smiling back. 'If I'm to stay as long as I will, +I'm never to leave you, you know.' + +Hope was becoming to Franklin. Althea felt herself colouring a little +under his eyes. 'You still feel that?' she said rather feebly. + +'I'll always feel that.' + +'It's very wonderful of you, Franklin. It makes me, sometimes, feel +guilty, as though I kept you from fuller happiness.' + +'You can't do that. You are the only person who can give me fuller +happiness.' + +'And I give you happiness, like this--even like this?--really?' + +'Of course; but,' he smiled a little forcedly, 'I can't pretend it's +anything like what I want. I want a great deal.' + +Althea's eyes fell before the intent and gentle gaze. + +'Dear Franklin--I wish----' + +'You wish you could? I wonder--I wonder, Althea, if you feel a little +nearer to it just now. I seem to feel, myself, that you are.' + +Was she? How she wished she were. Yet the wish was mixed with fear. She +said, faltering, 'Don't ask me now. I'm so glad to see you--so glad; but +that's not the same thing, is it?' + +'It may be on the way to it.' + +'May it?' she sighed tremblingly. + +There was a silence; and then, taking her hand again, he again kissed +it, and holding it for an insistent moment said, 'Althea, won't you try +being engaged to me?' + +She said nothing, turning away her face. + +'You might make a habit of loving me, you know,' he went on half +whimsically. 'No one would know anything about it. It would be our +secret, our little experiment. If only you'd try it. Dearest, I do love +you so deeply.' + +And then--how it was she did not know, but it was again Franklin's words +rather than Franklin that moved her, so that he must have seen the +yielding to his love, if not to him, in her face--she was in his arms, +and he was kissing her and saying, 'O Althea, won't you try?' + +Althea's mind whirled. She needed to be kissed; that alone was evident; +for she did not draw away; but the tears came, of perplexity and pathos, +and she said, 'Franklin, dear Franklin, I'll try--I mean, I'll try to be +in love with you--I can't be engaged, not really engaged--but I will +try.' + +'Darling--you are nearer it----' + +'Yes--I don't know, Franklin--I mustn't bind myself. I can't marry you +unless I am in love with you--can I, Franklin?' + +'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin, his voice a little +shaken. 'You can't expect me to give you an impartial answer to that +now--can you, dear? I feel as if I wanted you to marry me on the chance +you'd come to love me. And you do care for me enough for this, don't +you? That in itself is such an incredible gift.' + +Yes, she evidently cared for him enough for this; and 'this' meant his +arm about her, her hand in his, his eyes of devotion upon her, centre of +his universe as she was. And 'this' had, after years of formality, +incredibly indeed altered all their relation. But--to marry him--it +meant all sorts of other things; it meant definitely giving up; it meant +definitely taking on. What it meant taking on was Franklin's +raylessness, Franklin's obscurity, Franklin's dun-colour--could a wife +escape the infection? What it meant giving up was more vague, but it +floated before her as the rose-coloured dream of her youth--the hero, +the earnest, ardent hero, who was to light all life to rapture and +significance. And, absurdly, while the drift of glamour and regret +floated by, and while she sat with Franklin's arm about her, her hand in +his, it seemed to shape itself for a moment into the gay, irresponsible +face of Gerald Digby. Absurd, indeed; he was neither earnest nor ardent, +and if he were he would never feel earnestness or ardour on her account. +Franklin certainly responded, in that respect, to the requirements of +her dream. Yet--ah, yet--he responded in no other. It was not enough to +have eyes only for her. A hero should draw others' eyes upon him; should +have rays that others could recognise. Althea was troubled, and she was +also ashamed of herself, but whether because of that vision of Gerald +Digby, or whether because she was allowing Franklin privileges never +allowed before, she did not know. Only the profundity of reverence that +beamed upon her from Franklin's eyes enabled her to regain her +self-respect. + +Smiling a little constrainedly, she drew her hand from his and rose. 'I +mustn't bind myself,' she repeated, standing with downcast eyes before +him, 'but I'll try; indeed, I'll try.' + +'You want to be in love with me, if only you can manage it, don't you, +dear?' he questioned; and to this she could truthfully reply, 'Yes, dear +Franklin, I want to be in love with you.' + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Althea found, as she had hoped, that her whole situation was altered by +the arrival of her suitor. A woman boasting the possession of even the +most rayless of that species is in a very different category from the +woman as mere unsought unit. As unit she sinks easily into the +background, is merged with other unemphatic things, but as sought she is +always in the foreground, not only in her own, but in others' eyes. Be +she ever so unnoticeable, she then gains, at least, the compliment of +conjecture. The significance of her personal drama has a universal +interest; the issues of her situation are those that appeal forcibly to +all. + +Althea and her steady, sallow satellite, became the centre of a watchful +circle; watchful and kindly. Even to others her charms became more +apparent, as, indeed, they were more actual. To be loved and to live in +the presence of the adorer is the most beautifying of circumstances. +Althea bloomed under it. Her eyes became larger, sweeter, sadder; her +lips softer; the mild fever of her indecision and of her sense of power +burned dimly in her cheeks. As the centre of watchfulness she gained the +grace of self-confidence. + +Aunt Julia, observant and shrewd, smiled with half-ironic satisfaction. +She had felt sure that Althea must come to this, and 'this,' she +considered as on the whole fortunate for Althea. Anything, Aunt Julia +thought, was better than to become a wandering old maid, and she had, +moreover, the highest respect for Franklin Winslow Kane. As a suitor for +one of her own girls he would, of course, have been impossible; but her +girls she placed in a different category from Althea; they had the +rights of youth, charm, and beauty. + +The girls, for their part, though seeing Franklin as a fair object for +chaff, conceived of him as wholly suitable. Though they chaffed him, +they never did so to his disadvantage, and they were respectful +spectators of his enterprise. They had the nicest sense of loyalty for +serious situations. + +And Miss Buckston was of all the most satisfactory in her attitude. Her +contempt for the disillusions and impediments of marriage could not +prevent her from feeling an altogether new regard for a person to whom +marriage was so obviously open; moreover, she thought Mr. Kane highly +interesting. She at once informed Althea that she always found American +men vastly the superior in achievement and energy to the much-vaunted +American woman, and Althea was not displeased. She was amused but +gratified, when Miss Buckston told her what were Franklin's good +qualities, and said that though he had many foolish democratic notions, +he was more worth while talking to than any man she had met for a long +time. She took every opportunity for talking to him about sociology, +science, and international themes, and Althea even became a little irked +by the frequency of these colloquies and tempted sometimes to withdraw +Franklin from them; but the subtle flattery that Miss Buckston's +interest in Franklin offered to herself was too acceptable for her to +yield to such impulses. Yes, Franklin had a right to his air of careful +elation; she had never been so near it. She had not again allowed him to +kiss her--she was still rather ashamed when she remembered how often she +had, on that one occasion, allowed him to kiss her; yet, in spite of her +swift stepping back to discretion, she had never in all her life been so +near to saying 'yes' to Franklin as during the eight or ten days after +his arrival. And the fact that a third postcard from Helen expressed +even further vagueness as to the chance of Gerald's being able to be +with them that autumn at Merriston, added to the sense of inevitability. +Althea had been for this time so absorbed in Franklin, his effect on +others and on herself, that she had not felt, as she would otherwise +have done, Helen's unsatisfactory attitude. Helen was at last coming, +and she was fluttered at the thought of her coming, but she was far more +able to cope with Helen; there was more self to do it with; she was +stronger, more independent of Helen's opinion and of Helen's affection. +But dimly she felt also--hardly aware she felt it--that she was a more +effective self as the undecided recipient of Franklin's devotion than as +his affianced wife. A rayless person, it seemed, could crown one with +beams as long as one maintained one's distance from him; merged with him +one shared his insignificance. To accept Franklin might be to shear them +both of all the radiance they borrowed from each other. + +Helen arrived on a very hot evening in mid-August. She had lost the best +train, which brought one to Merriston at tea-time--Althea felt that +Helen was the sort of person who would always lose the best train--and +after a tedious journey, with waits and changes at hot stations, she +received her friend's kisses just as the dressing-bell for dinner +sounded. Helen, standing among her boxes, while Amelie hurriedly got out +her evening things, looked extremely tired, and felt, Althea was sure, +extremely ill-tempered. It was characteristic of Helen, she knew it +intuitively, to feel ill-temper, and yet to have it so perfectly under +control that it made her manner sweeter than usual. Her sense of social +duty never failed her, and it did not in the least fail her now as she +smiled at Althea, and, while she drank the cup of tea that had been +brought to her, gave an account of her misfortunes. She had arrived in +London from Scotland the night before, spent two hours of the morning in +frantic shopping--the shops like ovens and the London pavements exhaling +a torrid heat; had found, on getting back to Aunt Grizel's--Aunt Grizel +was away--that the silly maid had muddled all her packing; then, late +already, had hurled herself into a cab, and observed, half-way to the +station, that the horse was on the point of collapse; had changed cabs +and had arrived at the station to see her train just going out. 'So +there I paced up and down like a caged, suffocating lioness for over an +hour, had a loathsome lunch, and read half a dozen papers before my +train started, I came third class with a weary mother and two babies, +the sun beat in all the way, and I had three changes. I'm hardly fit to +be seen, and not fit to speak. But, yes, I'll have a bath and come down +in time for something to eat. I'd rather come down; please don't wait +for me.' + +They did, however, and she was very late. The windows in the +drawing-room were widely open to the evening air, and the lamps had not +yet been lit; and when Helen came she made Althea think a little of a +beautiful grey moth, hovering vaguely in the dusk. + +Captain Merton dined with them that evening, and young Harry Evans, son +of a neighbouring squire; and Herbert Vaughan was still at Merriston, +the masculine equivalent of Mildred and Dorothy, an exquisitely +appointed youth, frank and boisterous, with charming, candid eyes, and +the figure of an Adonis. These young men's eyes were fixed upon Helen as +they took their places at the dinner-table, though not altogether, +Althea perceived, with admiration. Helen, wherever she was, would always +be centre; things and people grouped themselves about her; she made the +picture, and she was the focus of interest. 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. One never could tell in the least +what she really thought of it. She smiled with pale lips and weary eyes +upon Franklin, listened to him gravely and with concentration, and, when +she did speak, it was, once or twice, with gaiety, as though he had +amused and surprised her. Yet Althea felt that her thoughts were far +from Franklin, far from everybody in the room. And meanwhile, of +everybody in the room, it was the lean, sallow young man beside her who +seemed at once the least impressed and the most interested. But that was +so like Franklin; no one could outdo him in interest, and no one could +outdo him in placidity. That he could examine Helen with his calm, +careful eye, as though she were an object for mental and moral +appraisement only; that he could see her so acutely, and yet remain so +unmoved by her rarity, at once pleased and displeased Althea. It showed +him as so safe, but it showed him as so narrow. She found herself +thinking almost impatiently that Franklin simply had no sense of charm +at all. Helen interested him, but she did not stir in him the least +wistfulness or wonder, as charm should do. Miss Buckston interested him, +too. And she was very sure that Franklin while liking Helen as a human +creature--so he liked Miss Buckston--disapproved of her as a type. Of +course, he must disapprove of her. Didn't she contradict all the things +he approved of--all the laboriousness, the earnestness, the tolerant +bias towards the views and feelings of the majority? And Althea felt, +with a rather sharp satisfaction, that it would give her some pleasure +to show Franklin that she differed from him; that she had other tastes +than his, other needs--needs which Helen more than satisfied. + +She had no opportunity that night for fathoming Helen's impressions of +Franklin, and indeed felt that the task was a delicate one to undertake. +If Helen didn't volunteer them she could hardly ask for them. Loyalty to +Franklin and to the old bond between them, to say nothing of the new, +made it unfit that Helen should know that her impressions of Franklin +were of any weight with her friend. But the next morning Helen did not +come down to breakfast, and there was no reason why, in a stroll round +the garden with Franklin afterwards, she should not be point blank; the +only unfairness here was that in his opinion of Helen it would not be +Helen he judged, but himself. + +'How do you like her, my new friend?' she asked. + +Franklin was very willing to talk and had already clear impressions. The +clearest was the one he put at once before her in the vernacular he had +never taken the least pains to modify. 'She looks sick; I'd be worried +about her if I were you. Can't you rouse her?' + +'Rouse her? She is always like that. Only she was particularly tired +last night.' + +'A healthy young woman oughtn't to get so tired. If she's always like +that she always needs rousing.' + +'Don't be ridiculous, Franklin. What do you mean?' + +'Why, I'm perfectly serious. I think she looks sick. She ought to take +tonics and a lot of outdoor exercise.' + +'Is that all that you can find to say about her?' Althea asked, half +amused and half indignant. + +'Why no,' Franklin replied. 'I think she's very attractive; she has a +great deal of poise. Only she's half alive. I'd like to see her doing +something.' + +'It's enough for her to be, I think.' + +'Enough for you, perhaps; but is it enough for her? She'd be a mighty +lot happier if she had some work.' + +'Really, Franklin, you are absurd,' said Althea laughing. 'There is room +in the world, thank goodness, for other people besides people who work.' + +'Oh no, there isn't; not really. The trouble with the world is that +they're here and have to be taken care of; there's not room for them. +It's lovely of you to care so much about her,' he went on, turning his +bright gaze upon her. 'I see how you care for her. It's because of +that--for her sake, you know--what it can mean to her--that I emphasise +the side that needs looking after. You look after her, Althea; that'll +be the best thing that can happen to her.' + +With all his acuteness, how guileless he was, the dear! She saw herself +'looking after' Helen! + +'You might have a great deal of influence on her,' Franklin added. + +Althea struggled for a moment with her pride. She liked Franklin to have +this high opinion of her ministering powers, and yet she liked even more +to have the comfort of confiding in him; and she was willing to add to +Helen's impressiveness at the expense of her own. 'I've no influence +with her,' she said. 'I never shall have. I don't believe that any one +could influence Helen.' + +Franklin looked fixedly at her for some time as though probing what +there must be of pain for her in this avowal. Then he said, 'That's too +bad. Too bad for her, I mean. You're all right, dear. She doesn't know +what she misses.' + +They sat out on the lawn that afternoon in the shade of the great trees. +Mildred and Dorothy, glittering in white, played lawn-tennis +indefatigably with Herbert Vaughan and Captain Merton. Aunt Julia +embroidered, and Miss Buckston read a review with a concentrated brow +and an occasional ejaculation of disapproval. Helen was lying prone in a +green linen chair; her garden hat was bent over her eyes and she seemed +to doze. Franklin sat on the grass in front of Althea, just outside the +radius of shadow, clasping his thin knees with his thin hands. He looked +at his worst out of doors, on a lawn and under trees. He was typically +civic. Even with his attempts to adapt his clothes to rural +requirements, he was out of place. His shoes seemed to demand a +pavement, and his thin grey coat and trousers an office stool. Althea +also eyed his tie with uncertainty. He wasn't right; he didn't in the +least look like Herbert Vaughan, who was elegant, or like Captain +Merton, who was easy. He sat out in the sunlight, undisturbed by it, +though he screwed up his features in a very unbecoming way while he +talked, the sun in his eyes. In her cool green shadow, Helen now and +then opened her eyes and looked at him, and Althea wished that he would +not remain in so resolutely disadvantageous a situation. + +'See here, Althea,' he was saying, 'if you've gone so much into this +matter'--the topic was that of sweated industries--'I don't see how you +can avoid feeling responsible--making some use of all you know. I don't +ask you to come home to do it, though we need you and your kind badly +there, but you ought to lend a hand here.' + +'I don't really think I could be of any use,' said Althea. + +'With all your knowledge of political economy? Why, Miss Buckston could +set you to something at once. Knowledge is always of use, isn't it, Miss +Buckston?' + +'Yes, if one cares enough about things to put them through,' said Miss +Buckston. 'I always tell Althea that she might make herself very useful +to me.' + +'Exactly,' said Franklin. 'And she does care. All you need do, Althea, +is to harness yourself. You mustn't drift.' + +'The number of drifting American women one sees over here!' Miss +Buckston ejaculated; to which Franklin cheerfully replied: 'Oh, we'll +work them all in; they are of use to us in their own way, though they +often don't know it. They are learning a lot; they are getting equipped. +The country will get the good of it some day. Look at Althea, for +instance. You might say she drifted, but she's been a hard scholar; I +know it; all she needs now is to get harnessed.' + +It was not lover-like talk; yet what talk, in its very impartiality, +could from a lover be more gratifying? Althea again glanced at Helen, +but Helen again seemed to slumber. Her face in repose had a look of +discontent and sorrow, and Franklin's eyes, following her own, no doubt +recognised what she did. He observed Helen for some moments before +returning to the theme of efficiency. + +It was a little later on that Althea's opportunity--and crisis--came. +Aunt Julia had gone in and Miss Buckston suggested to Franklin that he +should take a turn with her before tea. Franklin got up at once and +walked away beside her, and Althea knew that his alacrity was the +greater because he felt that by going with Miss Buckston he left her +alone with her cherished friend. As he and Miss Buckston disappeared in +the shrubberies, Helen opened her eyes and looked at them. + +'How do you like Miss Buckston now that you see her at closer quarters?' +Althea asked, hoping to approach the subject that preoccupied her by a +circuitous method. + +Helen smiled. 'One hardly likes her better at closer quarters, does one? +She is like a gun going off every few moments.' + +Althea smiled too; she no longer felt many qualms of loyalty on Miss +Buckston's behalf. + +Helen said no more, and the subject was still unapproached. 'And how do +you like Mr. Kane?' Althea now felt herself forced to add. + +She had not intended to use that casual tone, nearly the same tone that +she had used for Miss Buckston. But she had a dimly apprehended and +strongly felt wish not to forestall any verdict of Helen's; to make sure +that Helen should have an open field for pronouncing her verdict +candidly. Yet she was hardly prepared for the candour of Helen's reply, +though in the shock that attended it she knew in a moment that she had +brought it upon herself. One didn't question people about one's near +friends in that casual tone. + +'Funny little man,' said Helen. + +After the shock of it--her worst suspicions confirmed--it was a deep +qualm that Althea felt, a qualm in which she knew that something +definite and final had happened to her; something sharp yet vague, all +blurred by the balmy softness of the day, the sense of physical +well-being, the beauty of green branches and bays of deep blue sky +above. It was difficult to know, for a moment, just what had happened, +for it was not as if she had ever definitely told herself that she +intended to marry Franklin. The clearest contrast between the moment of +revelation and that which had gone before lay in the fact that not until +Helen spoke those idle, innocent words had she ever definitely told +herself that she could never marry him. And there was a pang in the +knowledge, and with it a drowsy lassitude, as of relief and certainty. +The reason now was there; it gazed at her. Not that she couldn't have +seen it for herself, but pity, loneliness, the craving for love had +blinded her. Franklin was a funny little man, and that was why she could +not marry him. And now, with the lassitude, the relief from long +tension, came a feeling of cold and sickness. + +Helen, baleful in her unconsciousness, had again closed her eyes. Althea +looked at her, and she was aware of being angry with Helen. She was +further aware that, since all was over for Franklin, she owed him +something. She owed it to him at least to make clear to Helen that she +didn't place him with Miss Buckston. + +'Yes,' she said, 'Franklin is funny in his way. He is very quaint and +original and simple; but he is a dear, too, you know.' + +Helen did not open her eyes. 'I'm sure he is,' she acquiesced. Her +placid acceptance of whatever interpretation of Mr. Kane Althea should +choose to set before her, made Althea still angrier--with herself and +with Helen. + +'He is quite a noted scientist,' she went on, keeping her voice smooth, +'and has a very interesting new theory about atoms that's exciting a +good deal of attention.' + +Her voice was too successful; Helen still suspected nothing. 'Yes,' she +said. 'Really.' + +'You mustn't judge him from his appearance,' said Althea, smiling, for +Helen had now opened her eyes and was looking dreamily at the +lawn-tennis players.' His clothes are odd, of course; he doesn't know +how to dress; but his eyes are fine; one sees the thinker in them.' She +hoped by sacrificing Franklin's clothes to elicit some appreciation of +his eyes. But Helen merely acquiesced again with: 'Yes; he doesn't know +how to dress.' + +'He isn't at all well off, you know,' said Althea. 'Indeed, he is quite +poor. He spends most of his money on research and philanthropy.' + +'Ah, well!' Helen commented, 'it's extraordinary how little difference +money makes if a man knows how to dress.' + +The thought of Gerald Digby went like a dart through Althea's mind. He +was poor. She remembered his socks and ties, his general rightness. She +wondered how much he spent on his clothes. She was silent for a moment, +struggling with her trivial and with her deep discomfitures, and she +saw the figures of Miss Buckston and of Franklin--both so funny, both so +earnest--appear at the farther edge of the lawn engaged in strenuous +converse. Helen looked at them too, kindly and indifferently. 'That +would be quite an appropriate attachment, wouldn't it?' she remarked. +'They seem very much interested in each other, those two.' + +Althea grew very red. Her mind knew a horrid wrench. She did not know +whether it was in pride of possessorship, or shame of it, or merely in +helpless loyalty that, after a pause, she said: 'Perhaps I ought to have +told you, Helen, that Franklin has wanted to marry me for fifteen years. +I've no intention of accepting him; but no one can judge as I can of how +big and dear a person he is--in spite of his funniness.' As she spoke +she remembered--it was with a gush of undiluted dismay--that to Helen +she had in Paris spoken of the 'delightful' suitor, the 'only one.' Did +Helen remember? And how could Helen connect that delightful 'one' with +Franklin, and with her own attitude towards Franklin? + +But Helen now had turned her eyes upon her, opening them--it always +seemed to be with difficulty that she did it--widely. 'My dear,' she +said, 'I do beg your pardon. You never gave me a hint.' + +How, indeed, could the Paris memory have been one? + +'There wasn't any hint to give, exactly,' said Althea, blushing more +deeply and trying to prevent the tears from rising. 'I'm not in the +least in love with Franklin. I never shall be.' + +'No, of course not,' Helen replied, full of solicitude. 'Only, as you +say, you must know him so well;--to have him talked over, quite idly and +ignorantly, as I've been talking.--Really, you ought to have stopped +me.' + +'There was no reason for stopping you. I can see Franklin with perfect +detachment. I see him just as you do, only I see so much more. His +devotion to me is a rare thing; it has always made me feel unworthy.' + +'Dear me, yes. Fifteen years, you say; it's quite extraordinary,' said +Helen. + +To Althea it seemed that Helen's candour was merciless, and revealed her +to herself as uncandid, crooked, and devious. It was with a stronger +wish than ever to atone to Franklin that she persisted: '_He_ is +extraordinary; that's what I mean about him. I am devoted to him. And my +consolation is that since I can't give him love he finds my friendship +the next best thing in life.' + +'Really?' Helen repeated. She was silent then, evidently not considering +herself privileged to ask questions; and the silence was fraught for +Althea with keenest discomfort. It was only after a long pause that at +last, tentatively and delicately, as though she guessed that Althea +perhaps was resenting something, and perhaps wanted her to ask +questions, Helen said: 'And--you don't think you can ever take him?' + +'My dear Helen! How can you ask me? He isn't a man to fall in love with, +is he?' + +'No, certainly not,' said Helen, smiling a little constrainedly, as +though her friend's vehemence struck her as slightly excessive. 'But he +might, from what you tell me, be a man to marry.' + +'I couldn't marry a man I was not in love with.' + +'Not if he were sufficiently in love with you? Such faithful and devoted +people are rare.' + +'You know, Helen, that, however faithful and devoted he were, you +couldn't fancy yourself marrying Franklin.' + +Helen, at this turning of the tables, looked slightly disconcerted. +'Well, as you say, I hardly know him,' she suggested. + +'However well you knew him, you do know that under no circumstances +could you marry him.' + +'No, I suppose not.' + +Her look of readjustment was inflicting further and subtler wounds. + +'Can't I feel in the same way?' said Althea. + +Helen, a little troubled by the feeling she could not interpret in her +friend's voice, hesitated before saying--as though in atonement to Mr. +Kane she felt bound to put his case as favourably as possible: 'It +doesn't quite follow, does it, that somebody who would suit you would +suit me? We are so different, aren't we?' + +'Different? How?' + +'Well, I could put up with a very inferior, frivolous sort of person. +You'd have higher ideas altogether.' + +Althea still tried to smile. 'You mean that Franklin is too high an idea +for you?' + +'Far, far too high,' said Helen, smiling back. + +Franklin and Miss Buckston were now approaching them, and Althea had to +accept this ambiguous result of the conversation. One result, however, +was not ambiguous. She seemed to see Franklin, as he came towards her +over the thick sward, in a new light, a light that diminished and +removed him; so that while her heart ached over him as it had never +ached, it yet, strangely, was hardened towards him, and almost hostile. +How had she not seen for herself, clearly and finally, that she and +Helen were alike, and that whether it was that Franklin was too high, or +whether it was that Franklin was merely funny--for either or for both +reasons, Franklin could never be for her. + +Her heart was hard and aching; but above everything else one hot feeling +pulsed: Helen should not have said that he was funny and then glided to +the point where she left him as too high for herself, yet not too high +for her friend. She should not have withdrawn from her friend and +stranded her with Franklin Winslow Kane. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +In the course of the next few days Miss Buckston went back to her Surrey +cottage, and two friends of Helen's arrived. Helen was fulfilling her +promise of giving Althea all the people she wanted. Lady Pickering was +widowed, young, coquettish, and pretty; Sir Charles Brewster a lively +young bachelor with high eyebrows, upturned tips to his moustache, and +an air of surprise and competence. They made great friends at once with +Mildred, Dorothy and Herbert Vaughan, who shared in all Sir Charles's +hunting and yachting interests. Lady Pickering, after a day of tennis +and flirtation, would drift at night into Dorothy and Mildred's rooms to +talk of dresses, and for some days wore her hair tied in a large black +bow behind, reverting, however, to her usual dishevelled +picturesqueness. 'One needs to look as innocent as a pony to have that +bow really suit one,' she said. + +Althea, in this accession of new life, again felt relegated to the +background. Helen did not join in the revels, but there was no air of +being relegated about her; she might have been the jaded and kindly +queen before whom they were enacted. 'Dear Helen,' said Lady Pickering +to Mildred and Althea, 'I can see that she's down on her luck and very +bored with life. But it's always nice having her about, isn't it? Always +nice to have her to look at.' + +Althea felt that her guests found no such decorative uses for herself, +and that they took it for granted that, with a suitor to engage her +attention, she would be quite satisfied to remain outside, even if +above, the gayer circle. She could not deny that her acceptance of +Franklin's devotion before Helen's arrival, their air of happy +withdrawal--a withdrawal that had then made them conspicuous, not +negligible--absolutely justified her guests in their over-tactfulness. +They still took it for granted that she and Franklin wanted to be alone +together; they still left them in an isolation almost bridal; but now +Althea did not want to be left alone with Franklin, and above all wished +to detach herself from any bridal association; and she tormented herself +with accusations concerning her former graciousness, responsible as it +was for her present discomfort. She knew that she was very fond of dear +Franklin, and that she always would be fond of him, but, with these +accusations crowding thickly upon her, she was ill at ease and unhappy +in his presence. What could she say to Franklin? 'I did, indeed, deceive +myself into thinking that I might be able to marry you, and I let you +see that I thought it; and then my friend's chance words showed me that +I never could. What am I to think of myself, Franklin? And what can you +think of me?' For though she could no longer feel pride in Franklin's +love; though it had ceased, since Helen's words, to have any decorative +value in her eyes, its practical value was still great; she could not +think of herself as not loved by Franklin. Her world would have rocked +without that foundation beneath it; and the fear that Franklin might, +reading her perplexed, unstable heart, feel her a person no longer to be +loved, was now an added complication. + +'O Franklin, dear Franklin!' she said to him suddenly one day, turning +upon him eyes enlarged by tears, 'I feel as if I were guilty towards +you.' + +She almost longed to put her head on his shoulder, to pour out all her +grief, and be understood and comforted. Franklin had not been slow to +recognise the change in his beloved's attitude towards him. He had shown +no sign of grievance or reproach; he seemed quite prepared for her +reaction from the moment of only dubious hope, and, though quite without +humility, to find it natural, however painful to himself, that Althea +should be rather bored after so much of him. But the gentle lighting of +his face now showed her, too, that her reticence and withdrawal had hurt +more than the new loss of hope. + +'You mean,' he said, trying to smile a little as he said it, 'you mean +that you've found out that you can't, dear?' + +She stood, stricken by the words and their finality, and she slowly +nodded, while two large tears rolled down her cheeks. + +Franklin Kane controlled the signs of his own emotion, which was deep. +'That's all right, dear,' he said. 'You're not guilty of anything. +You've been a little too kind--more than you can keep up, I mean. It's +been beautiful of you to be kind at all and to think you might be +kinder. Would you rather I went away? Perhaps it's painful to have me +about just now. I've got a good many places I can go to while I'm over +here, you know. You mustn't have me on your mind.' + +'O Franklin!' Althea almost sobbed; 'you are an angel. Of course I want +you to stay for as long as you will; of course I love to have you here.' +He was an angel, indeed, she felt, and another dart of hostility towards +Helen went through her--Helen, cynical, unspiritual, blind to angels. + +So Franklin stayed on, and the next day another guest arrived. It was at +breakfast that Althea found at her place a little note from Gerald Digby +asking her very prettily if she could take him in that evening. He was +in town and would start at once if she could wire that he might come. +Althea controlled, as best she could, her shock of delight. He had, +then, intended to come; he had not forgotten all about her. Even if she +counted only in his memory as tenant, it was good, she felt it +helplessly and blissfully, to count in any way with Gerald Digby. She +did not analyse and hardly recognised these sentiments, yet she strongly +felt the need for composure, and it was only with an air of soft +exhilaration that she made the announcement over the table to Helen. +'Isn't it nice, Helen? Mr. Digby is coming this evening.' The soft +exhilaration could not be noticeable, for everybody seemed in some +degree to share it. + +'Dear Gerald, how delightful!' said Lady Pickering, with, to Althea's +consciousness, too much an air of possessorship. 'Gerald is a splendid +actor, Miss Pepperell,' Sir Charles said to Dorothy. 'Miss Buchanan, you +and he must do some of your best parts together.' The girls were full of +expectancy. It was Helen herself who looked least illuminated by the +news; but then, as Althea realised, to Helen Gerald must be the most +matter-of-fact thing in life. + +They were all sitting under the trees on the lawn when Gerald arrived; +he had not lost the best train. Every one was in white, except Helen who +wore black, and Franklin who wore grey; every one was lolling on the +grass or extended on chairs, except Aunt Julia, erect and embroidering, +and Althea who was giving her attention to tea. It had just been poured +out when Gerald came strolling over the lawn towards them. + +He carried his Panama hat doubled in his hand; he looked exquisitely +cool, and he glanced about him as he came, well pleased, apparently, to +find himself again in his old home. Althea felt his manner of +approaching them to be characteristic; it was at once so desultory and +so pleasant. + +'You look like a flock of doves,' he said, as, smiling, he took Althea's +welcoming hand and surveyed the group. 'Hello, Helen, how are you? +Hello, Charlie; and how nice to find you, Frances.' + +He was introduced to the others, continuing to smile with marked +approbation, Althea felt, upon Mildred and Dorothy, who certainly looked +charming, and then he dropped on the grass beside Lady Pickering's +chair. + +Althea knew that if she looked like a dove, she felt like a very +fluttering one. She was much moved by this welcoming of Mr. Digby to his +home, and she wondered if the quickened beating of her heart manifested +itself in any change of glance or colour. She soon felt, however, as she +distributed teacups and looked about her circle, that if she were +visibly moved Mr. Digby would not be aware of the fact. The fact, +obviously, that he was most aware of was Lady Pickering's presence, and +he was talking to her with a lightness and gaiety that she could +presently only define, for her own discomfort, as flirtation. Althea had +had little experience of flirting, and the little had not been personal. +It had remained for her always a rather tasteless, rather ludicrous +spectacle; yet Mr. Digby's manner of flirting, if flirting it was, was +neither. It was graceful, unemphatic, composed of playful repartee and +merry glances. It was Lady Pickering who overdid her side of the +dialogue and brought to it a significance that Mr. Digby's eyes and +smile disowned even while they evoked it. One of the things of which Mr. +Digby had shown himself most completely unaware was Franklin Kane, who +sat, as usual, just outside the circle in the sun, balancing his tea-cup +on his raised knees and 'Fletcherising' a slice of cake. Gerald had +glanced at him as one might glance--Althea had felt it keenly--at some +nice little insect on one's path, a pleasant insect, but too small to +warrant any attention beyond a casual recognition of type. But Franklin, +who had a casual interest in nobody, was very much aware of the +newcomer, and he gazed attentively at Gerald Digby as he had gazed at +Helen on the first evening of their meeting, with less of interest +perhaps, but with much the same dispassionate intentness; and Althea +felt sure that he already did not approve of Gerald Digby. + +She asked Helen that evening, lightly, as Helen had asked an equivalent +question about Franklin and Miss Buckston, whether Mr. Digby and Lady +Pickering were in love; she felt sure that they were not in love, which +made the question easier. + +'Oh no; not at all, I fancy,' said Helen. + +'I only asked,' said Althea, 'because it seemed the obvious +explanation.' + +'You mean their way of flirting.' + +'Yes. I suppose I'm not used to flirtation, not to such extreme +flirtation. I don't like it, do you?' + +'I don't know that I do; but Gerald is only a flirt through sympathy and +good nature. It's Frances who leads him on; she is a flirt by +temperament.' + +'I'm glad of that,' said Althea. 'I'm sure he is too nice to be one by +temperament.' + +'After all, it's a very harmless diversion.' + +'Do you think it harmless? It pains me to see a sacred thing being +mimicked.' + +'I hardly think it's a sacred thing Frances and Gerald are mimicking,' +Helen smiled. + +'It's love, isn't it?' + +'Love of such a trivial order that I can't feel anything is being taken +in vain.' + +Helen was amused, yet touched by her friend's standards. Such distaste +was not unknown to her, and Gerald's sympathetic propensities had caused +her qualms with which she could not have imagined that Althea's had any +analogy. Yet it was not her own taste she was considering that evening +after dinner when, in walking up and down with Gerald on the gravelled +terrace outside the drawing-room, she told him of Althea's standards. +She felt responsible for Gerald, and that she owed it to Althea that he +should not be allowed to displease her. It had struck her more than +once, immersed in self-centred cogitations as she was, that Althea was +altogether too much relegated. + +'I wish you and Frances would not go on as you do, Gerald,' she said. +'It disturbs Althea, I am sure. She is not used to seeing people +behaving like that.' + +'Behaving?' asked the innocent Gerald. 'How have I been behaving?' + +'Very foolishly. You have been flirting, and rather flagrantly, with +Frances, ever since you came.' + +'But, my dear, you know perfectly well that one can't talk to Frances +without flirting with her. All conversation becomes flirtation. The most +guileless glance, in meeting her eye, is transmuted, like a straight +stick looking crooked when you put it into water, you know. Frances has +a charmingly deviating quality that I defy the straightest of intentions +to evade.' + +'Are yours so straight?' + +'Well--she is pretty and pleasant, and perfectly superficial, as you +know. I own that I do rather like to put the stick in the water and see +what happens to it.' + +'Well, don't put it in too often before Althea. After all, you are all +of you here because of her friendship with me, and it makes me feel +guilty if I see her having a bad time because of your misbehaviour.' + +'A bad time?' + +'Really. She takes things hard. She said it was mimicking a sacred +thing.' + +'Oh! but, I say, how awfully funny, Helen. You must own that it's +funny.' + +'Funny, but sweet, too.' + +'She is a sweet creature, of course, one can see that; and her moral +approvals and disapprovals are firmly fixed, however funny; one likes +that in her. I'll try to be good, if Frances will let me. She looked +quite pretty this evening, Miss Jakes; only she dresses too stiffly. +What's the matter? Couldn't you give her a hint? She is like a +satin-box, and a woman ought to be like a flower; ought to look as if +they'd bend if a breeze went over them. Now you can't imagine Miss Jakes +bending; she'd have to stoop.' + +Helen, in the darkness, smiled half bitterly, half affectionately. +Gerald's nonsense always pleased her, even when she was most exasperated +with him. She was not exasperated with Gerald in particular just now, +but with everything and everybody, herself included, and the fact that +he liked to flirt flagrantly with Lady Pickering did not move her more +than usual. It was not a particular but a general irritation that edged +her voice a little as she said, drawing her black scarf more closely +round her shoulders, 'Frances must satisfy you there. Your tastes, I +think, are becoming more and more dishevelled.' + +But innocent Gerald answered with a coal of fire: 'No, she is too +dishevelled. You satisfy my tastes there entirely; you flow, but you +don't flop. Now if Miss Jakes would only try to dress like you she'd be +immensely improved. You are perfect.' And he lightly touched her scarf +as he spoke with a fraternal and appreciative hand. + +Helen continued to smile in the darkness, but it was over an almost +irresistible impulse to sob. The impulse was so strong that it +frightened her, and it was with immense relief that she saw Althea's +figure--her 'box-like' figure--appear in the lighted window. She did +not want to talk to Althea, and she could not, just now, go on talking +to Gerald. From their corner of the terrace she indicated the vaguely +gazing Althea. 'There she is,' she said. 'Go and talk to her. Be nice to +her. I'm tired and am going to have a stroll in the shrubberies before +bed.' + +She left Gerald obediently, if not eagerly, moving towards the window, +and slipping into the obscurity of the shrubberies she threw back her +scarf and drew long breaths. She was becoming terribly overwrought. It +had been, since so long, a second nature to live two lives that any +danger of their merging affected her with a dreadful feeling of +disintegration. There was the life of comradeship, the secure little +compartment where Gerald was at home, so at home that he could tell her +she was perfect and touch her scarf with an approving hand, and from +this familiar shelter she had looked for so long, with the calmest eye, +upon his flirtations, and in it had heard, unmoved, his encomiums upon +herself. The other life, the real life, was all outdoors in comparison; +it was all her real self, passionate, untamed, desolate; it was like a +bleak, wild moorland, and the social, the comrade self only a strongly +built little lodge erected, through stress of wind and weather, in the +midst of it. Since girlhood it had been a second nature to her to keep +comradeship shut in and reality shut out. And to-night reality seemed to +shake and batter at the doors. + +She had come to Merriston House to rest, to drink _eau rougie_ and to +rest. She wanted to lapse into apathy and to recover, as far as might +be, from her recent unpleasant experiments and experiences. Had she +allowed herself any illusions about the experiment, the experience would +have been humiliating; but Helen was not humiliated, she had not +deceived herself for a moment. She had, open-eyed, been trying for the +'other things,' and she had only just missed them. She had intended to +marry a very important person who much admired her. She had been almost +sure that she could marry him if she wanted to, and she had found out +that she couldn't. It had not been, as in her youth, her own shrinking +and her own recoil at the last decisive moment. She had been resolved +and unwavering; her discomfiture had been sudden and its cause the quite +grotesque one of her admirer having fallen head over heels in love with +a child of eighteen--a foolish, affected little child, who giggled and +glanced and blushed opportunely, and who, beside these assets, had a +skilful and determined mother. Without the mother to waylay, pounce, and +fix, Helen did not believe that her sober, solid friend would have +yielded to the momentary beguilement, and Helen herself deigned not one +hint of contest; she had been resolved, but only to accept; she could +never have waylaid or pounced. And now, apathetic, yet irritated, +exhausted and sick at heart, she had been telling herself, as she lay in +the garden-chairs at Merriston House, that it was more than probable +that the time was over, even for the 'other things.' The prospect made +her weary. What--with Aunt Grizel's one hundred and fifty a year--was +she to do with herself in the future? What was to become of her? She +didn't feel that she much cared, and yet it was all that there was left +to care about, for Aunt Grizel's sake if not for her own, and she felt +only fit to rest from the pressure of the question. To-night, as she +turned and wandered among the trees, she said to herself that it hadn't +been a propitious time to come for rest to Merriston House. Gerald had +been the last person she desired to see just now. She had never been so +near to feeling danger as to-night. If Gerald were nice to her--he +always was--but nice in a certain way, the way that expressed so clearly +his tenderness and his dreadful, his merciful unawareness, she might +break down before him and sob. This would be too horrible, and when she +thought that it might happen she felt, rising with the longing for +tears, an old resentment against Gerald, fierce, absurd, and +unconquerable. After making the round of the lawns and looking up hard +and unseeingly at the stars, she came back to the terrace. Gerald and +Althea were gone, and she surmised that Gerald had not taken much +trouble to be nice. She was passing along an unillumined corner when she +came suddenly upon a figure seated there--so suddenly that she almost +fell against it. She murmured a hasty apology as Mr. Kane rose from a +chair where, with folded arms, he had been seated, apparently in +contemplation of the night. + +'Oh, I beg your pardon,' said Helen. 'It's so dark here. I didn't see +you.' + +'And I didn't hear you coming,' said Mr. Kane. 'I beg your pardon. I'm +afraid you hurt your foot.' + +'Not at all,' Helen assured him. She had stepped into the light from the +windows and, Mr. Kane being beside her, she could see his face clearly +and see that he looked very tired. She had been aware, in these days of +somnolent retirement, that one other member of the party seemed, though +not in her sense retired from it, to wander rather aimlessly on its +outskirts. That his removal to this ambiguous limbo had been the result +of her own arrival Helen had no means of knowing, since she had never +seen Mr. Kane in his brief moment of hope when he and Althea had been +centre and everybody else outskirts. She had found him, during her few +conversations with him, so tamely funny as to be hardly odd, though his +manner of speaking and the way in which his hair was cut struck her as +expressing oddity to an unfortunate degree; but though only dimly aware +of him, and aware mainly in this sense of amusement, she had, since +Althea had informed her of his status, seen him with some +compassionateness. It didn't make him less funny to her that he should +have been in love with Althea for fifteen years, rather it made him more +so. Helen found it difficult to take either the devotion or its object +very seriously. She thought hopeless passions rather ridiculous, her own +included, but Gerald she did consider a possible object of passion; and +how Althea could be an object of passion for anybody, even for funny +little Mr. Kane, surpassed her comprehension, so that the only way to +understand the situation was to decide that Mr. Kane was incapable of +passion altogether. But to-night she received a new impression; looking +at Mr. Kane's face, thin, jaded, and kindly attentive to herself, it +suddenly became apparent to her that whatever his feeling might be it +was serious. He might not know passion, but his heart was aching, +perhaps quite as fiercely as her own. She felt sorry for Mr. Kane, and +her step lingered on her way to the house. + +'Isn't it a lovely night,' she said, in order to say something. 'Do you +like sitting in the dark? It's very restful, isn't it?' + +Franklin saw the alien Miss Buchanan's eyes bent kindly and observantly +upon him. + +'Yes, it's very restful,' he said. 'It smooths you out and straightens +you out when you get crumpled, you know, and impatient.' + +'I should not imagine you as ever very impatient,' smiled Helen. +'Perhaps you do sit a great deal in the dark.' + +He took her whimsical suggestion with careful humour. 'Why, no, it's not +a habit of mine; and it's not a recipe that it would be a good thing to +overdo, is it?' + +'Why not?' she asked. + +'There are worse things than impatience, aren't there?' said Franklin. +'Gloominess, for instance. You might get gloomy if you sat out in the +dark a great deal.' + +It amused her a little to wonder, as they went in together, whether Mr. +Kane disciplined his emotions and withdrew from restful influences +before they had time to become discouraging ones. She imagined that he +would have a recipe for everything. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +It was after this little nocturnal encounter that Helen found herself +watching Mr. Kane with a dim, speculative sympathy. There was nothing +else of much interest to watch, as far as she was aware, for Helen's +powers of observation were not sharpened by much imaginativeness. Her +sympathy must be aroused for her to care to see, and just now she felt +no sympathy for any one but Mr. Kane. + +Gerald, flirting far less flagrantly and sketching assiduously, was in +no need of sympathy; nor Althea, despite the fact that Helen felt her to +be a little reserved and melancholy. Althea, on the whole, seemed +placidly enough absorbed in her duties of hostess, and her state of +mind, at no time much preoccupying Helen, preoccupied her now less than +ever. The person who really interested her, now that she had come to +look at him and to realise that he was suffering, was Mr. Kane. He was +puzzling to her, not mystifying; there was no element of depth or shadow +about him; even his suffering--it was odd to think that a person with +such a small, flat nose should suffer--even his suffering was pellucid. +He puzzled her because he was different from anything she had ever +encountered, and he made her think of a page of trite phrases printed in +a half-comprehended dialect. If it was puzzling that any man should be +sufficiently in love with Althea to suffer over it, it was yet more +puzzling that, neglected as he so obviously was by his beloved, he +should show no dejection or consciousness of diminution. He seemed a +little aimless, it is true, but not in the least injured; and Helen, as +she watched him, found herself liking Mr. Kane. + +He had an air, pleasant to her, of finding no one beneath him, and at +the same time he seemed as unaware of superiority--unless it were +definitely moral or intellectual. A general indiscriminating goodwill +was expressed in his manner towards everybody, and when he did +discriminate--which was always on moral issues--his goodwill seemed +unperturbed by any amount of reprobation. He remained blandly humane +under the most disconcerting circumstances. She overtook him one day in +a lane holding a drunkard by the shoulder and endeavouring to steer him +homeward, while he expounded to him in scientific tones the ill effects +of alcohol on the system, and the remarkable results to be attained by +steady self-suggestion. Mr. Kane's collar was awry and his coat dusty, +almost as dusty as the drunkard's, with whom he had evidently had to +grapple in raising him from the highway; and Helen, as she paused at the +turning of the road which brought her upon them, heard Franklin's words: + +'I've tried it myself for insomnia. I'm a nervous man, and I was in a +bad way at the time; over-pressure, you know, and worry. I guess it's +like that with you, too, isn't it? You get on edge. Well, there's +nothing better than self-suggestion, and if you'll give it a try you'll +be surprised by the results, I'm sure of it.' + +Helen joined them and offered her assistance, for the bewildered +proselyte seemed unable to move forward now that he was upon his feet. + +'Well, if you would be so kind. Just your hand on his other shoulder, +you know,' said Franklin, turning a grateful glance upon her. 'Our +friend here is in trouble, you see. It's not far to the village, and +what he wants is to get to bed, have a good sleep and then a wash. He'll +feel a different man then.' + +Helen, her hand at 'our friend's' left shoulder, helped to propel him +forward, and ten minutes took them to his door, where, surrounded by a +staring crowd of women and children, they delivered him into the keeping +of his wife, a thin and weary person, who looked upon his benefactors +with almost as much resentment as upon him. + +'What he really needs, I'm afraid I think,' Helen said, as she and Mr. +Kane walked away, 'is a good whipping.' She said it in order to see the +effect of the ruthlessness upon her humanitarian companion. + +Mr. Kane did not look shocked or grieved; he turned a cogitating glance +upon her, and she saw that he diagnosed the state of mind that could +make such a suggestion and could not take it seriously. He smiled, +though a little gravely, in answering: 'Why, no, I don't think so; and I +don't believe you think so, Miss Buchanan. What you want to give him is +a hold on himself, hope, and self-respect; it wouldn't give you +self-respect to be whipped, would it?' + +'It might give me discretion,' said Helen, smiling back. + +'We don't want human beings to have the discretion of animals; we want +them to have the discretion of men,' said Franklin; 'that is, +self-mastery and wisdom.' + +Helen did not feel able to argue the point; indeed, it did not interest +her; but she asked Mr. Kane, some days later, how his roadside friend +was progressing towards the discretion of a man. + +'Oh, he'll be all right,' said Franklin. 'He'll pull round. +Self-suggestion will do it. It's not a bad case. He couldn't get hold of +the idea at first--he's not very bright; but I found out that he'd got +some very useful religious notions, and I work it in on these.' + +From the housekeeper, a friend of her youth, Helen learned that in the +village Mr. Kane's ministrations to Jim Betts were regarded with +surprise, yet not without admiration. He was supposed to be some strange +sort of foreign clergyman, not to be placed in any recognisable +category. 'He's a very kind gentleman, I'm sure,' said Mrs. Fielding. + +Mr. Kane was fond, Helen also observed, of entering into conversation +with the servants. The butler's political views--which were guarded--he +determinedly pursued, undeterred by Baines's cautious and deferential +retreats. He considered the footman as a potential friend, whatever the +footman might consider him. Their common manhood, in Franklin's eyes, +entirely outweighed the slight, extraneous accidents of fortune--nay, +these differences gave an additional interest. The footman had, no +doubt, a point of view novel and valuable, if one could get at it. +Franklin did not attempt to get at it by any method subversive of order +or interfering with Thomas's duties; he observed all the conventions +demanded by varying function. But Helen, strolling one morning before +breakfast outside the dining-room windows, heard within and paused to +listen to Mr. Kane's monotonous and slightly nasal tones as he shared +the morning news with Thomas, who, with an air of bewildered if obedient +attention, continued his avocations between the sideboard and the +breakfast-table. + +'Now I should say,' Franklin remarked, 'that something of that +sort--Germany's doing wonders with it--could be worked here in England +if you set yourselves to it.' + +'Yes, sir,' said Thomas. + +'Berlin has eliminated the slums, you know,' said Franklin, looking +thoughtfully at Thomas over the top of the paper. 'What do you feel +about it, all of you over here? It's a big question, you know, that of +the housing of the poor.' + +'Well, I can't say, sir,' said Thomas, compelled to a guarded opinion. +'Things do look black for the lower horders.' + +'You're right, Thomas; and things will go on looking black for helpless +people until they determine to help themselves, or until people who +aren't helpless--like you and me--determine they shan't be so black.' + +'Yes, sir.' + +'Talk it over, you know. Get your friends interested in it. It's a +mighty big subject, of course, that of the State and its poor, but it's +wonderful what can be done by personal initiative.' + +Helen entered at this point, and Thomas turned a furtive eye upon her, +perhaps in appeal for protection against these unprovoked and +inexplicable attacks. 'One might think the gentleman thought I had a +vote and was canvassing me,' he said to Baines, condescending in this +their common perplexity. And Baines replied: 'I'm sure I don't know what +he's up to.' + +Meanwhile Franklin, in the dining-room, folded his paper and said: 'You +know, Miss Buchanan, that Thomas, though a nice fellow, is remarkably +ignorant. I can't make out that there's anything of a civic or national +nature that he's interested in. He doesn't seem to read anything in the +papers except the racing and betting news. He doesn't seem to feel that +he has any stake in this great country of yours, or any responsibility +towards it. It makes me believe in manhood suffrage as I've never +believed before. Our people may be politically corrupt, but at least +they're interested; they're alive--alive enough to want to understand +how to get the best of things--as they see best. I've rarely met an +American that I couldn't get to talk; now it's almost impossible to get +Thomas to talk. Yet he's a nice young fellow; he has a nice, open, +intelligent face.' + +'Oh yes, has he?' said Helen, who was looking over the envelopes at her +place. 'I hadn't noticed his face; very pink, isn't it?' + +'Yes, he has a healthy colour,' said Franklin, still meditating on +Thomas's impenetrability. 'It's not that I don't perfectly understand +his being uncommunicative when he's engaged in his work--it was rather +tactless of me to talk to him just now, only the subject came up. I'd +been talking to Baines about the Old Age Pensions yesterday. That's one +of my objections to domestic service; it creates an artificial barrier +between man and man; but I know that the barrier is part of the +business, while the business is going on, and I've no quarrel with +social convention, as such. But even when they are alone with me--and +I'm referring to Baines now as much as to Thomas--they are very +uncommunicative. I met Thomas on the road to the village the other day +and could hardly get a word out of him till I began to talk about +cricket and ask him about it.' + +'He is probably a stupid boy,' said Helen, 'and you frighten him.' + +'If you say that, it's an indictment on the whole system, you know,' +said Franklin very gravely. + +'What system?' Helen asked, opening her letters, but looking at Mr. +Kane. + +'The system that makes some people afraid of others,' said Franklin. + +'It will always frighten inferior people to be talked to by their +superiors as if they were on a level. You probably talk to Thomas about +things he doesn't understand, and it bewilders him.' Helen, willing to +enlighten his idealism, smiled mildly at him, glancing down at her +letters as she spoke. + +Mr. Kane surveyed her with his bright, steady gaze. Her simple +elucidation evidently left him far from satisfied, either with her or +the system. 'In essentials, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'in the power of +effort, endurance, devotion, I've no doubt that Thomas and I are +equals, and that's all that ought to matter.' + +The others now were coming in, and Helen only shook her head, smiling on +and quite unconvinced as she said, taking her chair, and reaching out +her hand to shake Althea's, 'I'm afraid the inessentials matter most, +then, in human intercourse.' + +From these fortuitous encounters Helen gathered the impression by +degrees that though Mr. Kane might not find her satisfactory, he found +her, in her incommunicativeness, quite as interesting as Thomas the +footman. He spent as much time in endeavouring to probe her as he did in +endeavouring to probe Baines, even more time. He would sit beside her +garden-chair looking over scientific papers, making a remark now and +then on their contents--contents as remote from Helen's comprehension as +was the housing of the Berlin poor from Thomas's; and sometimes he would +ask her a searching question, over the often frivolous answer to which +he would carefully reflect. + +'I gather, Miss Buchanan,' he said to her one afternoon, when they were +thus together under the trees, 'I gather that the state of your health +isn't good. Would it be inadmissible on my part to ask you if there is +anything really serious the matter with you?' + +'My state of health?' said Helen, startled. 'My health is perfectly +good. Who told you it wasn't?' + +'Why, nobody. But since you've been here--that's a fortnight now--I've +observed that you've led an invalid's life.' + +'I am lazy, that's all; and I'm in rather a bad temper,' Helen smiled; +'and it's very warm weather.' + +'Well, when you're not lazy; when you're not in a bad temper; when it's +cold weather--what do you do with yourself, anyway?' Franklin, now that +he had fairly come to his point, folded his papers, clasped his hands +around his knees and looked expectantly at her. + +Helen returned his gaze for some moments in silence; then she found that +she was quite willing to give Mr. Kane all he asked for--a detached +sincerity. 'I can't say that I do anything,' she replied. + +'Haven't you any occupation?' + +'Not unless staying about with people is an occupation,' Helen +suggested. 'I'm rather good at that--when I'm not too lazy and not too +out of temper.' + +'You don't consider society an occupation. It's only justifiable as a +recreation when work's done. Every one ought to have an occupation. +You're not alive at all unless you've a purpose that's organising your +life in some way. Now, it strikes me,' said Franklin, eyeing her +steadily, 'that you're hardly half alive.' + +'Oh, dear!' Helen laughed. 'Why, pray?' + +'Don't laugh at it, Miss Buchanan. It's a serious matter; the most +serious matter there is. No, don't laugh; you distress me.' + +'I beg your pardon,' said Helen, and she turned her head aside a little, +for the laugh was not quite genuine, and she was suddenly afraid of +those idiotic tears. 'Only it amuses me that any one should think me a +serious matter.' + +'Don't be cynical, Miss Buchanan; that's what's the trouble with you; +you take refuge in cynicism rather than in thought. If you'd think about +it and not try to evade it, you'd know perfectly well that there is +nothing so serious to you in all the world as your own life.' + +'I don't know,' said Helen, after a little pause, sobered, though still +amused. 'I don't know that I feel anything very serious, except all the +unpleasant things that happen, or the pleasant things that don't.' + +'Well, what's more serious than suffering?' Mr. Kane inquired, and as +she could really find no answer to this he went on: 'And you ought to go +further; you ought to be able to take every human being seriously.' + +'Do you do that?' Helen asked. + +'Any one who thinks must do it; it's all a question of thinking things +out. Now I've thought a good deal about you, Miss Buchanan,' Franklin +continued, 'and I take you very seriously, very seriously indeed. I feel +that you are very much above the average in capacity. You have a great +deal in you; a great deal of power. I've been watching you very +carefully, and I've come to the conclusion that you are a woman of +power. That's why I take it upon myself to talk to you like this; that's +why it distresses me to see you going to waste--half alive.' + +Helen, her head still turned aside in her chair, looked up at the green +branches above her, no longer even pretending to smile. Mr. Kane at once +startled and steadied her. He made her feel vaguely ashamed of herself, +and he made her feel sorry for herself, too, so that, funny as he was, +his effect upon her was to soften and to calm her. Her temper felt less +bad and her nerves less on edge. + +'You are very kind,' she said, after a little while. 'It is very good of +you to have thought about me like that. And you do think, at all events, +that I am half alive. You think I have wants, even if I have no +purposes.' + +'Yes, that's it. Wants, not purposes; though what they are I can't find +out.' + +She was willing to satisfy his curiosity. 'What I want is money.' + +'Well, but what do you want to do with money?' Franklin inquired, +receiving the sordid avowal without a blink. + +'I really don't know,' said Helen; 'to use what you call my power, I +suppose.' + +'How would you use it? You haven't trained yourself for any use of +it--except enjoyment--as far as I can see.' + +'I think I could spend money well. I'd give the people I liked a good +time.' + +'You'd waste their time, and yours, you mean. Not that I object to the +spending of money--if it's in the right way.' + +'I think I could find the right way, if I had it.' She was speaking with +quite the seriousness she had disowned. 'I hate injustice, and I hate +ugliness. I think I could make things nicer if I had money.' + +Franklin now was silent for some time, considering her narrowly, and +since she had now looked down from the branches and back at him, their +eyes met in a long encounter. 'Yes,' he said at length, 'you'd be all +right--if only you weren't so wrong. If only you had a purpose--a +purpose directed towards the just and the beautiful; if only instead of +waiting for means to turn up, you'd created means yourself; if only +you'd kept yourself disciplined and steady of aim by some sort of hard +work, you'd be all right.' + +Helen, extended in her chair, an embodiment of lovely aimlessness, kept +her eyes fixed on him. 'But what work can I do?' she asked. She was well +aware that Mr. Kane could have no practical suggestions for her case, +yet she wanted to show him that she recognised it as a case, she wanted +to show him that she was grateful, and she was curious besides to hear +what he would suggest. 'What am I fit for? I couldn't earn a penny if I +tried. I was never taught anything.' + +But Mr. Kane was ready for her, as he had been ready for Jim Betts. +'It's not a question of earning that I mean,' he said, 'though it's a +mighty good thing to measure yourself up against the world and find out +just what your cash value is, but I'm not talking about that; it's the +question of getting your faculties into some sort of working order that +I'm up against. Why don't you study something systematically, something +you can grind at? Biology, if you like, or political economy, or charity +organisation. Begin at once. Master it.' + +'Would Dante do, for a beginning?' Helen inquired, smiling rather wanly. +'I brought him down, with an Italian dictionary. Shall I master Dante?' + +'I should feel more comfortable about you if it was political economy,' +said Franklin, now smiling back. 'But begin with Dante, by all means. +Personally I found his point of view depressing, but then I read him in +a translation and never got even as far as the Purgatory. Be sure you +get as far as the Paradise, Miss Buchanan, and with your dictionary.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Franklin had all his time free for sitting with Helen under the trees. +Althea's self-reproach, her self-doubt and melancholy, had been effaced +by the arrival of Gerald Digby, and, at that epoch of her life, did not +return at all. She had no time for self-doubt or self-reproach, no time +even for self-consciousness. Franklin had faded into the dimmest +possible distance; she was only just aware that he was there and that +Helen seemed, kindly, to let him talk a good deal to her. She could not +think of Franklin, she could not think of herself, she could think of +nobody but one person, for her whole being was absorbed in the thought +of Gerald Digby and in the consciousness of the situation that his +coming had created. From soft exhilaration she had passed to miserable +depression, yet a depression far different from the stagnant melancholy +of her former mood; this was a depression of frustrated feeling, not of +lack of feeling, and it was accompanied by the recognition of the fact +that she exceedingly disliked Lady Pickering and wished exceedingly that +she would go away. And with it went a brooding sense of delight in +Gerald's mere presence, a sense of delight in even the pain that his +indifference inflicted upon her. + +He charmed her unspeakably--his voice, his smile, his gestures--and she +knew that she did not charm him in any way, and that Lady Pickering, in +her very foolishness, did charm him, and the knowledge made her very +grave and careful when she was with him. Delight and pain were hidden +beneath this manner of careful gravity, but, as the excitement of +Franklin's presence had at first done--and in how much greater +degree--they subtly transformed her; made her look and speak and move +with a different languor and gentleness. + +Gerald himself was the first to feel a change, the first to become aware +of an aroma of mystery. He had been indifferent indeed, though he had +obeyed Helen and had tried not only to be very courteous but to be very +nice as well. Now, finding Althea's grave eyes upon him when he +sometimes yielded to Lady Pickering's allurements, finding them turned +away with that look of austere mildness, he ceased to be so indifferent, +he began to wonder how much the little Puritan disapproved and how much +she really minded; he began to make surmises about the state of mind +that could be so aloof, so gentle, and so inflexible. + +He met Althea one afternoon in the garden and walked up and down with +her while she filled her basket with roses. She was very gentle, and +immeasurably distant. The sense of her withdrawal roused his masculine +instinct of pursuit. How different she was from Frances Pickering! How +charmingly different. Yes, in her elaborate little dress of embroidered +lawn, with her elaborate garden hat pinned so neatly on her thick fair +hair, she pleased him by the sense of contrast. There was charm in her +lack of charm, attraction in her indifference. How impossible to +imagine those grave eyes smiling an alluring smile--he was getting tired +of alluring smiles--how impossible to imagine Miss Jakes flirting. + +'It's very nice to see you here,' he said. 'I have so many nice memories +about this old garden. You don't mind my cigarette?' + +Althea said that she liked it. + +'There is a beautiful spray, Miss Jakes. Let me reach it for you.' + +'Oh, thank you so much.' + +'You are fond of flowers?' + +'Very fond.' + +'Which are your favourites?' + +'Lilies of the valley.' Althea spoke kindly, as she might have spoken to +a rather importunate child; his questions, indeed, were not original. + +Gerald tried to mend the tameness of the effect that he was making. +'Yes, only the florists have rather spoiled them, haven't they? My +favourites are the wilder ones--honeysuckle, grass of Parnassus, +bell-heather. Helen always makes me think of grass of Parnassus and +bell-heather, she is so solitary and delicate and strong.' He wanted +Althea to realise that his real appreciation was for types very +different from Lady Pickering. She smiled kindly, as if pleased with his +simile, and he went on. 'You are like pansies, white and purple +pansies.' + +It was then that Althea blushed. Gerald noticed it at once. Experienced +flirt as he was he was quick to perceive such symptoms. And, suddenly, +it occurred to him that perhaps the reason she disapproved so much was +the wish--unknown to herself, poor little innocent--that some one would +flirt a little with her. He felt quite sure that no one had ever +flirted with Althea. Helen had told him of Mr. Kane's hopeless suit, and +they had wandered in rather helpless conjecture about the outside of a +case that didn't, from their experience of cases, seem to offer any +possibilities of an inside. Gerald had indeed loudly laughed at the idea +of Mr. Kane as a wooer and Helen had smiled, while assuring him that +wooing wasn't the only test of worth. Gerald was rather inclined to +think it was. He was quite sure, though, that however worthy Mr. Kane +might be he had never made any one blush. He was quite sure that Mr. +Kane was incapable of flirting, and it pleased him now to observe the +sign of susceptibility in Althea. It was good for women, he felt sure, +to be made to blush sometimes, and he promised himself that he would +renew the experiment with Althea. All the same it must be very +unemphatically done; there would be something singularly graceless in +venturing too far with this nice pansy, for though she might, all +unaware, want to be made to blush, she would never want it to be because +of his light motives. + +Meanwhile Althea was in dread lest he should see her discomposure and +her bliss. He did not see further than her discomposure. + +They rehearsed theatricals all the next day--he, Helen, Lady Pickering, +and the girls--and Lady Pickering was very naughty. Gerald, more than +once, had caught Althea's eye fixed, repudiating in its calm, upon her. +It had been especially repudiating when Frances, at tea, had thrown a +bun at him. + +'Do you know, Miss Jakes,' he said to her after dinner, when, to Lady +Pickering's discomfiture, as he saw, he joined Althea on her little +sofa, 'do you know, I suspect you of being dreadfully bored by all of +us. We behave like a lot of children, don't we?' He was thinking of the +bun. + +'Indeed! I think it charming to be able to behave like a child, if one +feels like one,' said Althea, coldly and mildly. + +'Don't you ever feel like one? Do you always behave like a gentle muse?' + +'Do I seem to behave like a muse? How tiresome I must be,' smiled +Althea. + +'Not tiresome, rather impressive. It's like looking up suddenly from +some nocturnal _fete_--all Japanese lanterns and fireworks--and seeing +the moon gazing down serenely and unseeingly upon one; it startles and +sobers one a little, you know.' + +'I suppose you are sober sometimes,' said Althea, continuing to smile. + +'Lord, yes!' Gerald laughed. 'Really and truly, Miss Jakes, I'm only +playing at being a child, you know. I'm quite a serious person. I like +to look at the moon.' + +And again Althea blushed. She looked down, sitting straightly in the +corner of their sofa and turning her fan slowly between her fingers, +and, feeling the sense of gracelessness in this too easy success, Gerald +went on in a graver tone. 'I wish you would let me be serious with you +sometimes, Miss Jakes; you'd see I'd quite redeem myself in your eyes.' + +'Redeem yourself? From what?' + +'Oh! from all your impression of my frivolity and folly. I can talk +about art and literature and the condition of the labouring classes as +wisely as anybody, I assure you.' + +He said it so prettily that Althea had to laugh. 'But what makes you +think I can?' she asked, and, delighted with the happy result of his +appeal, he said that Helen had told him all about her wisdoms. + +He sounded these wisdoms next day when he asked her to walk with him to +the village. He told her, as they walked, of the various projects for +using his life to some advantage that he had used to make--projects for +improved agricultural methods and the bettering of the conditions of +life in the country. Althea had read a great deal of political economy. +She had, indeed, ground at it and mastered it in the manner advised by +Franklin to Helen. Gerald found her quiet comments and criticisms very +illuminating, not only of his theme, but of his own comparative +ignorance. 'But, Miss Jakes, how did you come to understand all this?' +he ejaculated; and she said, laughing a little at the impression she had +made, that she had only read, gone to a few courses of lectures, and had +a master for one winter in Boston. Gerald looked at her with new +interest. It impressed him that an unprofessional woman should take +anything so seriously. 'Have you gone into other profound things like +this?' he asked; and, still laughing, Althea said that she supposed she +had. + +Her sympathy for those old plans of his, based on such understanding, +was really inspiring. 'Ah, if only I had the money,' he sighed. + +'But you wouldn't care to live in the country?' said Althea. + +'There's nowhere else I really care to live. Nothing would please me so +much as to spend the rest of my life at Merriston, dabbling at my +painting and going in seriously for farming.' + +'Why don't you do it?' + +'Why, money! I've got no money. It's expensive work to educate oneself +by experience, and I'm ignorant. You show me how ignorant. No; I'm +afraid I'm to go on drifting, and never lead the life I best like.' + +Althea was silent. She hardly knew what she was feeling, but it pressed +upon her so, that she was afraid lest a breath would stir some +consciousness in him. She had money, a good deal. What a pity that he +had none. + +'Now you,' Gerald went on, 'have all sorts of big, wise plans for life, +I've no doubt. It would interest me to hear about them.' + +'No; I drift too,' said Althea. + +'You can't call it drifting when you read and study such a lot.' + +'Oh yes, I can, when there is no real aim in the work. You should hear +Mr. Kane scold me about that.' + +Gerald was not interested in Mr. Kane. 'I should think, after all you've +done, you might rest on your oars for a bit,' he remarked. 'It's quite +enough, I should think, for a woman to know so much. If you liked to do +anything, you'd do it awfully well, I'm sure.' + +Ah, what would she not like to do! Help you to steer to any port you +wanted was the half-articulate cry of her heart. + +'She really is an interesting little person, your Althea,' Gerald said +to Helen. 'You were wrong not to find her interesting. She is so wise +and calm and she knows such a lot.' + +'I'm too ignorant to be interested in knowledge,' said Helen. + +'It's not mere knowledge, it's the gentle temperateness and independence +one feels in her.' + +Helen, somehow, did not feel them, or, at all events, felt other +things too much to feel them preeminently. It was part of her +unselfconsciousness not to guess why Althea's relation to her had +slightly changed. She could hardly have followed with comprehension the +suffering instability of her friend's character, nor dream that her own +power over her was so great, yet so resented; but something in their +talk about Mr. Kane had made Helen uncomfortable, and she said no more +now, not wishing to emphasise any negative aspect of her attitude to +Althea at a time when their relation seemed to have become a little +strained. And she was pleased that Gerald should talk about political +economy with Althea--it was so much better than flirting with Frances +Pickering. + +No one, indeed, unless it were Franklin Kane, gave much conjecture to +Gerald's talks with his hostess. Lady Pickering noticed; but she was +vexed, rather than jealous. She couldn't imagine that Gerald felt +anything but a purely intellectual interest in such talks. It was rather +as if a worshipper in some highly ritualistic shrine, filled with +appeals to sight and hearing, had unaccountably wandered off into a +wayside chapel. Lady Pickering felt convinced that this was mere vagrant +curiosity on Gerald's part. She felt convinced that he couldn't care for +chapels. She was so convinced that, moved to emphatic measures, she came +into the open as it were, marched processions and waved banners before +him, in order to remind him what the veritable church was for a person +of taste. Sometimes Gerald joined her, but sometimes he waved a friendly +greeting and went into the chapel again. + +So it was that Althea suddenly found herself involved in that mute and +sinister warfare--an unavowed contest with another woman for possession +of a man. How it could be a real contest she did not know; she felt sure +that Lady Pickering did not love Gerald Digby, that she herself loved +him she had not yet told herself, and that he loved neither of them was +obvious. It seemed a mere struggle for supremacy, in which Lady +Pickering's role was active and her own passive. For when she saw that +Lady Pickering looked upon Gerald as a prey between them, that she +seized, threatened and allured, she herself, full of a proud disdain, +drew away, relinquished any hold, any faintest claim she had, handed +Gerald over, as it were, to his pursuer; and as she did this, coldly, +gravely, proudly, she was not aware that no tactics could have been more +effective. For Gerald, when he found himself pursued, and then dropped +by Althea at the feet of the pursuer, became more and more averse to +being seized. And what had been a gracefully amorous dialogue with Lady +Pickering, became a slightly malicious discussion. 'Well, what _do_ you +want of me?' he seemed to demand of her, under all his grace. Lady +Pickering did not want anything except to keep him, and to show Althea +that she kept him. And she was willing to go to great lengths if this +might be effected. + +Gerald and Althea, walking one afternoon in the little wood that lay at +the foot of the lawn, came upon Lady Pickering seated romantically upon +a stone, her head in her hands. She said, looking up at them, with +pathetic eyes of suffering, that she had wrenched her ankle and was in +agony. 'I think it is sprained, perhaps broken,' she said. + +Now both Althea and Gerald felt convinced that she was not in agony, and +had perhaps not hurt her ankle at all. They were both a little +embarrassed and a little ashamed for her. + +'Take my arm, take Miss Jakes's,' said Gerald. 'We will help you back to +the house.' + +'Oh no. I must sit still for a little while,' said Lady Pickering.' I +couldn't bear to stir yet. It must be only a wrench; yes, there, I can +feel that it is a bad wrench. It's only that the pain has been so +horrible, and I feel a little faint. Please sit down here for a moment, +Gerald, beside me, and console me for my sufferings.' + +It was really very shameless. Without a word Althea walked away. + +'Miss Jakes--we'll--I'll follow in a moment,' Gerald called after her, +while, irritated and at a loss, he stood over Lady Pickering. 'Have you +really hurt it?' was his first inquiry, as Althea disappeared. + +'Why does she go?' Lady Pickering inquired. 'I didn't mean that she was +to go. Stiff, _guindee_ little person. One would really think that she +was jealous of me.' + +'No, I don't think that one would think that at all,' Gerald returned. + +Lady Pickering was pushed beyond the bounds of calculation, and when +quite sincere she was really charming. 'O Gerald,' she said, looking up +at him and full of roguish contrition, 'how unkind you are! And how +horribly clear sighted. It's I who am jealous! Yes, I really am. I can't +bear being neglected.' + +'I don't see why you should,' said Gerald laughing, 'and I certainly +shouldn't show such bad taste as to neglect you. So that it is jealousy, +pure and simple. Is your ankle in the least hurt?' + +'Really, I don't know. I did tumble a little, and then I saw you coming, +and felt that I wanted to be talked to, that it was my turn.' + +'What an absurd woman you are.' + +'But do say that you like absurd women better than solemn ones.' + +'I shall say nothing of the sort. Sometimes absurdity is delightful, and +sometimes solemnity--not that I find Miss Jakes in the least solemn. It +would do you a world of good to let her inform your mind a little.' + +'Oh, please, I don't want to be informed, it might make my back look +like that. My foot really is a little hurt, you know. Is it swollen?' + +Gerald looked down, laughing, but very unsympathetic, at the perilous +heel and pinched, distorted toe. 'Really, I can't say.' + +'Do sit down, there is plenty of room, and tell me you aren't cross with +me.' + +'I'm not at all cross with you, but I'm not going to sit down beside +you,' said Gerald. 'I'm going to take you and your ankle back to the +house and then find Miss Jakes and go on talking.' + +'You may make _me_ cross,' said Lady Pickering, rising and leaning her +arm on his. + +'I don't believe I shall. You really respect me for my strength of +character.' + +'Wily creature!' + +'Foolish child!' They were standing in the path, laughing at each other, +far from displeased with each other, and it was fortunate that neither +of them perceived among the trees Althea, passing again at a little +distance, and glancing round irrepressibly to see if Gerald had indeed +followed her; even Lady Pickering might have been slightly discomposed, +for when Gerald said 'Foolish child!' he completed the part expected of +him by lightly stooping his head and kissing her. + +He then took Lady Pickering back to the house, established her in a +hammock, and set off to find Althea. He knew that he had kept her +waiting--if she had indeed waited. And he knew that he really was a +little cross with Frances Pickering; he didn't care to carry flirtation +as far as kissing. + +Althea, however, was nowhere to be found. He looked in the house, heard +that she had been there but had gone out again; he looked in the garden; +he finally went back to the woods, an uncomfortable surmise rising; and +finding her nowhere there, he strolled on into the meadows. Then, +suddenly, he saw her, sitting on a rustic bench at a bend of the little +brook. Her eyes were bent upon the running water, and she did not look +up as he approached her. When he was beside her, her eyes met his, +reluctantly and resentfully, and he was startled to observe that she had +wept. His surmise returned. She must have seen him kiss Frances. Yet +even then Gerald did not know why it should make Miss Jakes weep that +he should behave like a donkey. + +'May I sit down here?' he asked, genuinely grieved and genuinely anxious +to find out what the matter was. + +'Certainly,' said Althea in chilly tones. + +He was a little confused. It had something to do with the kissing, he +felt sure. 'Miss Jakes, I'm afraid you'll never believe me a serious +person,' he said. + +'Why should you be serious?' said Althea. + +'You are angry with me,' Gerald remarked dismally. + +'Why should I be angry?' + +He raised his eyebrows, detached a bit of loosened wood from the seat, +and skipped it over the water. 'Well, to find me behaving like a child +again.' + +'I should reserve my anger for more important matters,' said Althea. She +was angry, or she hoped she was, for, far more than anger, it was misery +and a passion of shame that surged in her. She knew now, and she could +not hide from herself that she knew; and yet he cared so little that he +had not even kept his promise; so little that he had stayed behind to +kiss that most indecorous woman. If only she could make him think that +it was only anger. + +'Ah, but you are angry, and rather unjustly,' said Gerald. His eyes were +seeking hers, rallying, pleading, perhaps laughing a little at her. 'And +really, you know, you are a little unkind; I thought we were +friends--what?' + +She forced herself to meet those charming eyes, and then to smile back +at him. It would have been absurd not to smile, but the effort was +disastrous; her lips quivered; the tears ran down her cheeks. She rose, +trembling and aghast. 'I am very foolish. I have such a headache. Please +don't pay any attention to me--it's the heat, I think.' + +She turned blindly towards the house. + +The pretence of the headache was, he knew it in the flash of revelation +that came to him, on a par with Frances's ankle--but with what a +difference in motive! Grave, a little pale, Gerald walked silently +beside her to the woods. He did not know what to say. He was a little +frightened and a great deal touched. + +'Mr. Digby,' Althea said, when they were among the trees again--and it +hurt him to see the courage of her smile--'you must forgive me for being +so silly. It is the heat, you know; and this headache--it puts one so on +edge. I didn't mean to speak as I did. Of course I'm not angry.' + +He was ready to help her out with the most radiant tact. 'Of course I +knew it couldn't make any real difference to you--the way I behaved. +Only I don't like you to be even a little cross with me.' + +'I'm not--not even a little,' she said. + +'We are friends then, really friends?' + +His smile sustained and reassured her. Surely he had not seen--if he +could smile like that--ever so lightly, so merrily, and so gravely too. +Courage came back to her. She could find a smile as light as his in +replying: 'Really friends.' + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +Gerald, after Althea had gone in, walked for some time in the garden, +taking counsel with himself. The expression of his face was still half +touched and half alarmed. He smoked two cigarettes and then came to the +conclusion that, until he could have a talk with Helen, there was no +conclusion to be come to. He never came to important conclusions +unaided. He would sleep on it and then have a talk with Helen. + +He sought her out next morning on the first opportunity. She was in the +library writing letters. She looked, as was usual with her at early +morning hours, odd to the verge of ugliness. It always took her some +time to recover from the drowsy influences of the night. She was dimmed, +as it were, with eyelids half awake, and small lips pouting, and she +seemed at once more childlike and more worn than later in the day. +Gerald looked at her with satisfaction. To his observant and +appreciative eye, Helen was often at her most charming when at her +ugliest. + +'I've something to talk over,' he said. 'Can you give me half an hour or +so?' + +She answered, 'Certainly,' laying down her pen, and leaning back in her +chair. + +'Your letters aren't important? I may keep you for a longish time. +Perhaps we might put it off till the afternoon?' + +'They aren't in the least important. You may keep me as long as you +like.' + +'Thanks. Have a cigarette?' He offered his case, and Helen took one and +lighted it at the match he held for her, and then Gerald, lighting his +own, proceeded to stroll up and down the room reflecting. + +'Helen,' he began, 'I've been thinking things over.' His tone was +serene, yet a little inquiring. He might have been thinking over some +rather uncertain investment, or the planning of a rather exacting trip +abroad. Yet Helen's intuition leaped at once to deeper significances. +Looking out of the window at the lawn, bleached with dew, the trees, the +distant autumnal uplands, while she quietly smoked her cigarette, it was +as if her sub-consciousness, aroused and vigilant, held its breath, +waiting. + +'You know,' said Gerald, 'what I've always really wanted to do more than +anything else. As I get older, I want it more and more, and get more and +more tired of my shambling sort of existence. I love this old place and +I love the country. I'd like nothing so much as to be able to live here, +try my hand at farming, paint a little, read a little, and get as much +hunting as I could.' + +Helen, blowing a ring of smoke and watching it softly hover, made no +comment on these prefatory remarks. + +'Well, as you know,' said Gerald, 'to do that needs money; and I've +none. And you know that the only solution we could ever find was that I +should marry money. And you know that I never found a woman with money +whom I liked well enough.' He was not looking at Helen as he said this; +his eyes were on the shabby old carpet that he was pacing. And in the +pause that followed Helen did not speak. She knew--it was all that she +had time to know--that her silence was expectant only, not ominous. +Consciousness, now, as well as sub-consciousness, seemed rushing to the +bolts and bars and windows of the little lodge of friendship, making it +secure--if still it might be made secure--against the storm that +gathered. She could not even wonder who Gerald had found. She had only +time for the dreadful task of defence, so that no blast of reality +should rush in upon them. + +'Well,' said Gerald, and it was now with a little more inquiry and with +less serenity, 'I think, perhaps, I've found her. I think, Helen, that +your nice Althea cares about me, you know, and would have me.' + +Helen sat still, and did not move her eyes from the sky and trees. There +was a long white cloud in the sky, an island floating in a sea of blue. +She noted its bays and peninsulas, the azure rivers that interlaced it, +its soft depressions and radiant uplands. She never forgot it. She could +have drawn the snowy island, from memory, for years. All her life long +she had waited for this moment; all her life long she had lived with the +sword of its acceptance in her heart. She had thought that she had +accepted; but now the sword turned--horribly turned--round and round in +her heart, and she did not know what she should do. + +'Well,' Gerald repeated, standing still, and, as she knew, looking at +the back of her head in a little perplexity. + +Helen looked cautiously down at the cigarette she held; it still smoked +languidly. She raised it to her lips and drew a whiff. Then, after that, +she dared a further effort. 'Well?' she repeated. + +Gerald laughed a trifle nervously. 'I asked you,' he reminded her. + +She was able, testing her strength, as a tight-rope walker slides a +careful foot along the rope, to go on. 'Oh, I see. And do you care about +her?' + +Gerald was silent for another moment, and she guessed that he had run +his hand through his hair and rumpled it on end. + +'She really is a little dear, isn't she?' he then said. 'You mayn't find +her interesting--though I really do; and she may be like _eau rougie_; +but, as you said, it's a pleasant draught to have beside one. She is +gentle and wise and good, and she seems to take her place here very +sweetly, doesn't she? She seems really to belong here, don't you think +so?' + +Helen could not answer that question. 'Do you want me to tell you +whether you care for her?' she asked. + +He laughed. 'I suppose I do.' + +'And, on the whole, you hope I'll tell you that you do.' + +'Well, yes,' he assented. + +The dreadful steeling of her will at the very verge of swooning abysses +gave an edge to her voice. She tried to dull it, to speak very quietly +and mildly, as she said: 'I must have all the facts of the case before +me, then. I confess I hadn't suspected it was a case.' + +'Which means that you'd never dreamed I could fall in love with Miss +Jakes.' Gerald's tone was a little rueful. + +'Oh--you have fallen in love with her?' + +'Why, that's just what I'm asking you!' he laughed again. 'Or, at least, +not that exactly, for of course it's not a question of being in love. +But I think her wise and good and gentle, and she cares for me--I think; +and it seems almost like the finger of destiny--finding her here. Have +you any idea how much money she has? It must be quite a lot,' said +Gerald. + +Helen was ready with her facts. 'A very safe three thousand a year, I +believe. Not much, of course, but quite enough for what you want to do. +But,' she added, after the pause in which he reflected on this sum--it +was a good deal less than he had taken for granted--'I don't think that +Althea would marry you on that basis. She is very proud and very +romantic. If you want her to marry you, you will have to make her feel +that you care for her in herself.' It was her own pride that now +steadied her pulses and steeled her nerves. She would be as fair to +Gerald's case as though he were her brother; she would be too fair, +perhaps. Here was the pitfall of her pride that she did not clearly see. +Perhaps it was with a grim touch of retribution that she promised +herself that since he could think of Althea Jakes, he most certainly +should have her. + +'Yes, she is proud,' said Gerald. 'That's one of the things one so likes +in her. She'd never hold out a finger, however much she cared.' + +'You will have to hold out both hands,' said Helen. + +'You think she won't have me unless I can pretend to be in love with +her? I'm afraid I can't take that on.' + +'I'm glad you can't. She is too good for such usage. No,' said Helen, +holding her scales steadily, 'perfect frankness is the only way. If she +knows that you really care for her--even if you are not romantic--if you +can make her feel that the money--though a necessity--is secondary, and +wouldn't have counted at all unless you had come to care, I should say +that your chances are good--since you have reason to believe that she +has fallen in love with you.' + +'It's not as if I denied her anything I had to give, is it?' Gerald +pondered on the point of conscience she put before him. + +'You mean that you're incapable of caring more for any woman than for +Althea?' + +'Of course not. I care a great deal more for you,' said Gerald, again +rather rueful under her probes. 'I only mean that I'm not likely to fall +in love again, or anything of that sort. She can be quite secure about +me. I'll be her devoted and faithful husband.' + +'I think you care,' said Helen. 'I think you can make her happy.' + +But Gerald now came and sat on the corner of the writing-table beside +her, facing her, his back to the window. 'It's a tremendous thing to +decide on, isn't it, Helen?' + +She turned her eyes on him, and he looked at her with a gaze troubled +and a little groping, as though he sought in her further elucidations; +as though, for the first time, she had disappointed him a little. + +'Is it?' she asked. 'Is marriage really a tremendous thing?' + +'Well, isn't it?' + +'I'm not sure. In one way, of course, it is. But people, perhaps, +exaggerate the influence of their own choice on the results. You can't +be sure of results, choose as carefully as you will; it's what comes +after that decides them, I imagine--the devotion, the fidelity you speak +of. And since you've found some one to whom you can promise those, some +one wise and good and gentle, isn't that all that you need be sure of?' + +Gerald continued to study her face. 'You're not pleased, Helen,' he now +said. It was a curious form of torture that Helen must smile under. + +'Well, it's not a case for enthusiasm, is it?' she said. 'I'm certainly +not displeased.' + +'You'd rather I married her than Frances Pickering?' + +'Would Frances have you, too, irresistible one?' + +'Oh, I don't think so; pretty sure not. She would want a lot of things I +can't give. I was only wondering which you'd prefer.' + +Helen heard the clamour of her own heart. Frances! Frances! She is +trivial; she will not take your place: she will not count in his life at +all. Althea will count; she will count more and more. She will be his +habit, his _haus-frau_, the mother of his children. He is not in love +with her; but he will come to love her, and there will be no place for +friendship in his life. Hearing that clamour she dragged herself +together, hating herself for having heard it, and answered: 'Althea, of +course; she is worth three of Frances.' + +Gerald gave a little sigh. 'Well, I'm glad we agree there,' he said. +'I'm glad you see that Althea is worth three of her. What I do wish is +that you cared more about Althea.' + +What he was telling her was that if she would care more about Althea, he +would too, and she wondered if this, also, were a part of pride; should +she help him to care more for Althea? A better pride sustained her; she +felt the danger in these subtleties of her torment. 'I like Althea,' she +said. 'I, too, think that she is wise and good and gentle. I think that +she will be the best of wives, the best of wives and mothers. But, as I +said, I don't feel enthusiasm; I don't feel it a case for enthusiasm.' + +'Of course it's not a case for enthusiasm,' said Gerald, who was +evidently eager to range himself completely with her. 'I'm fond, and +I'll grow fonder; and I believe you will too. Don't you, Helen?' + +'No doubt I shall,' said Helen. She got up now and tossed her cigarette +into the waste-paper basket, and stood for a moment looking past +Gerald's head at the snowy island, now half dissolved in blue, as though +its rivers had engulfed it. They were parting, he and she, she knew it, +and yet there was no word that she could say to him, no warning or +appeal that she could utter. If he could see that it was the end he +would, she knew, start back from his shallow project. But he did not +know that it was the end and he might never know. Did he not really +understand that an adoring wife could not be fitted into their +friendship? His innocent unconsciousness of inevitable change made +Helen's heart, in its deeper knowledge of human character, sink to a +bitterness that felt like a hatred of him, and she wondered, looking +forward, whether Gerald would ever miss anything, or ever know that +anything was gone. + +Gerald sat still looking up at her as though expecting some further +suggestion, and as her eyes came back to him, she smiled to him with +deliberate sweetness, showing him thus that her conclusions were all +friendly. And he rose, smiling back, reassured and fortified. 'Well,' he +said, 'since you approve, I suppose it's settled. I shan't ask her at +once, you know. She might think it was because of what I'd guessed. I'll +lead up to it for a day or two. And, Helen, you might, if you've a +chance, put in a good word for me.' + +'I will, if I've a chance,' said Helen. + +Gerald, as if aware that he had taken up really too much of her time, +now moved towards the door. But he went slowly, and at the door he +paused. He turned to her smiling. 'And you give me your blessing?' he +asked. + +He was most endearing when he smiled so. It was a smile like a child's, +that caressed and cajoled, and that saw through its own cajolery and +pleaded, with a little wistfulness, that there was more than could show +itself, behind. Helen knew what was behind--the sense of strangeness, +the affection and the touch of fear. She had never refused that smile +anything; she seemed to refuse it nothing now, as she answered with a +maternal acquiescence, 'I give you my blessing, dear Gerald.' + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + + +It was still early. When he had left her, Helen looked at her watch; +only half-past ten. She stood thinking. Should she go out, as usual, +take her place in a long chair under the limes, close her eyes and +pretend to sleep? No, she could not do that. Should she sit down in her +room with Dante and a dictionary? No, that she would not do. Should she +walk far away into the woods and lie upon the ground and weep? That +would be a singularly foolish plan, and at lunch everybody would see +that she had been crying. Yet it was impossible to remain here, to +remain still, and thinking. She must move quickly, and make her body +tired. She went to her room, pinned on her hat, drew on her gloves, and, +choosing a stick as she went through the hall, passed from the grounds +and through the meadow walk to a long road, climbing and winding, whose +walls, at either side, seemed to hold back the billows of the woodland. +The day was hot and dusty. The sky was like a blue stone, the green +monotonous, the road glared white. Helen, with the superficial +fretfulness of an agony controlled, said to herself that nothing more +like a bad water-colour landscape could be imagined; there were the +unskilful blots of heavy foliage, the sleekly painted sky, and the sunny +road was like the whiteness of the paper, picked out, for shadows, in +niggling cobalt. A stupid, bland, heartless day. + +She walked along this road for several miles and left it to cross a +crisp, grassy slope from where, standing still and turning to see, she +looked down over all the country and saw, far away, the roofs of +Merriston House. She stood for a long time looking down at it, the hot +wind ruffling her skirts and hair. It was a heartless day and she +herself felt heartless. She felt herself as something silent, swift, and +raging. For now she was to taste to the full the bitter difference +between the finality of personal decision and a finality imposed, +fatefully and irrevocably, from without. She had thought herself +prepared for this ending of hope. She had even, imagining herself +hardened and indifferent, gone in advance of it and had sought to put +the past under her feet and to build up a new life. But she had not been +prepared; that she now knew. The imagination of the fact was not its +realisation in her very blood and bones, nor the standing ready, armed +for the blow, this feel of the blade between her ribs. And looking down +at the only home she had ever had, in moments long, sharp, dream-like, +her strength was drained from her as if by a fever, and she felt that +she was changed all through and that each atom of her being was set, as +it were, a little differently, making of her a new personality, through +this shock of sudden hopelessness. + +She felt her knees weak beneath her and she moved on slowly, away from +the sun, to a lonely little wood that bordered the hill-top. In her +sudden weakness she climbed the paling that enclosed it with some +difficulty, wondering if she were most inconveniently going to faint, +and walking blindly along a narrow path, in the sudden cool and +darkness, she dropped down on the moss at the first turning of the way. + +Here, at last, was beauty. The light, among the fanlike branches, looked +like sea-water streaked with gold; the tall boles of the beeches were +like the pillars of a temple sunken in the sea. Helen lay back, folded +her arms behind her head, and stared up at the chinks of far brightness +in the green roof overhead. It was like being drowned, deep beneath the +surface of things. If only she could be at peace, like a drowned thing. +Lying there, she longed to die, to dissolve away into the moss, the +earth, the cool, green air. And feeling this, in the sudden beauty, +tears, for the first time, came to her eyes. She turned over on her +face, burying it in her arms and muttering in childish language, 'I'm +sick of it; sick to death of it.' + +As she spoke she was aware that some one was near her. A sudden +footfall, a sudden pause, followed her words. She lifted her head, then +she sat up. The tears had flowed and her cheeks were wet with them, but +of that she was not conscious, so great was her surprise at finding +Franklin Winslow Kane standing before her on the mossy path. + +Mr. Kane carried his straw hat in his hand. He was very warm, his hair +was untidy on his moist brow, his boots were white with dust, his +trousers were turned up from them and displayed an inch or so of thin +ankle encased in oatmeal-coloured socks. His tie--Helen noted the one +salient detail among the many dull ones that made up a whole so +incongruous with the magic scene--was of a peculiarly harsh and ugly +shade of blue. He had only just climbed over a low wall near by and +that was why he had come upon her so inaudibly and had, so +inadvertently, been a witness of her grief. + +He did not, however, show embarrassment, but looked at her with the +hesitant yet sympathetic attentiveness of a vagrant dog. + +Helen sat on the moss, her feet extended before her, and she returned +his look from her tearful eyes, making no attempt to soften the oddity +of the situation. She found, indeed, a gloomy amusement in it, and was +aware of wondering what Mr. Kane, who made so much of everything, would +make of their mutual predicament. + +'Have you been having a long walk, too?' she asked. + +He looked at her, smiling now a little, as if he wagged a responsive +tail; but he was not an ingratiating dog, only a friendly and a troubled +one. + +'Yes, I have,' he said. 'We have got rather a long way off, Miss +Buchanan.' + +'That's a comfort sometimes, isn't it,' said Helen. She took out her +handkerchief and dried her eyes, drawing herself, then, into a more +comfortable position against the trunk of a beech-tree. + +'You'd rather I went away, wouldn't you,' said Mr. Kane; 'but let me say +first that I'm very sorry to have intruded, and very sorry indeed to see +that you're unhappy.' + +She now felt that she did not want him to go, indeed she felt that she +would rather he stayed. After the loneliness of her despair, she liked +the presence of the friendly, wandering dog. It would be comforting to +have it sit down beside you and to have it thud its tail when you +chanced to look at it. Mr. Kane would not intrude, he would be a +consolation. + +'No, don't go,' she said. 'Do sit down and rest. It's frightfully hot, +isn't it.' + +He sat down in front of her, clasping his knees about, as was his wont, +and exposing thereby not only the entire oatmeal sock, but a section of +leg nearly matching it in tint. + +'Well, I am rather tired,' he said. 'I've lost my way, I guess.' And, +looking about him, he went on: 'Very peaceful things aren't they, the +woods. Trees are very peaceful things, pacifying things, I mean.' + +Helen looked up at them. 'Yes, they are peaceful. I don't know that I +find them pacifying.' + +His eyes came back to her and he considered her again for a moment +before he said, smiling gently, 'I've been crying too.' + +In the little pause that followed this announcement they continued to +look at each other, and it was not so much that their eyes sounded the +other's eyes as that they deepened for each other and, without effort or +surprise, granted to each other the quiet avowal of complete sincerity. + +'I'm very sorry that you are unhappy, too,' said Helen. She noticed now +that his eyes were jaded and that all his clear, terse little face was +softened and relaxed. + +'Yes, I'm unhappy,' said Franklin. 'It's queer, isn't it, that we should +find each other like this. I'm glad I've found you: two unhappy people +are better together, I think, than alone. It eases things a little, +don't you think so?' + +'Perhaps it does,' said Helen. 'That is, it does if one of them is so +kind and so pacifying as you are; you do remind me of the trees,' she +smiled. + +'Ah, well, that's very sweet of you, very sweet indeed,' said Franklin, +looking about him at the limpid green. 'It makes me feel I'm not +intruding, to have you say that to me. It didn't follow, of course, +because I'm glad to find you that you would be glad I'd come. You don't +show it much, Miss Buchanan'--he was looking at her again--'your +crying.' + +'I'm always afraid that I show it dreadfully. That's the worst of it, I +don't dare indulge in it often.' + +'No, you don't show it much. You sometimes look as though you had been +crying when I'm sure you haven't--early in the morning, for instance.' + +Helen could but smile again. 'You are very observant. You really noticed +that?' + +'I don't know that I'm so very observant, Miss Buchanan, but I'm +interested in everybody, and I'm particularly interested in you, so that +of course I notice things like that. Now you aren't particularly +interested in me--though you are so kind--are you?' and again Mr. Kane +smiled his weary, gentle smile. + +It seemed very natural to sit under peaceful trees and talk to Mr. Kane, +and it was easy to be perfectly frank with him. Helen answered his +smile. 'No, I'm not. I'm quite absorbed in my own affairs. I'm +interested in hardly anybody. I'm very selfish.' + +'Ah, you would find that you wouldn't suffer so--in just your way, I +mean--if you were less selfish,' Franklin Kane remarked. + +'What other way is there?' Helen asked. 'What is your way?' + +'Well, I don't know that I've found a much better one, our ways seem to +have brought us to pretty much the same place, haven't they,' he almost +mused. 'That's the worst of suffering, it's pretty much alike, at all +times and in all ways. I'm not unselfish either, you know, a mighty long +way from it. But I'm not sick of it, you know, not sick to death of it. +Forgive me if I offend in repeating your words.' + +'You are unselfish, I'm sure of that,' said Helen. 'And so you must have +other things to live for. My life is very narrow, and when things I care +about are ruined I see nothing further.' + +'Things are never ruined in life, Miss Buchanan. As long as there is +life there is hope and action and love. As long as you can love you +can't be sick to death of it.' Mr. Kane spoke in his deliberate, +monotonous tones. + +Helen was silent for a little while. She was wondering; not about Mr. +Kane, nor about his suffering, nor about the oddity of thus talking with +him about her own. It was no more odd to talk to him than if he had been +the warm-hearted dog, dowered for her benefit with speech; she was +wondering about what he said and about that love to which he alluded. +'Perhaps I don't know much about love,' she said, and more to herself +than to Mr. Kane. + +'I've inferred that since knowing you,' said Franklin. + +'I mean, of course,' Helen defined, 'the selfless love you are talking +of.' + +'Yes, I understand,' said Franklin. 'Now, you see, the other sort of +love, the sort that makes people go away and cry in the woods--for I've +been crying because I'm hopelessly in love, Miss Buchanan, and I presume +that you are too--well, that sort of love can't escape ruin sometimes. +That side of life may go to pieces and then there's nothing left for it +but to cry. But that side isn't all life, Miss Buchanan.' + +Helen did not repudiate his interpretation of her grief. She was quite +willing that Mr. Kane should know why she had been crying, but she did +not care to talk about that side to him. It had been always, and it +would always be, she feared, all life to her. She looked sombrely before +her into the green vistas. + +'Of course,' Franklin went on, 'I don't know anything about your +hopeless love affair. I'm only sure that your tragedy is a noble one and +that you are up to it, you know--as big as it is. If it's hopeless, it's +not, I'm sure, because of anything in you. It's because of fate, or +circumstance, or some unworthiness in the person you care for. Now with +me one of the hardest things to bear is the fact that I've nothing to +blame but myself. I'm not adequate, that's the trouble; no charm, you +see,' Mr. Kane again almost mused, 'no charm. Charm is the great thing, +and it means more than it seems to mean, all evolution, the survival of +the fittest--natural selection--is in it, when you come to think of it. +If I'd had charm, personality, or, well, greatness of some sort, I'd +have probably won Althea long ago. You know, of course, that it's Althea +I'm in love with, and have been for years and years. Well, there it is,' +Franklin was picking tall blades of grass that grew in a little tuft +near by and putting them neatly together as he spoke. 'There it is, but +even with the pain of just that sort of failure to bear, I don't intend +that my life shall be ruined. It can't be, by the loss of that hope. I'm +not good enough for Althea. I've got to accept that; natural selection +rejects me,' looking up from his grass blades he smiled gravely at his +companion; 'but I'm good enough for other beautiful things that need +serving. And I'm good enough to go on being Althea's friend, to be of +some value to her in that capacity. So my life isn't ruined, not by a +long way, and I wish you'd try to feel the same about yours.' + +Helen didn't feel in the least inclined to try, but she found herself +deeply interested in Mr. Kane's attitude; for the first time Mr. Kane +had roused her intent interest. She looked hard at him while he sat +there, demonstrating to her the justice of life's dealings with him and +laying one blade of grass so accurately against another, and she was +wondering now about him. It was not because she thought her own feelings +sacred that she preferred them to be concealed, but she saw that Mr. +Kane's were no less sacred to him for being thus unconcealed. She even +guessed that his revelation of feeling was less for his personal relief +than for her personal benefit; that he was carrying out, in all the +depths of his sincerity, a wish to comfort her, to take her out of +herself. Well, he had taken her out of herself, and after having heard +that morning what Althea's significance could be in the life of another +man, she was curious to find what her so different significance could be +in the life of this one, as alien from Gerald in type and temperament +as it was possible to imagine. Why did Althea mean anything at all to +Gerald, and why did she mean everything to Mr. Kane? And through what +intuition of the truth had Mr. Kane come to his present hopelessness? + +'Do you think women always fall in love with the adequate man, and _vice +versa_?' she asked, and her eyes were gentle as they mused on him. 'Why +should you say that it's because you're not adequate that Althea isn't +in love with you?' + +Franklin fixed his eye upon her and it had now a new light, it deepened +for other problems than Helen's and his own. 'Not adequate for her--not +what she wants--that's my point,' he said. 'But there are other sorts of +mistakes to make, of course. If Althea falls in love with a man equipped +as I'm not equipped, that does prove that I lack something that would +have won her; but it doesn't prove that she's found the right man. We've +got beyond natural selection when it comes to life as a whole. He may be +the man for her to fall in love with, but is he the man to make her +happy? That's just the question for me, Miss Buchanan, and I wish you'd +help me with it.' + +'Help you?' Helen rather faltered. + +'Yes, please try. You must see--I see it plainly enough--that Mr. Digby +is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' +Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald +had seen, and what she had not seen at all? + +'You think it's Gerald who is in love with her?' she asked. + +Again Franklin's eye was on her, and she now saw in it his deep +perplexity. She couldn't bear to add to it. 'I've guessed nothing,' she +said. 'You must enlighten me.' + +'I wasn't sure at first,' said Franklin, groping his way. 'He seemed so +devoted to Lady Pickering; but for some days it's been obvious, hasn't +it, that that wasn't in the least serious?' + +'Not in the least.' + +'I couldn't have reconciled myself,' said Franklin, 'to the idea of a +man, who could take Lady Pickering seriously, marrying Althea. I can't +quite reconcile myself to the idea of a man who could, well, be so +devoted to Lady Pickering, marrying Althea. He's your friend, I know, +Miss Buchanan, as well as your relative, but you know what I feel for +Althea, and you'll forgive my saying that if I'm not big enough for her +he isn't big enough either; no, upon my soul, he isn't.' + +Helen's eyes dwelt on him. She knew that, with all the forces of +concealment at her command, she wanted to keep from Mr. Kane the +blighting irony of her own inner comments; above everything, now, she +dreaded lest her irony should touch one of Mr. Kane's ideals. It was so +beautiful of him to think himself not big enough for Althea, that she +was well content that he should see Gerald in the same category of +unfitness. Perhaps Gerald was not big enough for Althea; Gerald's +bigness didn't interest Helen; the great point for her was that Mr. Kane +should not guess that she considered Althea not big enough for him. 'If +Gerald is the lucky man,' she said, after the pause in which she gazed +at him; 'if she cares enough for Gerald to marry him, then I think he +will make her happy; and that's the chief thing, isn't it?' + +Mr. Kane could not deny that it was, and yet, evidently, he was not +satisfied. 'I believe you'll forgive me if I go on,' he said. 'You see +it's so tremendously important to me, and what I'm going to say isn't +really at all offensive--I mean, people of your world and Mr. Digby's +world wouldn't find it so. I'll tell you the root of my trouble, Miss +Buchanan. Your friend is a poor man, isn't he, and Althea is a fairly +rich woman. Can you satisfy me on this point? I can give Althea up; I +must give her up; but I can hardly bear it if I'm to give her up to a +mere fortune-hunter, however happy he may be able to make her.' + +Helen's cheeks had coloured slightly. 'Gerald isn't a mere +fortune-hunter,' she said. 'People of my world do think fortune-hunting +offensive.' + +'Forgive me then,' said Franklin, gazing at her, contrite but +unperturbed. 'I'm very ignorant of your world. May I put it a little +differently. Would Mr. Digby be likely to fall in love with a woman if +she hadn't a penny?' + +She had quite forgiven him. She smiled a little in answering. 'He has +often fallen in love with women without a penny, but he could hardly +marry a woman who hadn't one.' + +'He wouldn't wish to marry Althea, then, if she had no money?' + +'However much he would wish it, I don't think he would be so foolish as +to do it,' said Helen. + +'Can't a man worth his salt work for the woman he loves?' + +'A man well worth his salt may not be trained for making money,' Helen +returned. She knew the question clamouring in his heart, the question he +must not ask, nor she answer: 'Is he in love with Althea?' Mr. Kane +could never accept nor understand what the qualified answer to such a +question would have to be, and she must leave him with his worst +perplexity unsolved. But one thing she could do for him, and she hoped +that it might soften a little the bitterness of his uncertainty. The +sunlight suddenly had failed, and a slight wind passed among the boughs +overhead. Helen got upon her feet, straightening her hat and putting +back her hair. It was time to be going homewards. They went down the +path and climbed over the palings, and it was on the hill-top that Helen +said, looking far ahead of her, far over the now visible roofs of +Merriston: + +'I've known Gerald Digby all my life, and I know Althea, now, quite +well. And if Gerald is to be the lucky man I'd like to say, for him, you +know--and I think it ought to set your mind at rest--that I think Althea +will be quite as lucky as he will be, and that I think that he is worthy +of her.' + +Franklin kept his eyes on her as she spoke, and though she did not meet +them, her far gaze, fixed ahead, seemed in its impersonal gravity to +commune with him, for his consolation, more than an answering glance +would have done. She was giving him her word for something, and the very +fact that she kept it impersonal, held it there before them both, made +it more weighty and more final. Franklin evidently found it so. He +presently heaved a sigh in which relief was mingled with +acceptance--acceptance of the fact that, from her, he must expect no +further relief. And presently, as they came out upon the winding road, +he said: 'Thanks, that's very helpful.' + +They walked on then in silence. The sun was gone and the wind blew +softly; the freshness of the coming rain was in the air. Helen lifted +her face to them as the first slow drops began to fall. In her heart, +too, the fierceness of her pain was overcast. Something infinitely sad, +yet infinitely peaceful, stilled her pulses. Infinitely sad, yet +infinitely funny too. How small, how insignificant, this tangle of the +whole-hearted and the half-hearted; what did it all come to, and how +feel suffering as tragic when farce grimaced so close beside it? Who +could take it seriously when, in life, the whole-hearted were so +deceived and based their loves on such illusion? To feel the irony was +to acquiesce, perhaps, and acquiescence, even if only momentary, like +the lull and softness in nature, was better than the beating fierceness +of rebellion. Everything was over. And here beside her went the dear +ungainly dog. She turned her head and smiled at him, the raindrops on +her lashes. + +'You don't mind the rain, Miss Buchanan?' said Franklin, who had looked +anxiously at the weather, and probably felt himself responsible for not +producing an umbrella for a lady's need. + +'I like it.' She continued to smile at him. + +'Miss Buchanan,' said Franklin, looking at her earnestly and not smiling +back, 'I want to say something. I've seemed egotistic and I've been +egotistic. I've talked only about my own troubles; but I don't believe +you wanted to talk about yours, did you?' Helen, smiling, slightly +shook her head. 'And at the same time you've not minded my knowing that +you have troubles to bear.' Again she shook her head. 'Well, that's what +I thought; that's all right, then. What I wanted to say was that if ever +I can help you in any way--if ever I can be of any use--will you please +remember that I'm your friend.' + +Helen, still looking at him, said nothing for some moments. And now, +once more, a slight colour rose in her cheeks. 'I can't imagine why you +should be my friend,' she said. 'I feel that I know a great deal about +you; but you know nothing about me, and please believe me when I say +that there's very little to know.' + +Already he knew her well enough to know that the slight colour, +lingering on her cheek, meant that she was moved. 'Ah, I can't believe +you there,' he said. 'And at all events, whatever there is to know, I'm +its friend. You don't know yourself, you see. You only know what you +feel, not at all what you are.' + +'Isn't that what I am?' She looked away, disquieted by this analysis of +her own personality. + +'By no means all,' said Franklin. 'You've hardly looked at the you that +can do things--the you that can think things.' + +She didn't want to look at them, poor, inert, imprisoned creatures. She +looked, instead, at the quaint, unexpected, and touching thing with +which she was presented--Mr. Kane's friendship. She would have liked to +have told him that she was grateful and that she, too, was his friend; +but such verbal definitions as these were difficult and alien to her, +as alien as discussion of her own character and its capacities. It +seemed to be claiming too much to claim a capacity for friendship. She +didn't know whether she was anybody's friend, really--as Mr. Kane would +have counted friendship. She thought him dear, she thought him good, and +yet she hardly wanted him, would hardly miss him if he were not there. +He touched her, more deeply than she perhaps quite knew, and yet she +seemed to have nothing for him. So she gave up any explicit declaration, +only turning her eyes on him and smiling at him again through her +rain-dimmed lashes, as they went down the winding road together. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + + +It was Althea who, during the next few days, while Gerald with the +greatest tact and composure made his approaches, was most unconscious of +what was approaching her. Everybody else now saw quite clearly what +Gerald's intentions were. Althea was dazed; she did not know what the +bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of +her. She had feared--sickeningly--with a stiffening of her whole nature +to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady +Pickering. Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was +going to be her friend, and then--this in the two or three days that +followed Gerald's talk with Helen--that he was going to be a dear one. +She had only adjusted her mind to this grave joy and wondered, with all +the perplexity of her own now recognised love, whether it could prove +more than a very tremulous joy, when the final revelation came upon her. +It came, and it was still unexpected, one afternoon when she and Gerald +sat in the drawing-room together. It was very warm, and they had come +into the cooler house after tea to look at a book that Gerald wanted to +show her. It had proved to be not much of a book after all, and even +while standing with him in the library, while he turned the musty +leaves for her and pointed out the funny old illustrations he had been +telling her of, Althea had felt that the book was only a pretext for +getting her away to himself. He had led her back to the drawing-room and +he had said, 'Don't let's go out again, it's much nicer here. Please sit +here and talk to me.' + +It was just the hour, just such an afternoon as that on which poor +Franklin had arrived; Althea thought of that as she and Gerald sat down +on the same little sofa where she and Franklin had sat. And, in a swift +flash of association, she remembered that Franklin had wanted to kiss +her, and had kissed her. They had left Franklin under the limes with +Helen; he had been reading something to Helen out of a pamphlet, and +Helen had looked, though rather sleepy, kindly acquiescent; but the +memory of the past could do no more than stir a faint pity for the +present Franklin; she was wishing--and it seemed the most irresistible +longing of all her life--that Gerald Digby wanted to kiss her too. The +memory and the wish threw her thoughts into confusion, but she was still +able to maintain her calm, to smile at him and say, 'Certainly, let us +talk.' + +'But not about politics and philanthropy to-day,' said Gerald, who +leaned his elbow on his knee and looked quietly yet intently at her; 'I +want to talk about ourselves, if I may.' + +'Do let us talk about ourselves,' said Althea. + +'Well, I don't believe that what I'm going to say will surprise you. I'm +sure you've seen how much I've come to care about you,' said Gerald. + +Althea kept her eyes fixed calmly upon him; her self-command was great, +even in the midst of an overpowering hope. + +'I know that we are real friends,' she returned, smiling. + +Her calm, her cool, sweet smile, like the light in the shaded room, were +very pleasing to Gerald. 'Ah, yes, but that was only a step, you see,' +he smiled back. He did not let her guess his full confidence, he took +all the steps one after the other in their proper order. He couldn't +give her romance, but he could give her every grace, and her calm made +him feel, happily and securely, that grace would quite content her. + +'You must see,' he went on, still with his eyes on hers, 'that it's more +than that. You must see that you are dearer than that.' And then he +brought out his simple question, 'Will you be my wife?' + +Althea sat still and her mind whirled. Until then she had been +unprepared. Her own feeling, the feeling that she had refused for days +to look at, had been so strong that she had only known its strength and +its danger to her pride; she had had no time to wonder about Gerald's +feeling. And now, in its freedom, her feeling was so joyous that she +could know only its joy. She was dear to him. He asked her to marry him. +It seemed enough, more than enough, to make joy a permanent thing in her +life. She had not imagined it possible to marry a man who did not woo +and urge, who did not make her feel the ardour of his love. But, now, +breathlessly, she found that reality was quite different from her +imagination and yet so blissful that she could feel nothing wanting in +it. And she could say nothing. She looked at him with her large eyes, +gravely, and touched, a little abashed by their gaze, he took her hand, +kissed it, and murmured, 'Please say you'll have me.' + +'Do you love me?' Althea breathed out; it was not that she questioned or +hesitated; the words came to her lips in answer to the situation rather +than in questioning of him. And it was hardly a shock; it was, in a +subtle way, a further realisation of exquisiteness, when the situation, +in his reply, defined itself as a reality still further removed from her +imagination of what such a situation should be. + +Holding her hand, his gay brown eyes upon her, he said, after only the +very slightest pause, 'Miss Jakes, I'm not a romantic person, you see +that; you see the sort of person I am. I can't make pretty speeches, not +when I'm serious, as I am now. When I make pretty speeches, I'm only +flirting. I like you. I respect you. I've watched you here in my old +home and I've thought, "If only she would make it home again." I've +thought that you'd help me to make a new life. I want to come and live +here, with you, and do the things I told you about--the things that +needed money.' + +His eyes were on hers, so quietly and so gravely, now, that they seemed +to hold from her all ugly little interpretations; he trusted her with +the true one, he trusted her not to see it as ugly. 'You see, I'm not +romantic,' he went on, 'and I can only tell you the truth. I couldn't +have thought of marrying you if you hadn't had money, but I needn't tell +you that, if you'd had millions, I wouldn't have thought of marrying +you unless I cared for you. So there it is, quite clear and simple. I +think I can make you happy; will you make me happy?' + +It was exquisite, the trust, the truth, the quiet gravity, and yet there +was pain in the exquisiteness. She could not look at it yet distinctly +for it seemed part of the beauty. It was rarer, more dignified, this +wooing, than commonplace protestations of devotion. It was a large and +beautiful life he opened to her and he needed her to make it real. They +needed each other. Yet--here the pain hovered--they needed each other so +differently. To her, he was the large and beautiful life; to him, she +was only a part of it, and a means to it. But she could not look at +pain. Pride was mounting in her, pride in him, her beloved and her +possession. Before all the world, henceforth, he would be hers. And the +greatness of that pride cast out lesser ones. He had discriminated, been +carefully sincere; her sincerity did not need to be careful, it was an +unqualified gift she had to make him. 'I love you,' she said. 'I will +make it your home.' + +And again Gerald was touched and a little confused. He kissed her hand +and then, her eyes of mute avowal drawing him, he leaned to her and +kissed her cheek. He felt it difficult to answer such a speech, and all +that he found to say at last was, 'You will make me romantic, dear +Althea.' + +That evening he sought Helen out again; but he need not have come with +his news, for it was none. Althea's blissful preoccupation and his +gaiety had all the evening proclaimed the happy event. But he had to +talk to Helen, and finding her on the terrace, he drew her hand through +his arm and paced to and fro with her. She was silent, and, suddenly and +oddly, he found it difficult to say anything. 'Well,' he ventured at +last. + +'Well,' Helen echoed in the darkness. + +'It's all settled,' said Gerald. + +'Yes,' said Helen. + +'And I'm very happy.' + +'I am so glad.' + +'And she is really a great dear. Anything more generously sweet I've +never encountered.' + +'I'm so glad,' Helen repeated. + +There seemed little more to say, but, before they went in, he squeezed +her hand and added: 'If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have met her. +Dear Helen, I have to thank you for my good fortune. I've always had to +thank you for the nice things that have happened to me.' + +But to this Helen demurred, though smiling apparently, as she answered, +going in, 'Oh no, I don't think you have this to thank me for.' + +After they had gone upstairs, Althea came to Helen's room, and putting +her arms around her she hid her face on her shoulder. She was too happy +to feel any sense of shyness. It was Helen who was shy. So shy that the +tears rose to her eyes as she stood there, embraced. And, strangely, she +felt, with all her disquiet at being so held by Althea, that the tears +were not only for shyness, but for her friend. Althea's happiness +touched her. It seemed greater than her situation warranted. Helen could +not see the situation as rapturous. It was not such a tempered, such a +reasonable joy that she could have accepted, had it been her part to +accept or to decline. And, held by Althea, hot, shrinking, sorry, she +was aware of another anger against Gerald. + +'My dear Althea, I know. I do so heartily congratulate you and Gerald,' +she said. + +'He told you, dear Helen?' + +'Yes, he told me, but of course I saw.' + +'I feel now as if you were my sister,' said Althea, tightening her arms. +'We will always be very near each other, Helen. It is so beautiful to +think that you brought us together, isn't it?' + +Helen was forced to put the distasteful cup to her lips. 'Yes indeed,' +she said. + +'He is so dear, so wonderful,' said Althea. 'There is so much more in +him than he knows himself. I want him to be a great man, Helen. I +believe he can be, don't you?' + +'I've never thought of Gerald as great,' Helen replied, trying to smile. + +'Ah, well, wait; you will see! I suppose it is only a woman in love with +a man who sees all his capacities. We will live here, and in London.' +Althea, while she spoke her guileless assurance, raised her head and +threw back her unbound hair, looking her full trust into Helen's eyes. +'I wouldn't care to live for more than half the year in the country, and +it wouldn't be good for Gerald. I want to do so much, Helen, to make so +many people happy, if I can. And, Helen dear,' she smiled now through +her tears, 'if only you could be one of them; if only this could mean in +some way a new opening in your life, too. One can never tell; happiness +is such an infectious thing; if you are a great deal with two very happy +people, you may catch the habit. I can't bear to think that you aren't +happy, rare and lovely person that you are. I told Gerald so to-day. I +said to him that I felt life hadn't given you any of the joy we all so +need. Helen, dear, you must find your fairy-prince. You must, you shall +fall in love, too.' + +Helen controlled her face and gulped on. 'That's not so easily managed,' +she remarked. 'I've seen a good many fairy-princes in my life, and +either I haven't melted their hearts, or they haven't melted mine. We +can't all draw lucky numbers, you know; there are not enough to go +round.' + +'As if anybody wouldn't fall in love with you, if you gave them the +chance,' said Althea. 'You _are_ the lucky number.' + +Althea felt next day a certain tameness in the public reception of her +news. She had not intended the news to be public yet for some time. +Franklin's presence seemed to make an announcement something of an +indelicacy, but, whether through her responsibility or whether through +Gerald's, or whether through the obviousness of the situation, she found +that everybody knew. It could not make commonplace to her her own inner +joy, but she saw that to Aunt Julia, to the girls, to Lady Pickering, +and Sir Charles, her position was commonplace. She was, to them, a nice +American who was being married as much because she had money as because +she was nice. + +Aunt Julia voiced this aspect to her on the first opportunity, drawing +her away after breakfast to walk with her along the terrace while she +said, very gravely, 'Althea, dear, do you really think you'll be happy +living in England?' + +'Happier than anywhere else in the world,' said Althea. + +'I didn't realise that you felt so completely expatriated.' + +'England has always seemed very homelike to me, and this already is more +of a home to me than any I have known for years,' said Althea, looking +up at Merriston House. + +'Poor child!' said Aunt Julia, 'what a comment on your rootless life. +You must forgive me, Althea,' she went on in a lower voice, 'but I feel +myself in a mother's place to you, and I do very much want to ask you to +consider more carefully before you make things final. Mr. Digby is a +charming man; but how little you have seen of him. I beg you to wait for +a year before you marry.' + +'I'm afraid I can't gratify you, Aunt Julia. I certainly can't ask +Gerald to wait for a year.' + +'My dear, why not!' Aunt Julia did not repress. + +Althea went on calmly. 'It is true, of course, that we are not in love +like two children, with no thought of responsibility or larger claims. +You see, one outgrows that rather naive American idea about marriage. +Mine is, if you like, a _mariage de convenance_, in the sense that +Gerald is a poor man and cannot marry unless he marries money. And I am +proud to have the power to help him to build up a large and dignified +life, and we don't intend to postpone our marriage when we know, trust, +and love each other as we do.' + +'A large life, my dear,' said Aunt Julia. 'Don't deceive yourself into +thinking that. One needs a far larger fortune than your tiny one, +nowadays, if one is to build up a large life. What I fear more than +anything is that you don't in the least realise what English country +life is all the year round. Imagine, if you can, your winters here.' + +'I shan't spend many winters here,' said Althea smiling. She did not +divulge her vague, bright plans to Aunt Julia, but they filled the +future for her; she saw the London drawing-room where, when Gerald was +in Parliament, she would gather delightful people together. Among such +people, Lady Blair, Miss Buckston, her friends in Devonshire, and of +Grimshaw Rectory, seemed hardly more than onlookers; they did not fit +into the pictures of her new life. + +And if they did not fit, what of Franklin? Even in old unsophisticated +pictures of a _salon_ he had been a figure adjusted with some +difficulty. It had, in days that seemed immeasurably remote--days when +she had wondered whether she could marry Franklin--it had been difficult +to see herself introducing him with any sense of achievement to Lady +Blair or to the Collings, and she knew now, clearly, why: in Lady +Blair's drawing-room, as in Devonshire and at Grimshaw Rectory, Franklin +would have looked a funny little man. How much more funny in the new +setting. What would he do in it? What was it to mean to him? What would +any setting mean to Franklin in which he was to see her as no longer +needing him? For, and this was the worst of it, and in spite of +happiness Althea felt it as a pang indeed, she no longer needed +Franklin; and knowing this she longed at once to avoid and to atone to +him. + +She found him after her walk with Aunt Julia sitting behind a newspaper +in the library. Franklin always read the newspapers every morning, and +it struck Althea as particularly touching that this good habit should be +persevered in under his present circumstances. She was so much touched +by Franklin, the habit of old intimacy was so strong, that her own +essential change of heart seemed effaced by the uprising of feeling for +him. 'O Franklin!' she said. He had risen as she entered, and he stood +looking at her with a smile. It seemed to receive her, to forgive, to +understand. Almost weeping, she went to him with outstretched hands, +faltering, 'I am so happy, and I am so sorry, dear Franklin. Oh, forgive +me if I have hurt your life.' + +He looked at her, no longer smiling, very gravely, holding her hands, +and she knew that he was not thinking of his life, but of hers. And, +with a further pang, she remembered that the last time they had stood +so--she and Franklin--she had given him more hope for his life than ever +before in all their histories. He must remember, too, and he must feel +her unworthy in remembering, and even though she did not need Franklin, +she could not bear him to think her unworthy. 'Forgive me,' she +repeated. And the tears rose to her eyes. 'I've been so tossed, so +unstable. I haven't known. I only know now, you see, dear Franklin. I've +really fallen in love at last. Can you ever forgive me?' + +'For not having fallen in love with me?' he asked gently. + +'No, dear,' she answered, forced into complete sincerity. What was it in +Franklin that compelled sincerity, and made it so easy to be sincere? +There, at least, was a quality for which one would always need him. +'No, not for that, but for having thought that I might, perhaps, fall in +love with you. It is the hope I gave you that must make this seem so +sudden and so cruel.' + +He had not felt her cruel, but he had felt something that was now giving +his eyes their melancholy directness of gaze. He was looking at his +Althea; he was not judging her; but he was wishing that she had been +able to think of him a little more as mere friend, a little more as the +man who, after all, had loved her all these years; wishing that she had +not so completely forgotten him, so completely relegated and put him +away when her new life was coming to her. But he understood, he did not +judge, and he answered, 'I don't think you've been cruel, Althea dear, +though it's been rather cruel of fortune, if you like, to arrange it in +just this way. As for hurting my life, you've been the most beautiful +thing in it.' + +Something in his voice, final acceptance, final resignation, as though, +seeing her go for ever, he bowed his head in silence, filled her with +intolerable sadness. Was it that she wanted still to need him, or was it +that she could not bear the thought that he might, some day, no longer +need her? + +The sense of an end of things, chill and penetrating like an autumnal +wind, made all life seem bleak and grey for the moment. 'But, Franklin, +you will always be my friend. That is not changed,' she said. 'Please +tell me that nothing of that side of things is changed, dear Franklin.' + +And now that sincerity in him, that truth-seeing and truth-speaking +quality that was his power, became suddenly direful. For though he +looked at her ever so gently and ever so tenderly, his eyes pierced her. +And, helplessly, he placed the truth before them both, saying: 'I'll +always be your friend, of course, dear Althea. You'll always be the most +beautiful thing I've had in my life; but what can I be in yours? I don't +belong over here, you know. I'll not be in your life any longer. How can +it not be changed? How will you stay my friend, dear Althea?' + +The tears rolled down her cheeks. That he should see, and accept, and +still love her, made him seem dearer than ever before, while, in her +heart, she knew that he spoke the truth. 'Don't--don't, dear Franklin,' +she pleaded. 'You will be often with us. Don't talk as if it were at an +end. How could our friendship have an end? Don't let me think that you +are leaving me.' + +He smiled a little, but it was a valorous smile. 'I'll never leave you +in that way.' + +'Don't speak, then, as if I were leaving you.' + +But Franklin, though he smiled the valorous smile, couldn't give her a +consolation not his to give. Did he see clearly, and for the first time, +that he had always counted for her as a solace, a substitute for the +things he couldn't be, and that now, when these things had come to her, +he counted really for nothing at all? If he did see it, he didn't resent +it; he would understand that, too, even though it left him with no +foothold in her life. But he couldn't pretend--to give her comfort--that +she needed him any longer. 'I want to count for anything you'll let me +count for,' he said; 'but--it isn't your fault, dear--I don't think I +will ever count for much, now; I don't see how I can. If that's being +left, I guess I am left.' + +She gazed at him, and all that she had to offer was her longing that the +truth were not the truth, and for the moment of silent confrontation her +pain was so great that its pressure brought an involuntary cry--protest +or presage--it felt like both. 'You will--you will count--for much more, +dear Franklin.' + +She didn't know that it was the truth; his seemed to be the final truth; +but it came, and it had to be said, and he could accept it as her +confession and her atonement. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + + +Franklin was gone and Sir Charles was gone, and Lady Pickering soon +followed, not in the least discomfited by the unexpected turn of events. +Lady Pickering could hardly have borne to suspect that Gerald preferred +to flirt with Miss Jakes rather than with herself; that he preferred to +marry her was nothing of an affront. Althea herself was very soon to +return to America for a month with Aunt Julia and the girls, settle +business matters and see old friends before turning her face, this time +for good, to the country that was now to be her home. + +Franklin was gone, and Gerald and Helen were left, and all that Gerald +more and more meant, all that was bright and alien too--the things of +joy and the things of adjustment and of wonder--effaced poor Franklin +while it emphasised those painful truths that he had seen and shown her +and that she had only been able to protest against. The thought of +Franklin came hardly at all, though the truths he had put before her +lingered in a haunting sense of disappointment with herself; she had +failed Franklin in deeper, more subtle ways than in the mere shattering +of his hopes. + +Althea had never been a good business woman; her affairs were taken care +of for her in Boston by wise and careful cousins; but she found that +Gerald, in spite of his air of irresponsibility, was a very good +business man, and it was he who pointed out to her, with cheerful and +affectionate frankness, that her fortune was not as large as she, with +her heretofore unexacting demands on it, had imagined. It was only when +Althea took for granted that it could suffice for much larger, new +demands, that Gerald pointed out the facts of limitation; to himself, he +made this clear and sweet, the facts were amply sufficient; there was +more than enough for his sober wants. But Althea, sitting over the +papers with him in the library, and looking rather vague and wistful, +realised that if Gerald's wants were to be the chief consideration many +of her own must, indeed, go unsatisfied. Gerald evidently took it +perfectly for granted that her wants would be his. Looking up at the +flat and faded portraits of bygone Digbys, while this last one, his +charming eyes lifted so brightly and so intelligently upon her, made +things clear, looking up, over his head, at these ancestors of her +affianced, Althea saw in their aspect of happy composure that they, too, +had always taken it for granted that their wives' wants were just +that--just their own wants. She couldn't--not at first--lucidly +articulate to herself any marked divergence between her wants and +Gerald's; she, too, wanted to see Merriston House restored and made +again into a home for Digbys; but Merriston House had been seen by her +as a means, not as an end. She had seen it as a centre to a larger life; +he saw it as a boundary beyond which they could not care to stray. After +the golden bliss of the first days of her new life there, as Gerald's +promised wife, there came for her a pause of rather perplexed reaction +in this sense of limits, this sense of being placed in a position that +she must keep, this strange sense of slow but sure metamorphosis into +one of a succession of Mrs. Digbys whose wants were their husbands'. + +'Yes, yes, I quite see, dear,' she said at intervals, while Gerald +explained to her what it cost to keep up even such a small place. 'What +a pity that those stocks of mine you were telling me about don't yield +more. It isn't much we have, is it?' + +'I think it's a great deal,' laughed Gerald. 'It's quite enough to be +very happy on. And, first and foremost, when it's a question of +happiness, and since you are so dear and generous, I shall be able to +hunt at last and keep my own horses. I'm sick of being dependent on my +friends for a mount now and then. Not that you'll have much sympathy +with that particular form of happiness, I know,' he added, smiling, as +he put his hand on her shoulder and scanned the next document. + +Althea was silent for a moment. She hardly knew what the odd shock that +went through her meant; then she recognised that it was fear. To see it +as that gave her courage; at all events, love Gerald as she did, she +would not be a coward for love of him. The effort was in her voice, +making it tremulous, as she said: 'But, Gerald, you know I don't like +hunting; you know I think it cruel.' + +He looked at her; he smiled. 'So do I, you nice dear.' + +'But you won't pain me by doing it--you will give it up?' + +It was now his turn to look really a little frightened. 'But it's in my +blood and bones, the joy of it, Althea. You wouldn't, seriously, ask me +to give it up for a whim?' + +'Oh, it isn't a whim.' + +'A theory, then.' + +'I think you ought to give it up for a theory like that one. Yes, I even +think that you ought to give it up to please me.' + +'But why shouldn't you give up your theory to please me?' He had turned +his eyes on his papers now, and was feigning to scan them. + +'It is a question of right and wrong to me.' + +Gerald was silent for a moment. He was not irritated, she saw that; not +angry. He quite recognised her point, and he didn't like her the less +for holding to it; but he recognised his own point just as clearly, and, +after the little pause, she found that he was resolute in holding to it. + +'I'm afraid I can't give it up--even to please you, dear,' he said. + +Althea sat looking down at the papers that lay on the table; she saw +them through tears of helpless pain. There was nothing to be done and +nothing to be said. She could not tell him that, since he did not love +her sufficiently to give up a pleasure for her sake, she must give him +up; nor could she tell him that he must not use her money for pleasures +that she considered wrong. But it was this second impossible retort--the +first, evidently, did not cross his mind--that was occupying Gerald. He +was not slow in seeing delicacies, though he was slow indeed in seeing +what might have been solemnities. The position couldn't strike him as +solemn; he couldn't conceive that a woman might break off her +engagement for such a cause; but he did see his own position of +beneficiary as delicate. + +His next words showed it: 'Of course I won't hunt here, if you really +say not. I could go away to hunt. The difficulty is that we want to keep +horses, don't we? and if I have a hunter it will be rather funny never +to use him at home.' + +Althea saw that it would be rather funny. 'If you have a hunter I would +far rather you hunted here than that you went away to hunt.' + +'Perhaps you'd rather I had a horse that couldn't hunt. The hunter would +be your gift, of course. I could just go on depending on my friends for +a mount, though that would look funny, too, wouldn't it?' + +'If you will hunt, I want to give you your hunter.' + +'In a sense it will be using your money to do something you disapprove +of.' Gerald was smiling at her as though he felt that he was bringing +her round to reasonableness. 'Perhaps that's ugly.' + +'Please don't speak of the money; mine is yours.' + +'That makes me seem all the dingier, I know,' said Gerald, half +ruefully, yet still smiling at her. 'I do wish I could give it up, just +to please you, but really I can't. You must just shut your eyes and +pretend I'm not a brute.' + +After this little encounter, which left its mark on Althea's heart, she +felt that Gerald ought to be the more willing to yield in other things +and to enter into her projects. 'Don't you think, dear,' she said to him +a day or two after, when they were walking together, 'don't you think +that you ought soon to be thinking of a seat in Parliament? That will +be such a large, worthy life for you.' + +Gerald, as they walked, was looking from right to left, happily, +possessively, over the fields and woods. He brought his attention to her +suggestion with a little effort, and then he laughed. 'Good gracious, +no! I've no political views.' + +'But oughtn't you to have them?' + +'You shall provide me with them, dear.' + +'Gladly; and will you use them?' + +'Not in Parliament,' laughed Gerald. + +'But seriously, dear, I hope you will think of it.' + +He turned gay, protesting, and now astonished eyes upon her. 'But I +can't think of it seriously. Old Battersby is a member for these parts, +and his seat is as firm as a rock.' + +'Can't you find another seat?' + +'But, my dear, even if I had any leaning that way, which I haven't, +where am I to find the time and money?' + +'Give less time and money to hunting,' she could not repress. + +But, over the sinking of her heart, she kept her voice light, and +Gerald, all unsuspecting, answered, as if it were a harmless jest they +were bandying, 'What a horrid score! But, yes, it's quite true; I want +my time for hunting and farming and studying a bit, and then you mustn't +forget that I enjoy dabbling at my painting in my spare moments and have +the company of my wise and charming Althea to cultivate. I've quite +enough to fill my time with.' + +She was baffled, perplexed, and hurt. Her thoughts fixed with some irony +on his painting. Dabble at it indeed. Gerald had shown her some of his +sketches and they had hardly seemed to Althea to merit more than that +description. Her own tastes had grown up securely framed by books and +lectures. Her speciality was early Italian art. She liked pictures of +Madonnas surrounded by exquisite accessories--all of which she +accurately remembered. She didn't at all care for Japanese prints, and +Gerald's sketches looked to her rather like Japanese prints. She really +didn't imagine that he intended her to take them seriously, and when he +had brought them out and shown them to her she had said, 'Pretty, very +pretty indeed, dear; really you have talent, I'm sure of it. With hard +work, under a good master, you might have become quite a painter.' She +had then seen the little look of discomfiture on Gerald's face, though +he laughed good-humouredly as he put away his sketches, saying to Helen, +who was present, 'I'm put in my place, you see.' + +Althea had hastened to add, 'But, dear, really I think them very pretty. +They show quite a direct, simple feeling for colour. Don't they, Helen? +Don't you feel with me that they are very pretty?' + +Helen had said that she knew nothing about pictures, but liked Gerald's +very much. + +It was hard now to be asked to accept this vagrant artistry instead of +the large, political life she had seen for him. And what of the London +drawing-room? + +'You must keep in touch with people, Gerald,' she said. 'You mustn't +sink into the country squire for ever.' + +'Oh, but that's just what I want to sink into,' said Gerald. 'Don't +bother about people, though, dear. We can have plenty of people to stay +with us, and go about a bit ourselves.' + +'But we must be in London for part of the year,' said Althea. + +'Oh, you will run up now and then for a week whenever you like,' said +Gerald. + +'A week! How can one keep in touch with what is going on in a week? +Can't we take a little house there? One of those nice little old houses +in Westminster, for example?' + +'A house, my dear! Why, you don't want to leave Merriston, do you? What +would become of Merriston if we had a house in London--and of all our +plans? We really couldn't manage that, dear--we really couldn't afford +it.' + +Yes, she saw the life very distinctly, now; that of the former Mrs. +Digbys--that of cheerful squiress and wise helpmate. And, charmed though +she was with her lover, Althea was not charmed with that prospect. She +promised herself that things should turn out rather differently. What +was uncomfortable already was to find that her promises were becoming +vague and tentative. There was a new sense of bondage. Bliss was in it, +but the bonds began to chafe. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + + +On a chill day in late October, Franklin Winslow Kane walked slowly down +a narrow street near Eaton Square examining the numbers on the doors as +he passed. He held his umbrella open over his shoulder, for propitiation +rather than for shelter, since the white fog had not yet formed into a +drizzle. His trousers were turned up, and his feet, wisely, for the +streets were wet and slimy, encased in neat galoshes. After a little +puzzling at the end of the street, where the numbers became confusing, +he found the house he sought on the other side--a narrow house, painted +grey, a shining knocker upon its bright green door, and rows of evenly +clipped box in each window. Franklin picked his way over the road and +rang the bell. This was his first stay in London since his departure +from Merriston in August. He had been in Oxford, in Cambridge, in +Birmingham, and Edinburgh. He had made friends and found many interests. +The sense of scientific links between his own country and England had +much enlarged his consciousness of world-citizenship. He had ceased +altogether to feel like a tourist, he had almost ceased to feel like an +alien; how could he feel so when he had come to know so many people who +had exactly his own interests? This wider scope of understanding +sympathy was the main enlargement that had come to him, at least it was +the main enlargement for his own consciousness. Another enlargement +there was, but it seemed purely personal and occupied his thoughts far +less. + +He waited now upon the doorstep of old Miss Buchanan's London house, and +he had come there to call upon young Miss Buchanan. The memory of +Helen's unobtrusive, wonderfully understanding kindness to him during +his last days at Merriston, remained for him as the only bright spot in +a desolate blankness. He had not seen her again. She had been paying +visits, but she had written in return to a note of inquiry from +Cambridge, to say that she was settled, now, in London for a long time +and that she would be delighted to see him on the day he suggested--that +of his arrival in town. + +He was ushered by the most staid, most crisp of parlour-maids, not into +Helen's own little sanctum downstairs, but into the drawing-room. It was +a narrow room, running to the back of the house where a long window +showed a ghostly tree in the fog outside, and it was very much crowded +with over-large furniture gathered together from Miss Buchanan's past. +There were chintz-covered chairs and sofas that one had to make one's +way around, and there were cabinets filled with china, and there were +tables with reviews and book-cutters laid out on them. And it was the +most cheerful of rooms; three canaries sang loudly in a spacious gilt +cage that stood in a window, the tea-table was laid before the fire, and +the leaping firelight played on the massive form of the black cat, +dozing in his basket, on the gilt of the canaries' cage, on the china +in the cabinets, the polished surface of the chintz, and the copper +kettle on the tea-table. + +Franklin stood and looked about him, highly interested. He liked to +think that Helen had such a comfortable refuge to fall back upon, though +by the time that old Miss Buchanan appeared he had reflected that so +much comfort might be just the impediment that had prevented her from +taking to her wings as he felt persuaded she could and should do. Old +Miss Buchanan interested him even more than her room. She was a firm, +ample woman of over sixty, with plentiful grey hair brushed back +uncompromisingly from her brow, tight lips, small, attentive eyes with +projecting eyebrows over them, and an expression at once of reticence +and cordiality. She wore a black dress of an old-fashioned cut, and +round her neck was a heavy gold chain and a large gold locket. + +Helen would be in directly, she said, and expected him. + +Franklin saw at once that she took him for granted, and that she was +probably in the habit of taking all Helen's acquaintances for granted, +and of making them comfortable until Helen came and took them off her +hands. She had, he inferred, many interests of her own, and did not +waste much conjecture on stray callers. Franklin was quite content to +count as a stray caller, and he had always conjecture enough for two in +any encounter. He talked away in his even, deliberate tones, while they +drank tea and ate the hottest of muffins that stood in a covered dish on +a brass tripod before the fire, and, while they talked, Miss Buchanan +shot rather sharper glances at him from under her eyebrows. + +'So you were at Merriston with Helen's Miss Jakes,' she said, placing +him. 'It made a match, that party, didn't it? Quite a good thing for +Gerald Digby, too, I hear. Miss Jakes is soon to be back, Helen tells +me.' + +'Next week,' said Franklin. + +'And the wedding for November.' + +'So I'm told.' + +'You've known Miss Jakes for some time?' + +'For almost all my life,' said Franklin, with his calm and candid smile. + +'Oh, old friends, then. You come from Boston, too, perhaps?' + +'Well, I come from the suburbs, in the first place, but I've been in the +hub itself for a long time now,' said Franklin. 'Yes, I'm a very old +friend of Miss Jakes's. I'm very much attached to her.' + +'Ah, and are you pleased with the match?' + +'It seems to please Althea, and that's the main thing. I think Mr. Digby +will make her happy; yes, I'm pleased.' + +'Yes,' said Miss Buchanan meditatively. 'Yes, I suppose Gerald Digby +will make a pleasant husband. He's a pleasant creature. I've always +considered him very selfish, I confess; but women seem to fall in love +with selfish men.' + +Franklin received this ambiguous assurance with a moment or so of +silence, and then remarked that marriage might make Mr. Digby less +selfish. + +'You mean,' said Miss Buchanan, 'that she's selfish too, and won't let +him have it all his own way?' + +Franklin did not mean that at all. 'Life with a high-minded, +true-hearted woman sometimes alters a man,' he commented. + +'Oh, she's that, is she?' said Miss Buchanan. 'I've not met her yet, you +see. Well, I don't know that I've much expectation of seeing Gerald +Digby alter. But he's a pleasant creature, as I said, and I don't think +he's a man to make any woman unhappy. In any case your friend is +probably better off married to a pleasant, selfish man than not married +at all,' and Miss Buchanan smiled a tight, kindly smile. 'I don't like +this modern plan of not getting married. I want all the nice young women +I know to get married, and the sooner the better; it gives them less +time to fuss over their feelings.' + +'Well, it's better to fuss before than after, isn't it?' Franklin +inquired. + +'Fussing after doesn't do much harm,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and there's +not so much time for fussing then. It's fussing before that leaves so +many of the nicest girls old maids. My niece Helen is the nicest girl I +know, and I sometimes think she'll never marry now. It vexes me very +much,' said Miss Buchanan. + +'She's a very nice girl,' said Franklin. 'And she's a very noble woman. +But she doesn't know it; she doesn't know her own capacities. I'm very +much attached to your niece, Miss Buchanan.' + +Miss Buchanan shot him another glance and then laughed. 'Well, we can +shake hands over that,' she remarked. 'So am I. And you are quite right; +she is a fine creature and she's never had a chance.' + +'Ah, that's just my point,' said Franklin gravely. 'She ought to have a +chance; it ought to be made for her, if she can't make it for herself. +And she's too big a person for that commonplace solution of yours, Miss +Buchanan. You're of the old ideas, I see; you don't think of women as +separate individuals, with their own worth and identity. You think of +them as borrowing worth and identity from some man. Now that may be good +enough for the nice girl who's only a nice girl, but it's not good +enough for your niece, not good enough for a noble woman. I'd ask a +happy marriage for her, of course, but I'd ask a great deal more. She +ought to put herself to some work, develop herself, find herself all +round.' + +Miss Buchanan, while Franklin delivered himself of these convictions, +leaned back in her chair, her arms crossed on her bosom, and observed +him with amused intentness. When he had done, she thus continued to +observe him for some moments of silence. 'No, I'm of the old ideas,' she +said at last. 'I don't want work for Helen, or development, or anything +of that sort. I want happiness and the normal life. I don't care about +women doing things, in that sense, unless they've nothing better to do. +If Helen were married to a man of position and ability she would have +quite enough to occupy her. Women like Helen are made to hold and +decorate great positions; it's the ugly, the insignificant women, who +can do the work of the world.' + +Franklin heard her with a cheerful, unmoved countenance, and after a +moment of reflection observed, 'Well, that seems to me mighty hard on +the women who aren't ugly and insignificant--mighty hard,' and as Miss +Buchanan looked mystified, he was going on to demonstrate to her that +to do the work of the world was every human creature's highest +privilege, when Helen entered. + +Franklin, as he rose and saw his friend again, had a new impression of +her and a rather perturbing one. Little versed as he was in the lore of +the world--the world in Miss Buchanan's sense--he felt that Helen, +perhaps, expressed what Miss Buchanan could not prove. It was true, her +lovely, recondite personality seemed to flash it before him, she didn't +fit easily into his theories of efficiency and self-development by +effort. Effort--other people's effort--seemed to have done long ago all +that was necessary for her. She was developed, she was finished, she +seemed to belong to quite another order of things from that which he +believed in, to an order framed for her production, as it were, and +justified, perhaps, by her mere existence. She was like a flower, and +ought a flower to be asked to do more than to show itself and bloom in +silence? + +Franklin hardly formulated these heresies; they hovered, only, as a sort +of atmosphere that had its charm and yet its sadness too, and that +seemed, in charm and sadness, to be part of Helen Buchanan's very being. + +She had taken his hand and was looking at him with those eyes of distant +kindness--so kind and yet so distant--and she said in the voice that was +so sincere and so decisive, a voice sweet and cold as a mountain brook, +that she was very glad to see him again. + +Yes, she was like a flower, a flower removed immeasurably from his +world; a flower in a crystal vase, set on a high and precious cabinet, +and to be approached only over stretches of shining floor. What had he +to do with, or to think of, such a young woman who, though +poverty-stricken, looked like a princess, and who, though smiling, had +at her heart, he knew, a despair of life? + +'I'm very glad indeed to see you,' he said gravely, despite himself, and +scanning her face; 'it seems a very long time.' + +'Does that mean that you have been doing a great deal?' + +'Yes; and I suppose it means that I've missed you a great deal, too,' +said Franklin. 'I got into the habit of you at Merriston; I feel it's +queer not to find you in a chair under a tree every day.' + +'I know,' said Helen; 'one gets so used to people at country houses; +it's seeing them at breakfast that does it, I think. It was nice under +that tree, wasn't it? and how lazy I was. I'm much more energetic now; +I've got to the Purgatory, with the dictionary. Am I to have a fresh pot +of tea to myself, kind Aunt Grizel? You see how I am spoiled, Mr. Kane.' + +She had drawn off her gloves and tossed aside her long, soft coat--that +looked like nobody else's coat--and, thin and black and idle, she sat in +a low chair by the fire, and put out her hand for her cup. 'I've been to +a musical,' she said. And she told them how she had been wedged into a +corner for an interminable sonata and hadn't been able to get away. 'I +tried to, once, but my hostess saw me and made a most ominous hiss at +me; every one's eye was turned on me, and I sank back again, covered +with shame and confusion.' + +Then she questioned him, and Franklin told her about his interesting +little tour, and the men he had met and the work they were doing. +'Splendid work, I can tell you,' said Franklin, 'and you have splendid +men. It's been a great time for me; it's done me a lot of good. I feel +as if I'd got hold of England; it's almost like being at home when you +find so many splendid people interested in the things that interest +you.' + +And presently, after a little pause, in which he contemplated the fire, +he added, lifting his eyes to Helen and smiling over the further idea: +'And see here, I'm forgetting another thing that's happened to me since +I saw you.' + +'Something nice, I hope.' + +'Well, that depends on how one looks at it,' said Franklin, considering. +'I can't say that it pleases me; it rather oppresses me, in fact. But +I'm going to get even with it, though that will take thought--thought +and training.' + +'It sounds as though you were going to be a jockey.' + +'No, I'm not going to be a jockey,' said Franklin. 'It's more solemn +than you think. What do you say to this? I'm a millionaire; I'm a +multi-millionaire. If that isn't solemn I don't know what is.' + +Miss Grizel Buchanan put down the long golf-stocking she was knitting, +and, over her spectacles, fixed her eyes on the strange young man who +had delayed till now the telling of this piece of news. She examined +him. In all her experience she had never come across anything like him. +Helen gave a little exclamation. + +'My dear Mr. Kane, I do congratulate you,' she said. + +'Why?' asked Franklin. + +'Why, it's glorious news,' said Helen. + +'I don't know about that,' said Franklin. 'I'm not a glorious person. +The mere fact of being a millionaire isn't glorious; it may be +lamentable.' + +'The mere fact of power is glorious. What shall you do?' asked Helen, +gazing thoughtfully at him as though to see in him all the far, new +possibilities. + +'Well, I shall do as much as I can for my own science of physics--that +is rather glorious, I own. I shall be able to help the first-rate men to +get at all sorts of problems, perhaps. Yes, that is rather glorious.' + +'And won't you build model villages and buy a castle and marry a +princess?' + +'I don't like castles and I don't know anything about princesses,' said +Franklin, smiling. 'As for philanthropy, I'll let people wiser than I am +at it think out plans for doing good with the money. I'll devote myself +to doing what I know something about. I do know something about physics, +and I believe I can do something in that direction.' + +'You take your good fortune very calmly, Mr. Kane,' Miss Grizel now +observed. 'How long have you known about it?' + +'Well, I heard a week ago, and news has been piling in ever since. I'm +fairly snowed up with cables,' said Franklin. 'It's an old uncle of +mine--my mother's brother--who's left it to me. He always liked me; we +were always great friends. He went out west and built railroads and made +a fortune--honestly, too; the money is clean--as clean as you can get +it nowadays, that is to say. I couldn't take it if it wasn't. The only +thing to do with money that isn't clean is to hand it over to the people +it's been wrongfully taken from--to the nation, you know. It's a pity +that isn't done; it would be a lot better than building universities and +hospitals with it--though it's a problem; yes, I know it's a problem.' +Franklin seemed to-day rather oppressed with a sense of problems. He +gave this one up after a thoughtful survey of the fire, and went on: 'He +was a fine old fellow, my uncle; I didn't see him often, but we +sometimes wrote, and he used to like to hear how I was getting on in my +work. He didn't know much about it; I don't think he ever got over +thinking that atoms were a sort of bug,' Franklin smiled, unaware of his +listeners' surprise; 'but he seemed to like to hear, so I always told +him everything I'd time to write about. It made me sad to hear he'd +gone; but it was a fine life, yes, it was a mighty big, fine, useful +life,' said Franklin Kane, looking thoughtfully into the fire. And while +he looked, musing over his memories, Miss Buchanan and her niece +exchanged glances. 'This is a very odd creature, and a very nice one,' +Miss Grizel's glance said; and Helen's replied, with playful eyebrows +and tender lips, 'Isn't he a funny dear?' + +'Now, see here,' said Franklin, looking up from his appreciative +retrospect and coming back to the present and its possibilities, 'now +that I've got all this money, you must let me spend a little of it on +having good times. You must let me take you to plays and +concerts--anything you've time for; and I hope, Miss Buchanan,' said +Franklin, turning his bright gaze upon the older lady, 'that I can +persuade you to come too.' + +Helen said that she would be delighted, and Miss Grizel avowed herself a +devoted playgoer, and Franklin, taking out his notebook, inscribed their +willingness to do a play on Wednesday night. 'Now,' he said, scanning +its pages, 'Althea lands on Friday and Mr. Digby goes to meet her, I +suppose. They must come in, too; we'll all have fun together.' + +'Gerald can't meet her,' said Helen; 'he has an engagement in the +country, and doesn't get back to London till Saturday. It's an old +standing engagement for a ball. I'm to welcome Althea back to London for +him.' + +Franklin paused, his notebook in his hand, and looked over it at Helen. +He seemed taken aback, though at once he mastered his surprise. 'Oh, is +that so?' was his only comment. Then he added, after a moment's +reflection: 'Well, I guess I'll run up and meet her myself, then. I've +always met and seen her off in America, and we'll keep up the old custom +on this side.' + +'That would be very nice of you,' said Helen. 'Of course she has that +invaluable Amelie to look after her, and, of course, Gerald knew that +she would be all right, or he would have managed it.' + +'Of course,' said Franklin. 'And we'll keep up the old custom.' + +That evening there arrived for Miss Buchanan and her niece two large +boxes--one for Miss Grizel, containing carnations and roses, and one for +Helen containing violets. Also, for the younger lady, was a smaller--yet +still a large box--of intricately packed and very sophisticated sweets. +Upon them Mr. Kane had laid a card which read: 'I don't approve of them, +but I'm sending them in the hope that you do.' Another box for Miss +Grizel contained fresh groundsel and chickweed for her canaries. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + + +Althea was an excellent sailor and her voyage back to England was as +smooth and as swift as money could make it. She had been seen off by +many affectionate friends, and, since leaving America, the literature, +the flowers and the fruit with which they had provided her had helped to +pass the hours, tedious at best on ship-board. Two other friends, not so +near, but very pleasant--they were New York people--were also making the +voyage, but as they were all very sea-sick, intercourse with them +consisted mainly in looking in upon them as they lay, mute and enduring, +within their berths, and cheering them with the latest reports of +progress. Althea looked in upon them frequently, and she read all her +books, and much of her time, besides, had been spent in long, formless +meditations--her eyes fixed on the rippled, grey expanse of the Atlantic +while she lay encased in furs on her deck chair. These meditations were +not precisely melancholy, it was rather a brooding sense of vague +perplexity that filled the dream-like hours. She had left her native +land, and she was speeding towards her lover and towards her new life; +there might have been exhilaration as well as melancholy in these facts. +But though she was not melancholy, she was not exhilarated. It was a +confused regret that came over her in remembering Boston, and it was a +confused expectancy that filled her when she looked forward to Gerald. +Gerald had written to her punctually once a week while she had been in +America, short, but very vivid, very interesting and affectionate +letters. They told her about what he was doing, what he was reading, the +people he saw and his projects for their new life together. He took it +for granted that this was what she wanted, and of course it was what she +wanted, only--and it was here that the confused regrets arose in +remembering Boston--the letters received there, where she was so much of +a centre and so little of a satellite, had seemed, in some way, lacking +in certain elements that Boston supplied, but that Merriston House, she +more and more distinctly saw, would never offer. She was, for her own +little circle, quite important in Boston. At Merriston House she would +be important only as Gerald Digby's wife and as the mistress of his +home, and that indeed--this was another slightly confusing fact--would +not be great importance. Even in Boston, she had felt, her importance +was still entirely personal; she had gained none from her coming +marriage. Her friends were perfectly accustomed to the thought of +coronets and ancient estates in connection with foreign alliances, and +Althea was a little vexed in feeling that they really did not appreciate +at its full value the significance of a simple English gentleman with a +small country seat. 'I suppose you'll live quite quietly, Althea, dear,' +more than one old friend had said, with an approbation not altogether +grateful to her. 'Your aunt tells me that it's such a nice little place, +your future home. I'm so glad you are not making a great worldly +match.' Althea had no wish to make a great worldly match, but she did +not care that her friends should see her upon such an over-emphatically +sober background. + +The report of Gerald's charm had been the really luminous fact in her +new situation, and it had been most generously spread by Aunt Julia. +Althea had felt warmed by the compensatory brightness it cast about her. +Althea Jakes was not going to make a great match, but she was, and +everybody knew it, going to marry a 'perfectly charming' man. This, +after all, was to be crowned with beams. It was upon the thought of that +charm that she dwelt when the long meditations became oppressively +confused. She might be giving up certain things--symbolised by the +books, the fruit, the flowers, that testified to her importance in +Boston; she might be going to accept certain difficulties and certain +disappointments, but the firm ground on which she stood was the fact +that Gerald was charming. At moments she felt herself yearn towards that +charm; it was a reviving radiance in which she must steep her rather +numbed and rather weary being. To see his eyes, to see his smile, to +hear his voice that made her think of bells and breezes, would be enough +to banish wistfulness, or, at all events, to put it in its proper place +as merely temporary and negligible. + +Althea's heart beat fast as the shores of Ireland stole softly into +sight on a pearly horizon, and it really fluttered, like that of any +love-sick girl, when her packet of letters was brought to her at +Queenstown. In Gerald's she would feel the central rays coming out to +greet her. But when she had read Gerald's letter it was as if a blank +curtain had fallen before her, shutting out all rays. He was not coming +to meet her at Liverpool. The sharpness of her dismay was like a box on +the ear, and it brought tears to her eyes and anger to her heart. Yes, +actually, with no contrition, or consciousness of the need for it, he +said quite gaily and simply that he would see her in London on Saturday; +he had a ball in the country for Friday night. He offered not the least +apology. He was perfectly unaware of guilt. And it was this innocence +that, after the first anger, filled poor Althea with fear. What did it +bode for the future? Meanwhile there was the humiliating fact to face +that she, the cherished and appreciated Althea, who had never returned +to America without at least three devoted friends to welcome her, was to +land on the dismal Liverpool docks and find no lover to greet her there. +What would Mrs. Peel and Sally Arlington think when they saw her so +bereft? It was the realisation of what they would think, the memory of +the American wonder at the Englishman's traditional indifference to what +the American woman considered her due in careful chivalry, that roused +her pride to the necessity of self-preservation. Mrs. Peel and Sally, at +all events, should not imagine her to be either angry or surprised. She +would show them the untroubled matter-of-fact of the English wife. And +she succeeded admirably in this. When Miss Arlington, sitting up and +dressed at last, said, in Mrs. Peel's cabin, where, leaning on Althea's +arm, she had feebly crept to tea, 'And what fun, Althea, to think that +we shall see him to-morrow morning,' Althea opened candidly surprised +eyes: 'See him? Who, dear?' + +'Why, Mr. Digby, of course. Who else could be him?' said Miss Arlington. + +'But he isn't coming to Liverpool,' said Althea blandly. + +'Not coming to meet you?' Only tact controlled the amazement in Miss +Arlington's question. + +'Didn't you know? Gerald is a very busy man; he has had a long-standing +engagement for this week, and besides I shouldn't have liked him to +come. I'd far rather meet comfortably in London, where I shall see him +the first thing on Saturday. And then you'll see him too.' + +She only wished that she could really feel, what she showed them--such +calm, such reasonableness, and such detachment. + +It was with a gloomy eye that she surveyed the Liverpool docks in the +bleak dawn next morning, seated in her chair, Amelie beside her, a +competent Atlas, bearing a complicated assortment of bags, rugs, and +wraps. No, she had nothing to hope from these inhospitable shores; no +welcoming eyes were there to greet hers. It was difficult not to cry as +she watched the ugly docks draw near and saw the rows of ugly human +faces upturned upon it--peculiarly ugly in colour the human face at this +hour of the morning. Then, suddenly, Amelie made a little exclamation +and observed in dispassionate yet approving tones, 'Tiens; et voila +Monsieur Frankline.' + +'Who? Where?' Althea rose in her chair. + +'Mais oui; c'est bien Monsieur Frankline,' Amelie pointed. 'Voila ce qui +est gentil, par exemple,' and by this comment of Amelie's Althea knew +that Gerald's absence was observed and judged. She got out of her +chair, yet with a strange reluctance. It was not pleasure that she felt; +it was, rather, a fuller realisation of pain. Going to the railing she +looked down at the wharf. Yes, there was Franklin's pale buff-coloured +countenance raised to hers, serene and smiling. He waved his hat. Althea +was only able not to look dismayed and miserable in waving back. That +Franklin should care enough to come; that Gerald should care too little. +But she drew herself together to smile brightly down upon her faithful +lover. Franklin--Franklin above all--must not guess what she was +feeling. + +'Well,' were his first words, as she came down the gangway, 'I thought +we'd keep up our old American habits.' The words, she felt, were very +tactful; they made things easier for her; they even comforted her a +little. One mustn't be too hard on Gerald if it was an American habit. + +'It _is_ a nice one,' she said, grasping Franklin's hand. 'I must make +Gerald acquire it.' + +'Why don't you keep it for me?' smiled Franklin. She felt, as he piloted +her to the Customs, that either his tact or his ingenuousness was +sublime. She leaned on it, whichever it was. + +'Have you seen Gerald?' she asked, as they stood beside her marshalled +array of boxes. 'He seemed very fit and happy in the letters I had at +Queenstown.' + +'No, I've not seen him yet,' smiled Franklin, looking about to catch the +eye of an official. + +'Then'--was on the tip of Althea's tongue--'how did you know I was not +going to be met?' She checked the revealing question, and Franklin's +next remark--whether tactful or ingenuous in its appropriateness she +once more could not tell--answered it: 'I've been seeing a good deal of +Miss Buchanan; she told me Mr. Digby wouldn't be able to come up here.' + +'Oh--Helen!' Althea was thankful to be able to pass from the theme of +Gerald and his inabilities. 'So you have been seeing her. Have you been +long in London? Have you seen her often?' + +'I got to London last Monday, and I've seen her as often as she could +let me. We're very good friends, you know,' said Franklin. + +She didn't know at all, and she found the information rather +bewildering. At Merriston her own situation had far too deeply absorbed +her to leave her much attention for other people's. She had only noticed +that Helen had been kind to Franklin. She suspected that it was now his +ingenuousness that idealised Helen's tolerant kindness. But though her +superior sophistication made a little touch of irony unavoidable, it was +overwhelmed in the warm sense of gratitude. + +Everything was in readiness for her; her corner seat in the train, +facing the engine; a foot-warmer; the latest magazines, and a box of +fruit. How it all brought back Boston--dear Boston--and the reviving +consciousness of imaginative affection. And how it brought back +Franklin. Well, everybody ought to be his good friend, even if they +weren't so in reality. + +'You didn't suppose I'd forget you liked muscatels?' inquired Franklin, +with a mild and unreproachful gentleness when she exclaimed over the +nectarines and grapes. 'Now, please, sit back and let me put this rug +around you; it's chilly, and you look rather pale.' He then went off +and looked out for her friends and for Amelie. Mrs. Peel and Sally, when +they arrived with him, showed more than the general warmth of +compatriots in a foreign land. They knew Franklin but slightly, and he +could but have counted with them as one of Althea's former suitors; but +now, she saw it, he took his place in their eyes as the devoted friend, +and, as the journey went on, counted for more and more in his own right. +Sally and Mrs. Peel evidently thought Franklin a dear. Althea thought so +too, her eyes dwelling on him with wistful observation. There was no +charm; there never had been charm; but the thought of charm sickened her +a little just now. What she rested in was this affection, this kindness, +this constant devotion that had never failed her in the greatest or the +littlest things. And though it was not to see him change into a +different creature, not to see him move on into a different category--as +he had changed and moved in the eyes of the Miss Buchanans--he did gain +in significance when, after a little while, he informed them of the new +fact in his life--the fact of millions. They were Americans of an old +stock, and millions meant to them very external and slightly suspicious +things--things associated with rawness and low ideals; but they couldn't +associate Franklin with low ideals. They exclaimed with interest and +sympathy over his adventure, and they felt nothing funny in his projects +for benefiting physics. They all understood each other; they took light +things--like millions--lightly, and grave things--like ideals and +responsibilities--gravely. And, ah yes, there it was--Althea turning her +head to look at the speeding landscape of autumnal pearl and gold, +thought, over her sense of smothered tears--they knew what things were +really serious. They couldn't mistake the apparent for the real +triviality; they knew that some symbols of affection--trifling as they +might be--were almost necessary. But then they understood affection. It +was at this point that her sore heart sank to a leaden depression. +Affection--cherishing, forestalling, imaginative affection--there was no +lack of it, she was sure of that, in this beautiful England of pearl and +gold which, in its melancholy, its sweetness, its breathing out of +memories immemorial, so penetrated and possessed her; but was there not +a terrible lack of it in the England that was to be hers, and where she +was to make her home? + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + + +It was four days after Althea's arrival in London that Gerald stood in +Helen's sitting-room and confronted her--smoking her cigarette in her +low chair--as he had confronted her that summer on her return from +Paris. Gerald looked rather absent and he looked rather worried, and +Helen, who had observed these facts the moment he came in, was able to +observe them for some time while he stood there before her, not looking +at her, looking at nothing in particular, his eyes turning vaguely from +the mist-enveloped trees outside to the flowers on the writing-table, +and his eyebrows, always very expressive, knitting themselves a little +or lifting as if in the attempt to dispel recurrent and oppressive +preoccupations. It would have been natural in their free intercourse +that, after a certain lapse of time, Helen should ask him what the +matter was, helping him often, with the mere question, to recognise that +something was the matter. But to-day she said nothing, and it was her +silence instead of her questioning that made Gerald aware that he was +standing there expecting to have his state of mind probed and then +elucidated. It added a little to his sense of perplexity that Helen +should be silent, and it was with a slight irritation that he turned and +kicked a log before saying--'I'm rather bothered, Helen.' + +'What is it?' said Helen. 'Money?' This had often been a bother to them +both. + +Half turned from her, he shook his head. 'No, not money; that's all +right now, thanks to Althea.' + +'Well?' Helen questioned. + +He faced her again, a little quizzical, a little confused and at a loss. +'I suppose it's Althea herself.' + +'Oh!' said Helen. She said it with a perceptible, though very mild +change of tone; but Gerald, in his preoccupation, did not notice the +change. + +'You've seen her several times since she came back?' he asked. + +'Yes, twice; I lunched with her and these American friends of hers +yesterday,' said Helen. + +'Well, I've seen her three times,' said Gerald. 'I went to her, as you +know, directly I got back to London on Saturday; I cut my visit at the +Fanshawes two days shorter on purpose. I saw her on Sunday, and I'm just +come from her now. No one could say that I didn't show her every +attention, could they?' It hardly seemed a question, and Helen did not +answer it. 'I don't think she's quite pleased with me,' Gerald then +brought out. + +Still silent, Helen looked at him thoughtfully, but her gaze gave him no +clue. + +'Can you imagine why not?' he asked. + +She reflected, then she said that she couldn't. + +'Well,' said Gerald, 'I think it's because I didn't go to meet her at +Liverpool; from something she said, I think it's that. But I never +dreamed she'd mind, you know. And, really, I ask you, Helen, is it +reasonable to expect a man to give up a long-standing engagement and +take that dreary journey up to that dreary place--I've never seen the +Liverpool docks, but I can imagine them at six o'clock in the +morning--is it reasonable, I say, to expect that of any man? It wasn't +as if I wasn't to see her the next day.' + +Again Helen carefully considered. 'I suppose she found the docks very +dreary--at six o'clock,' she suggested. + +'But surely that's not a reason for wanting me to find them dreary too,' +Gerald laughed rather impatiently. 'I'd have had to go up to Liverpool +on Thursday and spend the night there; do you realise that?' + +Helen went on with the theme of the docks: 'I suppose she wouldn't have +found them so dreary if you'd been on them; and I suppose she expected +you not to find them dreary for the same reason.' + +Gerald contemplated this lucid statement of the case. 'Has she talked to +you about it?' he asked. + +'Not a word. Althea is very proud. If you have hurt her it is the last +thing that she would talk about.' + +'I know she's proud and romantic, and a perfect dear, of course; but do +you really think it a ground for complaint? I mean--would you have felt +hurt in a similar case?' + +'I? No, I don't suppose so; but Althea, I think, is used to a great deal +of consideration.' + +'But, by Jove, Helen, I'm not inconsiderate!' + +'Not considerate, in the way Althea is used to.' + +'Ah, that's just it,' said Gerald, as if, now, they had reached the +centre of his difficulty; 'and I can't pretend to be, either. I can't +pretend to be like Mr. Kane. Imagine that quaint little fellow going up +to meet her. You must own it's rather grotesque--rather tasteless, too, +I think, under the circumstances.' + +'They are very old friends.' + +'Well, but after all, he's Althea's rejected suitor.' + +'It wasn't as a suitor, it was as a friend he went. The fact that she +rejected him doesn't make him any less her friend, or any less +solicitous about her.' + +'It makes me look silly, her rejected suitor showing more solicitude +than I do--unless it makes him look silly; I rather feel it's that way. +But, apart from that, about Althea, I'm really bothered. It's all right, +of course; I've brought her round. I laughed at her a little and teased +her a little, and told her not to be a dear little goose, you know. But, +Helen, deuce take it! the trouble is----' Again Gerald turned and kicked +the log, and then, his hands on the mantelpiece, he gazed with frowning +intentness into the flames. 'She takes it all so much more seriously +than I do,' so he finally brought out his distress; 'so much more +seriously than I can, you know. It's all right, of course; only one +doesn't know quite how to get on.' And now, turning to Helen, he found +her eyes on his, and her silence became significant to him. There was no +response in her eyes; they were veiled, mute; they observed him; they +told him nothing. And he had a sense, new to him and quite inexpressibly +painful, of being shut out. 'I may go on talking to you--about +everything--as I have always done, Helen?' he said. It was hardly a +question; he couldn't really dream that there was anything not to be +talked out with Helen. But there was. Gerald received one of the ugliest +shocks of his life when Helen said to him in her careful voice: 'You +may not talk about Althea to me; not about her feeling for you--or yours +for her.' + +There was a pause after this, and then Gerald got out: 'I say--Helen!' +on a long breath, staring at her. 'You mean----' he stammered a little. + +'That you owe it to Althea--just because we had to talk her over once, +before you were sure that you wanted to make her your wife--not to +discuss her feelings or her relation to you with anybody, now that she +is to be your wife. I should think you would see that for yourself, +Gerald. I should think you would see that Althea would not marry you if +she thought that you were capable of talking her over with me.' + +Gerald had flushed deeply and vividly. 'But Helen--with _you_!' he +murmured. It was a helpless appeal, a helpless protest. His whole life +seemed to rise up and confront her with the contrast between their +reality--his relation and hers--and the relative triviality of this new +episode in his life. And there was his error, and there her inexorable +opposition; the episode was one no longer; he must not treat it as +trivial, a matter for mutual musings and conjectures. His 'With you!' +shook Helen's heart; but, looking past him and hard at the fire, she +only moved her head in slow, slight, and final negation. + +Gerald was silent for a long time, and she knew that he was gazing at +her as a dog gazes when some inexorable and inexplicable refusal turns +its world to emptiness. And with her pain for his pain came the rising +of old anger and old irony against him; for whose fault was it that even +the bitter joy of perfect freedom was cut off? Who had been so blind as +not to see that a wife must, in common loyalty, bring circumspection and +a careful drawing of limits? Who was it who, in his folly, had not known +that his impulsive acquiescence, his idle acceptance of the established +comfort and order held out to him, had cut away half of their +friendship? Absurd for Gerald, now, to feel reproach and injury. For +when he spoke again it was, though in careful tones, with uncontrollable +reproach. 'You know, Helen, I never expected this. I don't know that I'd +have been able to face this----' He checked himself; already he had +learned something of what was required of him. 'It's like poisoning part +of my life for me.' + +Helen did not allow the bitter smile to curl her lips; her inner +rejoinder answered him with: 'Whose fault is it that all my life is +poisoned?' + +'After all,' said Gerald, and now with a tremor in his voice, 'an old +friend--a friend like you--a more than sister--is nearer than any new +claims.' She had never heard Gerald's voice break before--for anything +to do with her, at least--and she felt that her cheek whitened in +hearing it; but she was able to answer in the same even tones: 'I don't +think so. No one can be near enough to talk about your wife with you.' + +He then turned his back and looked for a long time into the fire. She +guessed that there were tears in his eyes, and that he was fighting with +anger, pain, and amazement, and the knowledge filled her with cruel joy +and with a torturing pity. She longed to tell him that she hated him, +and she longed to put her arms around him and to comfort him--comfort +him because he was going to marry some one else, and must be loyal to +the woman preferred as wife. It was she, however, who first recovered +herself. She got up and pinched a withered flower from the fine azalea +that Franklin Kane had sent her the day before, and, dropping it into +the waste-paper basket, she said at last, very resolutely, 'Come, +Gerald, don't be silly.' + +He showed her now the face of a miserable, sulky boy, and Helen, smiling +at him, went on: 'We have a great many other subjects of conversation, +you will recollect. We can still talk about all the things we used to +talk about. Sit down, and don't look like that, or I shall be angry with +you.' + +She knew her power over him; it was able to deceive him as to their real +situation, and this was to have obeyed pity, not anger. Half unwillingly +he smiled a little, and, rubbing his hand through his hair and sinking +into a chair, he said: 'Laugh at me if you feel like it; I'm ill-used.' + +'Terribly ill-used, indeed,' said Helen. 'I shall go on laughing at you +while you are so ridiculous. Now tell me about the ball at the +Fanshawes, and who was there, and who was the prettiest woman in the +room.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + + +Althea had intended to fix the time of her marriage for the end of +November; but, not knowing quite why, she felt on her return to England +that she would prefer a slightly more distant date. It might be foolish +to give oneself more time for uneasy meditation, yet it might be wise to +give oneself more time for feeling the charm. The charm certainly +worked. While Gerald opened his innocent, yet so intelligent eyes, +rallied her on her dejection, called her a dear little goose, and kissed +her in saying it, she had known that however much he might hurt her she +was helplessly in love with him. In telling him that she would marry him +just before Christmas--they were to have their Christmas in the +Riviera--she didn't intend that he should be given more opportunities +for hurting her, but more opportunities for charming her. Helplessly as +she might love, her heart was a tremulously careful one; it could not +rush recklessly to a goal nor see the goal clearly when pain intervened. +It was not now actual pain or doubt it had to meet, but it was that mist +of confusion, wonder, and wistfulness; it needed to be dispersed, and +Gerald, she felt sure, would disperse it. Gerald, after a questioning +lift of his eyebrows, acquiesced very cheerfully in the postponement. +After all, they really didn't know each other very well; they would +shake down into each other's ways all the more quickly, after marriage, +for the wisdom gained by a longer engagement. He expressed these +reasonable resignations to Althea, who smiled a little wanly over them. + +She was now involved in the rush of new impressions. They were very +crowded. She was to have but a fortnight of London and then, accompanied +by Mrs. Peel and Sally, to go to Merriston for another fortnight or so +before coming back to London for final preparations. Gerald was to be at +Merriston for part of the time, and Miss Harriet Robinson was coming +over from Paris to sustain and guide her through the last throes of her +trousseau. Already every post brought solemn letters from Miss Robinson +filled with detailed questionings as to the ordering of _lingerie_. So +it was really in this fortnight of London that she must gain her +clearest impression of what her new environment was to be; there would +be no time later on. + +There were two groups of impressions that she felt herself, rather +breathlessly, observing; one group was made by Helen and Franklin and +herself, and one by Gerald's friends and relatives, with Gerald himself +as a bright though uncertain centre to it. + +Gerald's friends and relations were all very nice to her and all very +charming people. She had never, she thought, met so many people at once +to whom the term might be applied. Their way of dressing, their way of +talking, their way of taking you, themselves, and everything so easily, +seemed as nearly perfect, as an example of human achievement, as could +well be. Life passed among them would assuredly be a life of gliding +along a sunny, unruffled stream. If there were dark things or troubled +things to deal with, they were kept well below the shining surface; on +the surface one always glided. It was charming, indeed, and yet Althea +looked a little dizzily from side to side, as if at familiar but +unattainable shores, and wondered if some solid foothold on solid earth +were not preferable. She wondered if she would not rather walk than +glide, and under the gliding she caught glimpses, now and then, of her +own dark wonders. They were all very nice to her; but it was as Gerald's +wife that they were nice to her; she herself counted for nothing with +them. They were frivolous people for the most part, though some among +them were serious, and often the most frivolous were those from whom she +would have expected gravity, and the serious those whom, on a first +meeting, she had thought perturbingly frivolous. Some of the political +friends--one who was in the Cabinet, for instance--seemed to think more +about hunting and bridge than about their functions in the State; while +an aunt of Gerald's, still young and very pretty, wrote articles on +philosophy and was ardently interested in ethical societies, in spite of +the fact that she rouged her cheeks, wore clothes so fashionable as to +look recondite, and had a reputation perfectly presentable for social +uses, but not exempt from private whispers. Althea caught such whispers +with particular perturbation. The question of morals was one that she +had imagined herself to face with a cosmopolitan tolerance; but she now +realised that to live among people whose code, in this respect, seemed +one of manners only, was a very different thing from reading about them +or seeing them from afar, as it were, in foreign countries. Gerald's +friends and relatives were anything rather than Bohemian, and most of +them were flawlessly respectable; but they were also anything but +unworldly; they were very worldly, and, from the implied point of view +of all of them, what didn't come out in the world it didn't concern +anybody to recognise--except in whispers. It all resolved itself, in the +case of people one disapproved of, into a faculty for being nice to them +without really having anything to do with them; and to poor Althea this +was a difficult task to undertake; social life, in her experience, was +more involved in the life of the affections and matched it more nearly. +She found, when the fortnight was over, that she was glad, very glad, to +get away to Merriston. The comparative solitude would do her good, she +felt, and in it, above all, the charm would perhaps work more +restoringly than in London. She had been, through everything, more aware +than of any new impression that the old one held firm; but, in that +breathless fortnight, she found that the charm, persistently, would not +be to her what she had hoped it might be. It did not revive her; it did +not lift and glorify her; rather it subjugated her and held her helpless +and in thrall. She was not crowned with beams; rather, it seemed to her +in moments of dizzy insight, dragged at chariot wheels. And more than +once her pride revolted as she was whirled along. + +It was at Merriston, installed, apparently, so happily with her friends, +that the second group of impressions became clearer for her than it had +been in London, when she had herself made part of it--the group that had +to do with Helen, Franklin, and herself. In London, among all the wider +confusions, this smaller but more intense one had not struck her as it +did seeing it from a distance. Perhaps it had been because Franklin, +among all that glided, had been the raft she stood upon, that, in his +company, she had not felt to the full how changed was their relation. +His devotion to her was unchanged; of that she was sure. Franklin had +not altered; it was she who had altered, and she had now to look at him +from the new angle where her own choice had placed her. Seen from this +angle it was clear that Franklin could no longer offer just the same +devotion, however truly he might feel it; she had barred that out; and +it was also clear that he would continue to offer the devotion that she +had left it open to him to offer; but here came the strange +confusion--this devotion, this remnant, this all that could still be +given, hardly differed in practice from the friendship now so frankly +bestowed upon Helen as well as upon herself; and, for a further +strangeness, Franklin, whom she had helplessly seen as passing from her +life, no longer counting in it, was not gone at all; he was there, +indeed, as never before, with the background of his sudden millions to +give him significance. Franklin was, indeed, as firmly ensconced in this +new life that she had entered as he chose to be, and did he not, as a +matter of fact, count in it for more than she did? If it was confusing +to look at Franklin from the angle of her own withdrawal, what was it to +see him altered, for the world, from drab to rose-colour and to see +that people were running after him? This fantastic result of wealth, +Althea, after a stare or two, was able to accept with other ironic +acceptations; it was not indeed London's vision of Franklin that altered +him for her, though it confused her; no, what had altered him more than +anything she could have thought possible, was Helen's new seeing of him. +Helen, she knew quite well, still saw Franklin, pleasantly and clearly, +as drab-colour, still, it was probable, saw him as funny; but it was +evident that Helen had come to feel fond of him, if anything so detached +could be called fondness. He could hardly count for anything with +her--after all, who did?--but she liked him, she liked him very much, +and it amused her to watch him adjust himself to his new conditions. She +took him about with her in London and showed him things and people, +ironically smiling, no doubt, and guarding even while she exposed. And +Helen wouldn't do this unless she had come to see something more than +drab-colour and oddity, and whatever the more might be it was not the +millions. No, sitting in the drawing-room at Merriston, with its +memories of the two emotional climaxes of her life, Althea, with a +sinking heart, felt sure that she had lost something, and that she only +knew it lost from seeing that Helen had found it. It had been through +Helen's blindness to the qualities in Franklin which, timidly, +tentatively, she had put before her, that his worth had grown dim to +herself; this was the cutting fact that Althea tried to edge away from, +but that her sincerity forced her again and again to examine. It was +through Helen's appreciation that she now saw more in Franklin than she +had ever seen before. If he was funny he was also original, full of his +own underivative flavour; if he was drab-colour, he was also beautiful. +Althea recalled the benignity of Helen's eyes as they dwelt upon him, +her smile, startled, almost touched, when some quaint, telling phrase +revealed him suddenly as an unconscious torch-bearer in a dusky, +self-deceiving world. Helen and Franklin were akin in that; they +elicited, they radiated truth, and Althea recalled, too, how their eyes +would sometimes meet in silence when they both saw the same truth +simultaneously. Not that Helen's truth was often Franklin's; they were +as alien as ever in their outlook, of this Althea was convinced; but +though the outlook was so different, the faculty of sight was the same +in both--clear, unperturbed, and profoundly independent. They were +neither of them dusky or self-deceived. And what was she? Sitting in the +drawing-room at Merriston and thinking it all over, Althea asked herself +the question while her heart sank to a deeper dejection. Not only had +she lost Franklin; she had lost herself. She embarked on the dangerous +and often demoralising search for a definite, recognisable +personality--something to lean on with security, a standard and a prop. +With growing dismay she could find only a sorry little group of +shivering hopes and shaken adages. What was she? Only a well-educated +nonentity with, for all coherence and purpose in life, a knowledge of +art and literature and a helpless feeling for charm. Poor Althea was +rapidly sinking to the nightmare stage of introspection; she saw, +fitfully, not restoringly, that it was nightmare, and dragging herself +away from these miserable dissections, fixed her eyes on something not +herself, on the thing that, after all, gave her, even to the nightmare +vision, purpose and meaning. If it were only that, let her, at all +events, cling to it; the helpless feeling for charm must then shape her +path. Gerald was coming, and to be subjugated was, after all, better +than to disintegrate. + +She drove down to meet him in the little brougham that was now +established in the stables. It was a wet, chilly day. Althea, wrapped in +furs, leaned in a corner and looked with an unseeing gaze at the +dripping hedgerows and grey sky. She fastened herself in anticipation on +the approaching brightness. Ah, to warm herself at the light of his +untroubled, unquestioning, unexacting being, to find herself in him. If +he would love her and charm her, that, after all, was enough to give her +a self. + +He was a little late, and Althea did not feel willing to face a public +meeting on the platform. She remained sitting in her corner, listening +for the sound of the approaching train. When it had arrived, she heard +Gerald's voice before she saw him, and the sound thrilled through her +deliciously. He was talking to a neighbour, and he paused for some +moments to chat with him. Then his head appeared at the window, little +drops of rain on his crisp hair, his eyes smiling, yet, as she saw in a +moment, less at her in particular than at the home-coming of which she +was a part. 'Yes,' he turned to the porter to say, 'the portmanteau +outside, the dressing-case in here.' The door was opened and he stepped +in beside her. 'Hello, Althea!' He smiled at her again, while he drew a +handful of silver from his pocket and picked out a sixpence for the +porter. 'Here; all right.' The brougham rolled briskly out of the +station yard. They were in the long up-hill lanes. 'Well, how are you, +dear?' he asked. + +Althea was trembling, but she was controlling herself; she had all the +pain and none of the advantage of the impulsive, emotional woman; +consciousness of longing made instinctive appeal impossible. 'Very well, +thank you,' she smiled, as quietly as he. + +'What a beastly day!' said Gerald, looking out. 'You can't imagine +London. It's like breathing in a wet blanket. The clean air is a +comfort, at all events.' + +'Yes,' smiled Althea. + +'Old Morty Finch is coming down in time for dinner,' Gerald went on. 'I +met him on my way to the station and asked him. Such a good fellow--you +remember him? He won't be too many, will he?' + +'Indeed no.' + +Gerald leaned back, drew the rug up about his knees, and folded his +arms, looking at her, still with his generally contented smile. 'And +your guests are happy? You're enjoying yourself? Miss Arlington plays +the violin, you said. I'm looking forward to hearing her--and seeing her +again, too; she is such a very pretty girl.' + +'Isn't she?' said Althea. And now, as they rolled on between the +dripping hedges, she knew that the trembling of hope and fear was gone, +and that a sudden misery, like that of the earth and sky, had settled +upon her. He had not kissed her. He did not even take her hand. Oh, why +did he not kiss her? why did he not know that she wanted love and +comfort? Only her pride controlled the cry. + +Gerald looked out of the window and seemed to find everything very +pleasant. 'I went to the play last night,' he said. 'Kane took a party +of us--Helen, Miss Buchanan, Lord Compton, and Molly Fanshawe. What a +good sort he is, Kane; a real character.' + +'You didn't get at him at all in the summer, did you?' said Althea, in +her deadened voice. + +'No,' said Gerald reflectively, 'not at all; and I don't think that I +get much more at him now, you know; but I see more what's in him; he is +so extraordinarily kind and he takes his money so nicely. And, O Lord! +how he is being run after! He really has millions, you know; the mothers +are all at his traces trying to track him down, and he is as cheerful +and as unconcerned as you please.' Gerald suddenly smiled round at her +again. 'I say, Althea, don't you regret him sometimes? It would have +been a glorious match, you know.' + +Althea felt herself growing pale. 'Regret him!' she said, and, for her, +almost violently, the opportunity was an outlet for her wretchedness; 'I +can't conceive how a man's money can make any difference. I couldn't +have married Franklin if he'd been a king!' + +'Oh, my dear!' said Gerald, startled; 'I didn't mean it seriously, of +course.' + +'It seems to me,' said Althea, trying to control her labouring breath, +'that over here you take nothing quite so seriously as that--great +matches, I mean, and money.' + +Gerald was silent for a moment; then, in a very courteous voice he said: +'Have I offended you in any way, Althea?' + +Tears stood in her eyes; she turned away her head to hide them. 'Yes, +you have,' she said, and the sound of her voice shocked her, it so +contradicted the crying out of her disappointed heart. + +But though Gerald was blind on occasions that did not seem to him to +warrant any close attention, he was clear-sighted on those that did. He +understood that something was amiss; and though her exclamation had, +indeed, made him angry for a moment, he was now sorry; he felt that she +was unhappy, and he couldn't bear people to be unhappy. 'I've done +something that displeases you,' he said, taking her hand and leaning +forward to look into her eyes, half pleading and half rallying her in +the way she knew so well. 'Do forgive me.' + +She longed to put her head on his shoulder and sob: 'I wanted you to +love me'; but that would have been to abase herself too much; yet the +tears fell as she answered, trying to smile: 'It was only that you hurt +me; even in jest I cannot bear to have you say that I could have been so +sordid.' + +He pressed her hand. 'I was only in fun, of course. Please forgive me.' + +She knew, with all his gay solicitude, his gentle self-reproach, that +she had angered and perplexed him, that she made him feel a little at a +loss with her talk of sordidness, that, perhaps, she wearied him. And, +seeing this, she was frightened--frightened, and angry that she should +be afraid. But fear predominated, and she forced herself to smile at him +and to talk with him during the long drive, as though nothing had +happened. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + + +Some days after Gerald had gone to Merriston, Franklin Kane received a +little note from old Miss Buchanan. Helen, too, had gone to the country +until Monday, as she had told Franklin when he had asked her to see some +pictures with him on Saturday. Franklin had felt a little bereft, +especially since, hoping for her on Saturday, he had himself refused an +invitation. But he did not miss that; the invitations that poured in +upon him, like a swelling river, were sources of cheerful amusement to +him. He, too, was acquiring his little ironies and knew why they poured +in. It was not the big house-party where he would have been a fish out +of water--even though in no sense a fish landed--that he missed; he +missed Helen; and he wouldn't think of going to see pictures without +her. It was, therefore, pleasant to read Miss Buchanan's hospitable +suggestion that he should drop in that afternoon for a cup of tea and to +keep an old woman company. He was very glad indeed to keep Miss Buchanan +company. She interested him greatly; he had not yet in the least made +out what was her object in life, whether she had gained or missed it, +and whether, indeed, she had ever had one to gain or miss. People who +went thus unpiloted through life filled him with wonder and conjecture. + +He found Miss Buchanan as he had found her on the occasion of his first +visit to the little house in Belgravia. Her acute and rugged face showed +not much greater softening for this now wonted guest--showed, rather, a +greater acuteness; but any one who knew Miss Buchanan would know from +its expression that she liked Franklin Kane. 'Well,' she said, as he +drew his chair to the opposite side of the tea-table--very cosy +it was, the fire shining upon them, and the canaries trilling +intermittently--'Well, here we are, abandoned. We'll make the best of +it, won't we?' + +Franklin said that under the circumstances he couldn't feel at all +abandoned. 'Nor do I,' said Miss Buchanan, filling the tea-pot. 'You and +I get on very well together, I consider.' Franklin thought so too. + +'I hope we may go on with it,' said Miss Buchanan, leaning back in her +chair while the tea drew. 'I hope we are going to keep you over here. +You've given up any definite idea of going back, I suppose.' + +Franklin was startled by this confident assurance. His definite idea in +coming over had been, of course, to go back at the end of the autumn, +unless, indeed, a certain cherished hope were fulfilled, in which case +Althea should have decided on any movements. He had hardly, till this +moment, contemplated his own intentions, and now that he did so he found +that he had been guided by none that were definable. It was not because +he had suddenly grown rich and, in his funny way, the fashion, that he +thus stayed on in London, working hard, it is true, and allowing no new +developments to interfere with his work, yet making no plans and setting +no goal before himself. To live as he had been living for the past +weeks was, indeed, in a sense, to drift. There was nothing Franklin +disapproved of more than of drifting; therefore he was startled when +Miss Buchanan's remarks brought him to this realisation. 'Well, upon my +word, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'I hadn't thought about it. No--of course +not--of course, I've not given up the idea of going back. I shall go +back before very long. But things have turned up, you see. There is +Althea's wedding--I must be at that--and there's Miss Helen. I want to +see as much of her as I can before I go home, get my friendship firmly +established, you know.' + +Miss Buchanan now poured out the tea and handed Franklin his cup. 'I +shouldn't think about going yet, then,' she observed. 'London is an +admirable place for the sort of work you are interested in, and I +entirely sympathise with your wish to see as much as you can of Helen.' +She added, after a little pause in which Franklin, still further +startled to self-contemplation, wondered whether it was work, Althea's +wedding, or Helen who had most kept him in London,--'I'm troubled about +Helen; she's not looking at all well; hasn't been feeling well all the +summer. I trace it to that attack of influenza she had in Paris when she +met Miss Jakes.' + +Franklin's thoughts were turned from himself. He looked grave. 'I'm +afraid she's delicate,' he said. + +'There is nothing sickly about her, but she is fragile,' said Miss +Buchanan. 'She can't stand wear and tear. It might kill her.' + +Franklin looked even graver. The thought of his friend killed by wear +and tear was inexpressibly painful to him. He remembered--he would +never forget--the day in the woods, Helen's 'I'm sick to death of it.' +That Helen had a secret sorrow, and that it was preying upon her, he +felt sure, and there was pride for him in the thought that he could help +her there; he could help her to hide it; even her aunt didn't know that +she was sick to death of it. 'What do you suggest might be done?' he now +inquired. 'Do you think she goes out too much? Perhaps a rest-cure.' + +'No; I don't think she over-tires herself; she doesn't go out nearly as +much as she used to. There is nothing to cure and nothing to rest from. +It isn't so much now; I'm here now to make things possible for her. It's +after I'm gone. I'm an old woman; I'm devoted to my niece, and I don't +see what's to become of her when I'm dead.' + +If Franklin had been startled before, he was shocked now. He had never +given much thought to the economic basis of Helen's life, taking it for +granted that though she would like more money, she had, and always would +have, quite enough to live on happily. The idea of an insecure future +for her had never entered his head. He now knew that, for all his +theories of the independence of women, it was quite intolerable to +contemplate an insecure future for Helen. Some women might have it in +them to secure themselves--she was not one of them. She was a flower in +a vase; if the vase were taken away the flower would simply lie where it +fell and wither. He had put down his tea-cup while Miss Buchanan spoke, +and he sat gazing at her. 'Isn't Miss Helen provided for?' he asked. + +'Yes, in a sense she is,' said Miss Buchanan, who, after drinking her +tea, did not go on to her muffin, but still leaned back with folded +arms, her deep-set, small grey eyes fixed on Franklin's face. 'I've seen +to that as best I could; but one can't save much out of a small annuity. +Helen, after my death, will have an income of L150 a year. It isn't +enough. You have only to look at Helen to see that it isn't enough. +She's not fit to scrape and manage on that.' + +Franklin repeated the sum thoughtfully. 'Well, no, perhaps not,' he half +thought, only half agreed; 'not leading the kind of life she does now. +If she could only work at something as well; bring in a little more like +that.' But Miss Buchanan interrupted him. + +'Nonsense, my dear man; what work is there--work that will bring in +money--for a decorative, untrained idler like Helen? And what time would +she have left to live the only life she's fit to lead if she had to make +money? I'm not worried about bare life for Helen; I'm worried about what +kind of life it's to be. Helen was brought up to be an idler and to make +a good marriage--like most girls of her class--and she hasn't made it, +and she's not likely to make it now.' + +'One hundred and fifty pounds isn't enough,' said Franklin, still +thoughtfully, 'for a decorative idler.' + +'That's just it,' Miss Buchanan acquiesced; and she went on after a +moment, 'I'm willing to call Helen a decorative idler if we are talking +of purely economic weights and measures; thank goodness there are other +standards, and we are not likely to see them eliminated from civilised +society for many a generation. For many a generation, I trust, there'll +be people in the world who don't earn their keep, as one may say, and +yet who are more worth while keeping than most of the people who do. To +my mind Helen is such a person. I'd like to tell you a little about her +life, Mr. Kane.' + +'I should be very much obliged if you would,' Franklin murmured, his +thin little face taking on an expression of most intense concentration. +'It would be a great privilege. You know what I feel about Miss Helen.' + +'Yes; it's because I know what you feel about her that I want to tell +you,' said Miss Grizel. 'Not that it's anything startling, or anything +you wouldn't have supposed for yourself; but it illustrates my point, I +think, very well, my point that Helen is the type of person we can't +afford to let go under. Has Helen ever spoken to you about her mother?' + +'Never,' said Franklin, his intent face expressing an almost ritualistic +receptivity. + +'Well, she's a poor creature,' said Miss Buchanan, 'a poor, rubbishy +creature; the most selfish and reckless woman I know. I warned my +brother how it would turn out from the first; but he was infatuated and +had his way, and a wretched way it turned out. She made him miserable, +and she made the children miserable, and she nearly ruined him with her +extravagance; he and I together managed to put things straight, and see +to it that Nigel should come into a property not too much encumbered and +that Helen should inherit a little sum, enough to keep her going--a +little more it was, as a matter of fact, than what I'll be able to leave +her. Well, when my brother died, she was of age and she came into her +modest fortune; for a young girl, with me to back her up, it wasn't +bad. She had hardly seen her mother for three years--they'd always been +at daggers drawn--when one day, up in Scotland, when she was with her +brother--it was before Nigel married--who should appear but Daisy. She +had travelled up there in desperate haste to throw herself on her +children's mercy. She was in terrible straits. She had got into +debt--cards and racing--and she was frightfully involved with some +horror of a man. Her honour was wrecked unless she could pay her debts +and extricate herself. Well, she found no mercy in Nigel; he refused to +give her a farthing. It was Helen who stripped herself of every penny +she possessed and saved her. I don't know whether she touched Helen's +pity, or whether it was mere family pride; the thought of the horror of +a man was probably a strong motive too. All Helen ever said about it to +me was, "How could I bear to see her like that?" So, she ruined herself. +Of course after that it was more than ever necessary that she should +marry. I hadn't begun to save for her, and there was nothing else for +her to look to. Of course I expected her to marry at once; she was +altogether the most charming girl of her day. But there is the trouble; +she never did. She refused two most brilliant offers, one after the +other, and hosts of minor ones. There was some streak of girlish romance +in her, I suppose. I wish I could have been more on the spot and put on +pressure. But it was difficult to be on the spot. Helen never told me +about her offers until long after; and pressure with her wouldn't come +to much. Of course I didn't respect her the less for her foolishness. +But, dear me, dear me,' said Miss Buchanan, turning her eyes on the +fire, 'what a pity it has all been, what a pity it is, to see her +wasted.' + +Franklin listened to this strange tale, dealing with matters to him +particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of +men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all +sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside +fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him +was the thought of Helen in it all. This oppressed him very much. + +Miss Buchanan continued to look into the fire for a little while after +she had finished her story, and then, bringing her eyes back to +Franklin's countenance, she looked at him keenly and steadily. 'And now, +Mr. Kane,' she said, 'you are perhaps asking yourself why I tell you all +this?' + +Franklin was not asking it at all, and he answered with earnest +sincerity: 'Why, no; I think I ought to be told. I want to be told +everything about my friends that I may hear. I'm glad to know this, +because it makes me feel more than ever what a fine woman Miss Helen is, +and I'm sorry, because she's wasted, as you say. I only wish,' said +Franklin, and the intensity of cogitation deepened on his face, 'I only +wish that one could think out some plan to give her a chance.' + +'I wish one could,' said Miss Buchanan. And without any change of voice +she added: 'I want you to marry her, Mr. Kane.' + +Franklin sat perfectly still and turned his eyes on her with no apparent +altering of expression, unless the arrested stillness of his look was +alteration. His eyes and Miss Buchanan's plunged deep into each +other's, held each other's for a long time. Then, slowly, deeply, +Franklin flushed. + +'But, Miss Buchanan,' he said, pausing between his sentences, for he did +not see his way, 'I'm in love with another woman--that is----' and for a +longer pause his way became quite invisible--'I've been in love with +another woman for years.' + +'You mean Miss Jakes,' said Miss Buchanan. 'Helen told me about it. But +does that interfere? Helen isn't likely to be in love with you or to +expect you to be in love with her. And the woman you've loved for years +is going to marry some one else. It's not as if you had any hope.' + +There was pain for Franklin in this reasonable speech, but he could not +see clearly where it lay; curiously, it did not seem to centre on that +hopelessness as regarded Althea. He could see nothing clearly, and there +was no time for self-examination. 'No,' he agreed. 'No, that's true. +It's not as if I had any hope.' + +'I think Helen worthy of any man alive,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and yet, +under the strange circumstances, I know that what I'm asking of you is +an act of chivalry. I want to see Helen safe, and I think she would be +safe with you.' + +Franklin flushed still more deeply. 'Yes, I think she would,' he said. +He paused then, again, trying to think, and what he found first was a +discomfort in the way she had put it. 'It wouldn't be an act of +chivalry,' he said. 'Don't think that. I care for Miss Helen too much +for that. It's all the other way round, you know. I mean'--he brought +out--'I don't believe she'd think of taking me.' + +Miss Grizel's eyes were on him, and it may have been their gaze that +made him feel the discomfort. She seemed to be seeing something that +evaded him. 'I don't look like a husband for a decorative idler, do I, +Miss Buchanan?' he tried to smile. + +Her eyes, with their probing keenness, smiled back. 'You mayn't look +like one, but you are one, with your millions,' she said. 'And I believe +Helen might think of taking you. She has had plenty of time to outgrow +youthful dreams. She's tired. She wants ease and security. She needs a +husband, and she doesn't need a lover at all. She would get power, and +you would get a charming wife--a woman, moreover, whom you care for and +respect--as she does you; and you would get a home and children. I +imagine that you care for children. Decorative idler though she is, +Helen would make an excellent mother.' + +'Yes, I care very much for children,' Franklin murmured, not +confused--pained, rather, by this unveiling of his inner sanctities. + +'Of course,' Miss Buchanan went on, 'you wouldn't want Helen to live out +of England. Of course you would make generous settlements and give her +her proper establishments here. I want Helen to be safe; but I don't +want safety for her at the price of extinction.' + +Obviously, Franklin could see that very clearly, whatever else was dim, +he was the vase for the lovely flower. That was his use and his supreme +significance in Miss Buchanan's eyes. And the lovely flower was to be +left on its high stand where all the world could see it; what other use +was there for it? He quite saw Miss Buchanan's point, and the strange +thing was, in spite of all the struggling of confused pain and +perplexity in him, that here he, too, was clear; with no sense of inner +protest he could make it his point too. He wanted Helen to stay in her +vase; he didn't want to take her off the high stand. He had not time now +to seek for consistency with his principles, his principles must +stretch, that was all; they must stretch far enough to take in Helen and +her stand; once they had done that he felt that there might be more to +say and that he should be able to say it; he felt sure that he should +say nothing that Helen would not like; even if she disagreed, she would +always smile at him. + +'No,' he said, 'it wouldn't do for her to live anywhere but in England.' + +'Well, then, what do you say to it?' asked Miss Buchanan. She had rather +the manner of a powerful chancellor negotiating for the marriage of a +princess. + +'Why,' Franklin replied, smiling very gravely, 'I say yes. But I can't +think that Miss Helen will.' + +'Try your chances,' said Miss Buchanan. She reached across the table and +shook his hand. 'I like you, Mr. Kane,' she said. 'I think you are a +good man; and, don't forget, in spite of my worldliness, that if I +weren't sure of that, all your millions wouldn't have made me think of +you for Helen.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + + +Helen returned to town on Monday afternoon, and, on going to her room, +found two notes there. One from Gerald said that he was staying on for +another week at Merriston, the other from Franklin said that he would +take his chances of finding her in at 5.30 that afternoon. Helen only +glanced at Franklin's note and then dropped it into the fire; at +Gerald's she looked long and attentively. She always, familiar as they +were, studied any letter of Gerald's that she received; they seemed, the +slightest of them, to have something of himself; the small crisp writing +was charming to her, and the very way he had of affixing his stamps in +not quite the same way that most people affixed theirs, ridiculously +endeared even his envelopes. She turned the note over in her fingers as +she stood before the fire, seeing all that it meant to him--how +little!--and all that it meant to her, and she laid it for a moment +against her cheek before tearing it across and putting it, too, into the +fire. Aunt Grizel was gone out and had left word that she would not be +in till dinner-time. Helen looked idly at the clock and decided that she +would take a lazy afternoon, have tea at home, and await Franklin. + +When he arrived he found her reading before the fire in the little room +where she did not often receive him; it was usually in the drawing-room +that they met. Helen wore a black tea-gown, transparent and flowing, the +same gown, indeed, remodelled to more domestic uses, in which Althea had +first seen her. She looked pale and very thin. + +Franklin, too, was aware of feeling pale; he thought that he had felt +pale ever since his talk with Miss Buchanan on Saturday. He had not yet +come to any decision about the motives that had made him acquiesce in +her proposal; he only knew that, whatever they were, they were not those +merely reasonable ones that she had put before him. A charming wife, a +home and children; these were not enough, and Franklin knew it, to have +brought him here to-day on his strange errand; nor was it an act of +chivalry; nor was it pity and sympathy for his friend. All these, no +doubt, made some small part of it; but they far from covered the case; +they would have left him as calm and as rational as, he knew, he looked; +but since he did not feel calm and rational he knew that the case was +covered by very different motives. What they were he could not clearly +see; but he felt that something was happening to him and that it was +taking him far out of his normal course. Even his love for Althea had +not taken him out of his course; it had never been incalculable; it had +been the ground he walked on, the goal he worked towards; what was +happening now was like a current, swift and unfathomable, that was +bearing him he knew not where. + +Helen smiled at him and, turning in her chair to look up at him, gave +him her hand. 'You look tired,' she said. 'You'll have some tea?' + +'I've been looking up some things at the British Museum,' said Franklin, +'and I had a glass of milk and a bun; the bun was very satisfying, +though I can't say that it was very satisfactory; I guess I shan't want +anything else for some hours yet.' + +'A bun? What made you have a bun?' said Helen, laughing. + +'Well, it seemed to go with the place, somehow,' said Franklin. + +'I can imagine that it might; I've only been there once; very large and +very indigestible I found it, and most depressing. Yes, I see that it +might make a bun seem suitable.' + +'Ah, but it's a very wonderful place, you know,' Franklin said. 'I +should have expected you to go oftener; you care about beauty.' + +'Not beauty in a museum. I don't like museums. The mummies were what +impressed me most, after the Elgin marbles, and everything there seemed +like a mummy--dead and desecrated. Well, what have you been doing +besides eating buns at the British Museum? Has London been working you +very hard?' + +'I've not seen much of London while you've been away,' said Franklin, +who had drawn a chair to the other side of the fire. 'I think that you +are London to me, and when you are out of it it doesn't seem to mean +much--beyond museums and work.' + +'Come, what of all your scientific friends?' + +'They don't mean London; they mean science,' said Franklin, smiling back +at her. She always made him feel happy for himself, and at ease, even +when he was feeling unhappy for her; and just now he was feeling +strangely, deeply unhappy for her. It wasn't humility, in the usual +sense, that showed his coming offer to him as so inadequate; he did not +think of himself as unworthy; but he did think of himself as +incongruous; and that this fine, sad, subtle creature should be brought, +from merely reasonable motives, to taking the incongruous intimately +into her life made him more unhappy for her than usual. He wished he +wasn't so incongruous; he wished he had something besides friendship and +millions; he wished, almost, that his case was hopeless and that +friendship and millions would not gain her. Yet, under these wishes, +which made his face look tired and jaded, was another feeling; it was +too selfless to be called a wish; rather it was a wonder, deep and +melancholy, as to what was being done to him, and what would be done, as +an end of it all. That something had been done he knew; it was because +of Helen--that was one thing at last seen clearly--that he had not, long +ago, left London. + +'Science is perfectly impersonal, perfectly cosmopolitan, you know,' he +went on. 'Now you are intensely personal and intensely local.' + +'I don't think of myself as London, then, if I'm local,' said Helen, her +eyes on the fire. 'I think of myself as Scotland, in the moorlands, on a +bleak, grey day, when the heather is over and there's a touch of winter +in the wind. You don't know the real me.' + +'I'd like to,' said Franklin, quietly and unemphatically. + +They sat for a little while in silence, and Helen, so unconscious of +what was approaching her, seemed in no haste to break it. She was +capable of sitting thus in silent musing, her cheek on her hand, her +eyes on the fire, for half an hour with Mr. Kane beside her. + +Franklin was reflecting. It wouldn't do to put it to her as her need; it +must be put to her as his; as his reasonable need for the castle, the +princess, the charming wife, the home, and children. And it must be that +need only, the need of the dry, matter-of-fact friend who could give her +a little and to whom she could give much. To hint at other needs--if +other needs there were--would not be in keeping with the spirit of the +transaction, and would, no doubt, endanger it. He well remembered old +Miss Buchanan's hint; it was as a husband that Helen might contemplate +him, not as a lover. 'Miss Buchanan,' he said at last, 'you don't +consider that love, romantic love, is necessary in marriage, do you? +I've gathered more than once from remarks of yours that that point of +view is rather childish to you.' + +Helen turned her eyes on him with the look of kindly scrutiny to which +he was accustomed. She had felt, in these last weeks, that London might +be having some unforeseen effect on Franklin Kane; she thought of him as +very clear and very fixed, yet of such a guilelessly open nature as +well, that new experience might impress too sharply the candid tablets +of his mind. She did not like to think of any alteration in Franklin. +She wanted him to remain a changeless type, tolerant of alteration, but +in itself inalterable. 'To tell you the truth, I used to think so,' she +said, 'for myself, I mean. And I hope that you will always think so.' + +'Why?' asked Franklin. + +'I want you to go on believing always in the things that other people +give up--the nice, beautiful things.' + +'Well, that's just my point; can't marriage without romantic love be +nice and beautiful?' + +'Well, can it?' Helen smiled. + +Franklin appeared conscientiously to ponder. 'I've a high ideal of +marriage,' he said. 'I think it's the happiest state for men and women; +celibacy is abnormal, isn't it?' + +'Yes, I suppose it is,' Helen acquiesced, smiling on. + +'A mercenary or a worldly marriage is a poor thing; it can't bring the +right sort of growth,' Franklin went on. 'I'm not thinking of anything +sordid or self-seeking, except in the sense that self-development is +self-seeking. I'm thinking of conditions when a man and woman, without +romantic love, might find the best chances of development. Even without +romantic love, marriage may mean fine and noble things, mayn't it? a +home, you know, and shared, widened interests, and children,' said poor +Franklin, 'and the mutual help of two natures that understand and +respect each other.' + +'Yes, of course,' said Helen, as he paused, fixing his eyes upon her; +'it may certainly mean all that, the more surely, perhaps, for having +begun without romance.' + +'You agree?' + +She smiled now at his insistence. 'Of course I agree.' + +'You think it might mean happiness?' + +'Of course; if they are both sensible people and if neither expects +romance of the other; that's a very important point.' + +Franklin again paused, his eyes on hers. With a little effort he now +pursued. 'You know of my romance, Miss Buchanan, and you know that it's +over, except as a beautiful and sacred memory. You know that I don't +intend to let a memory warp my life. It may seem sudden to you, and I +ask your pardon if it's too sudden; but I want to marry; I want a home, +and children, and the companionship of some one I care for and respect, +very deeply. Therefore, Miss Buchanan,' he spoke on, turning a little +paler, but with the same deliberate steadiness, 'I ask you if you will +marry me.' + +While Franklin spoke, it had crossed Helen's mind that perhaps he had +determined to follow her suggestion--buy a castle and find a princess to +put in it; it had crossed her mind that he might be going to ask her +advice on this momentous step--she was used to giving advice on such +momentous steps; but when he brought out his final sentence she was so +astonished that she rose from her chair and stood before him. She became +very white, and, with the strained look that then came to them, her eyes +opened widely. And she gazed down at Franklin Winslow Kane while, in +three flashes, searing and swift, like running leaps of lightning, three +thoughts traversed her mind: Gerald--All that money--A child. It was in +this last thought that she seemed, then, to fall crumblingly, like a +burnt-out thing reduced to powder. A child. What would it look like, a +child of hers and Franklin Kane's? How spare and poor and insignificant +were his face and form. Could she love a child who had a nose like +that--a neat, flat, sallow little nose? A spasm, half of laughter, half +of sobbing, caught her breath. + +'I've startled you,' said Franklin, who still sat in his chair looking +up at her. 'Please forgive me.' + +A further thought came to her now, one that she could utter, was able to +utter. 'I couldn't live in America. Yes, you did startle me. But I am +much honoured.' + +'Thank you,' said Franklin. 'I needn't say how much I should consider +myself honoured if you would accept my proposal.' He rose now, but it +was to move a little further away from her, and, taking up an ornament +from the mantelpiece, he examined it while he said: 'As for America, I +quite see that; that's what I was really thinking of in what I was +saying about London. You are London, and it wouldn't do to take you away +from it. I shouldn't think of taking you away. What I would ask you to +do would be to take me in. Since being over here, this time, and seeing +some of the real life of the country--what it's working towards, what it +needs and means--and, moreover, taking into consideration the character +of my own work, I should feel perfectly justified in making a compromise +between my patriotism and my--my affection for you. Some day you might +perhaps find that you'd like to pay us a visit, over there; I think +you'd find it interesting, and it wouldn't, of course, be my America +that you'd see, not the serious and unfashionable America; it would be a +very different America from that that you'd find waiting to welcome you. +So that what I should suggest--and feel justified in suggesting--would +be that I spent three months alternately in England and America; I +should in that way get half a year of home life and half a year of my +own country, and be able, perhaps, to be something of a link between +the English and American scientific worlds. As for our life +here'--Franklin remembered old Miss Buchanan's words--'you should have +your own establishments and,' he lifted his eyes to hers, now, and +smiled a little, 'pursue the just and the beautiful under the most +favourable conditions.' + +Helen, when he smiled so at her, turned from him and sank again into her +chair. She leaned her elbow on the arm and put her hand over her eyes. A +languor of great weariness went over her, the languor of the burnt-out +thing floating in the air like a drift of ashes. + +Here, at last, in her hand, however strange the conditions, was the +power she had determined to live for. She could, with Franklin's +millions, mould circumstances to her will, and Franklin would be no more +of an odd impediment than the husbands of many women who married for +money--less of an impediment, indeed, than most, for--though it could +only be for his money--she liked him, she was very fond of him, dear, +good, and exquisite little man. Impossible little man she, no doubt, +would once have thought him--impossible as husband, not as friend; but +so many millions made all the difference in possibility. Franklin was +now as possible as any prince, though, she wondered with the cold +languor, could a prince have a nose like that? + +Franklin was possible, and it was in her hand, the power, the high +security; yet she felt that it would be in weariness rather than in +strength that the hand would close. It must close, must it not? If she +refused Franklin what, after all, was left to her, what was left in +herself or in her life that could say no to him? Nothing; nothing at +all, no hope, no desire, no faith in herself or in life. If it came to +that, the clearest embodiment of faith and life she knew sat opposite to +her waiting for an answer. He was good; she was fond of him; he had +millions; what could it be but yes? Yet, while her mind sank, like a +feather floating downwards in still air, to final, inevitable +acquiescence, while the little clock ticked with a fine, insect-like +note, and the flames made a soft flutter like the noise of shaken silk, +a blackness of chaotic suffering rose suddenly in her, and her thoughts +were whirled far away. In flashes, dear and terrible, she saw it--her +ruined youth. It rose in dim symbolic pictures, the moorland where +melancholy birds cried and circled, where the rain fell and the wind +called with a passionate cadence among the hills. To marry Franklin +Kane--would it not be to abandon the past; would it not be to desecrate +it and make it hers no longer? Was not the solitary moorland better, the +anguish and despair better than the smug, warm, sane life of purpose and +endeavour? If she was too tired, too indifferent, if she acquiesced, if +she married Franklin Kane, would she forget that the reallest thing in +her life had not been its sanity, and its purpose, but its wild, its +secret, its broken-hearted love? Surely the hateful wisdom of the daily +fact would not efface the memory so that, with years, she would come to +smile over it as one smiles at distant childish griefs? Surely not. Yet +the presage of it passed bleakly over her soul. Life was so reasonable. +And there it sat in the person of Franklin Winslow Kane; life, wise, +kind, commonplace, and inexorably given to the fact, to the present, to +the future that the present built, inexorably oblivious of the past. Her +tragic, rebel heart cried out against it, but her mind whispered with a +hateful calm that life conquered tragedy. + +Let it be so, then. She faced it. In the very fact of submission to life +her tragedy would live on; the tragedy--and this she would never +forget--would be to feel it no longer. She would be life's captive, not +its soldier, and she would keep to the end the captive's bitter heart. +She knew, as she put down her hand at last and looked at Franklin Kane, +that it was to be acquiescence, unless he could not accept her terms. +She was ready, ironically, wearily ready for life; but it must be on her +own terms. There must be no loophole for misunderstanding between her +and her friend--if she were to marry him. Only by the clearest +recognition of what she owed him could her pride be kept intact; and she +owed him cold, cruel candour. 'Do you understand, I wonder,' she said to +him, and in a voice that he had never heard from her before, the voice, +he knew, of the real self, 'how different I am from what you think a +human being should be? Do you realise that, if I marry you, it will be +because you have money--because you have a great deal of money--and only +for that? I like you, I respect you; I would be a loyal wife to you, but +if you weren't rich--and very rich--I should not think of marrying you.' + +Franklin received this information with an unmoved visage, and after a +pause in which they contemplated each other deeply, he replied: 'All +right.' + +'That isn't all,' said Helen. 'You are very good--an idealist. You think +me--even in this frankness of mine--far nicer than I am. I have no +ideals--none at all. I want to be independent and to have power to do +what I please. As for justice and beauty--it's too kind of you to +remember so accurately some careless words of mine.' + +Franklin remained unperturbed, unless the quality of intent and +thoughtful pity in his face were perturbation. 'You don't know how nice +you are,' he remarked, 'and that's the nicest thing about you. You are +the honestest woman I've met, and you seem to me about the most unhappy. +I guessed that. Well, we won't talk about unhappiness, will we? I don't +believe that talking about it does much good. If you'll marry me, we'll +see if we can't live it down somehow. As for ideals, I'll trust you in +doing what you like with your money; it will be yours, you know. I shall +make half my property over to you for good; then if I disapprove of what +you do with it, you'll at all events be free to go on pleasing yourself +and displeasing me. I won't be able to prevent you by force from doing +what I think wrong any more than you will me. You'll take your own +responsibility, and I'll take mine. And I don't believe we shall quarrel +much about it,' said Franklin, smiling at her. + +Tears rose to Helen's eyes. Franklin Kane, since she had become his +friend, often touched her; something in him now smote upon her heart; it +was so gentle, so beautiful, and so sad. + +'My dear friend,' she said, 'you will be marrying a hard, a selfish, and +a broken-hearted woman who will bring you nothing.' + +'All right,' said Franklin again. + +'I won't do you any good.' + +'You won't do me any harm.' + +'You want me to marry you, even if I'm not to do you any good?' + +He nodded, looking brightly and intently at her. + +She rose now and stood beside him. With all the strange new sense of +unity between them there was a stronger sense of formality, and that +seemed best expressed by their clasp of hands over what, apparently, was +an agreement. 'You understand, you are sure you understand,' said Helen. + +'What I want to understand is that you are going to marry me,' said +Franklin. + +'I will marry you,' Helen said. + +And now, rather breathlessly, as if after a race hardly won, Franklin +answered: 'Well, I guess you can leave the rest to me.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + + +Gerald had decided to stay on for another week at Merriston and to come +up to town with Althea, and she fancied that the reason for his decision +was that he found Sally Arlington such very good company. Sally played +the violin exceedingly well and looked like an exceedingly lovely muse +while she played, and Gerald, who was very fond of music, also expressed +more than once to Althea his admiration of Miss Arlington's appearance. +There was nothing in Gerald's demeanour towards Sally to arouse a hint +of jealousy; at least there would not have been had Althea been his +wife. But she was not yet his wife, and he treated her--this was the +fact that the week was driving home--as though she were, and as though +with wifely tolerance she perfectly understood his admiring pretty young +women who looked like muses and played the violin. She was not yet his +wife; this was the fact, she repeated it over her hidden misery, that +Gerald did not enough realise. She was not his wife, and she did not +like to see him admiring other young women and behaving towards herself +as though she were a comprehending and devoted spouse, who found +pleasure in providing them for his delectation. She knew that she could +trust Gerald, that not for a moment would he permit himself a +flirtation, and not for a moment fail to discriminate between admiration +of the newcomer and devotion to herself; yet that the admiration had +been sufficient to keep him on at Merriston, while the devotion took for +granted the right to all sorts of marital neglects, was the fact that +rankled. It did more than rankle; it burned with all the other burnings. +Althea had, at all events, been dragged from her mood of introspection. +She had lost the sense of nonentity. She was conscious of a passionate, +protesting self that cried out for justice. Who was Gerald, after all, +to take things so for granted? Why should he be so sure of her? He was +not her husband. She was his betrothed, not his wife, and more, much +more was due to a betrothed than he seemed to imagine. It was not so +that another man would have treated her; it was not so that Franklin +would have handled his good fortune. Her heart, bereft and starving, +cried out for Franklin and for the love that had never failed, even +while, under and above everything, was her love for Gerald, and the cold +fear lest he should guess what was in her heart, should be angry with +her and turn away. It was this fear that gave her self-mastery. She +acted the part that Gerald took for granted; she was the tolerant, +devoted wife. Yet even so she guessed that Gerald had still his instinct +of something amiss. He, too, with all his grace, all his deference and +sweetness, was guarded. And once or twice when they were alone together +an embarrassed silence had fallen between them. + +Mrs. Peel and Sally left on Saturday, and on Saturday afternoon Miss +Harriet Robinson was to arrive from Paris, to spend the Sunday, to +travel up to town with Althea and Gerald on Monday, and to remain there +with Althea until her marriage. Saturday morning, therefore, after the +departure of Mrs. Peel and Sally, would be empty, and when she and +Gerald met, just before the rather bustled breakfast, Althea suggested +to him that a walk together when her guests were gone would be nice, and +Gerald had genially acquiesced. A little packet of letters lay beside +Gerald's plate and a larger one by Althea's, hers mainly from America as +she saw, fat, friendly letters, bearing the Boston postmark; a thin note +from Franklin in London also, fixing some festivity for the coming week +no doubt; but Sally and Mrs. Peel engaged her attention, and she +postponed the reading until after they were gone. She observed, however, +in Gerald's demeanour during the meal, a curious irritability and +preoccupation. He ate next to nothing, drank his cup of coffee with an +air of unconsciousness, and got up and strolled away at the first +opportunity, not reappearing until Mrs. Peel and Sally were making their +farewells in the hall. He and Althea stood to see them drive off, and +then, since she was ready for the walk, they went out together. + +It was a damp day, but without rain. A white fog hung closely and +thickly over the country, and lay like a clogging, woollen substance +among the scattered gold and russets of the now almost leafless trees. + +Gerald walked beside Althea in silence, his hands in his pockets. +Althea, too, was silent, and in her breast was an oppression like that +of the day--a dense, dull, clogging fear. They had walked for quite ten +minutes, and had left the avenue and were upon the high road when +Gerald said suddenly, 'I've had some news this morning.' + +It was a relief to hear that there was some cause for his silence +unconnected with her own inadequacy. But anger rose with the relief; it +must be some serious cause to excuse him. + +'Have you? It's not bad, I hope,' she said, hoping that it was. + +'Bad? No; I don't suppose it's bad. It's very odd, though,' said Gerald. +He then put his hand in his breast-pocket and drew out a letter. Althea +saw that the writing on the envelope was Helen's. 'You may read it,' +said Gerald. + +The relief was now merged in something else. Althea's heart seemed +standing still. It began to thump heavily as she opened the letter and +read what Helen wrote: + + + 'DEAR GERALD,--I have some surprising news for you; but I hardly + think that you will be more surprised than I was. I am going to + marry Mr. Kane. I accepted him some days ago, but have been getting + used to the idea since then, and you are the first person, after + Aunt Grizel, who knows. It will be announced next week and we shall + probably be married very soon after you and Althea. I hope that both + our ventures will bring us much happiness. The more I see of Mr. + Kane, the more I realise how fortunate I am.--Yours affectionately, + + 'HELEN.' + + +Althea gazed at these words. Then she turned her eyes and gazed at +Gerald, who was not looking at her but straight before him. Her first +clear thought was that if he had received a shock it could not be +comparable to that which she now felt. It could not be that the letter +had fallen on his heart like a sword, severing it. Althea's heart seemed +cleft in twain. Gerald--Franklin--it seemed to pulse, horribly divided +and horribly bleeding. Looking still at Gerald's face, pallid, absorbed, +far from any thought of her, anger surged up in her, and not now against +Gerald only, but against Franklin, who had failed her, against Helen, +who, it seemed, did not win love, yet won something that took people to +her and bound them to her. Then she remembered her unread letters, and +remembered that Franklin could not have let this news come to her from +another than himself. She drew out his letter and read it. It, too, was +short. + + + 'DEAREST ALTHEA,--I know how glad you'll be to hear that happiness, + though of a different sort, has come to me. Any sort of happiness + was, for so many years, connected with you, dear Althea, that it's + very strange to me to realise that there can be another happiness; + though this one is connected with you, too, and that makes me + gladder. Helen, your dear friend, has consented to marry me, and the + fact of her being your dear friend makes her even dearer to me. So + that I must thank you for your part in this wonderful new opening in + my life, as well as for all the other lovely things you've always + meant to me.--Your friend, + 'FRANKLIN.' + + +Althea's hand dropped. She stared before her. She did not offer the +letter to Gerald. 'It's incredible,' she said, while, in the heavy +mist, they walked along the road. + +Gerald still said nothing. He held his head high, and gazed before him +too, as if intent on difficult and evasive thoughts. + +'I could not have believed it of Helen,' said Althea after a little +pause. + +At this he started and looked round at her. 'Believed? What? What is +that you say?' His voice was sharp, as though she had struck him on the +raw. + +Althea steadied her own voice; she wished to strike him on the raw, and +accurately; she could only do that by hiding from him her own great +dismay. 'I could not have believed that Helen would marry a man merely +for his money.' She did not believe that Helen was to marry Franklin +merely for his money. If only she could have believed it; but the +bleeding heart throbbed: 'Lost--lost--lost.' It was not money that Helen +had seen and accepted; it was something that she herself had been too +blind and weak to see. In Helen's discovery she helplessly partook. He +_was_ of value, then. He, whom she had not found good enough for her, +was good enough for Helen. And this man--this affianced husband of +hers--ah, his value she well knew; she was not blind to it--that was the +sickening knowledge; she knew his value and it was not hers, not her +possession, as Franklin's love and all that Franklin was had been. +Gerald possessed her; she seemed to have no part in him; how little, his +next words showed. + +'What right have you to say she's taking him merely for his money?' +Gerald demanded in his tense, vibrant voice. + +Ah, how he made her suffer with his hateful unconsciousness of her +pain--the male unconsciousness that rouses woman's conscious cruelty. + +'I know Helen. She has always been quite frank about her mercenary +ideas. She always told me she would marry a man for his money.' + +'Then why do you say it's incredible that she is going to?' + +Why, indeed? but Althea held her lash. 'I did not believe, even of her, +that she would marry a man she considered so completely insignificant, +so completely negligible--a man she described to me as a funny little +man. There are limits, even to Helen's insensitiveness, I should have +imagined.' + +She had discovered the raw. Gerald was breathing hard. + +'That must have been at first--when she didn't know him. They became +great friends; everybody saw that Helen had become very fond of him; I +never knew her to be so fond of anybody. You are merely angry because a +man who used to be in love with you has fallen in love with another +woman.' + +So he, too, could lash. 'How dare you, Gerald!' she said. + +At her voice he paused, and there, in the wet road, they stood and +looked at each other. + +What Althea then saw in his face plunged her into the nightmare abyss of +nothingness. What had she left? He did not love her--he did not even +care for her. She had lost the real love, and this brightness that she +clung to darkened for her. He looked at her, steadily, gloomily, +ashamed of what she had made him say, yet too sunken in his own pain, +too indifferent to hers, to unsay it. And in her dispossession she did +not dare make manifest the severance that she saw. He did not care for +her, but she could not tell him so; she could not tell him to go. With +horrid sickness of heart she made a feint that hid her knowledge. + +'What you say is not true. Franklin does not love her. I know him +through and through. I am the great love of his life; even in his letter +to me, here, he tells me that I am.' + +'Well, since you've thrown him over, he can console himself, I hope.' + +'You do not understand, Gerald. I am disappointed--in both my friends. +It is an ugly thing that has happened. You feel it so; and so do I.' + +He turned and began to walk on again. And still it lay with her to speak +the words that would make truth manifest. She could not utter them; she +could not, now, think. All that she knew was the dense, suffocating +fear. + +Suddenly she stopped, put her hands on her heart, then covered her eyes. +'I am ill; I feel very ill,' she said. It was true. She did feel very +ill. She went to the bank at the side of the road and sank down on it. +Gerald had supported her; she had dimly been aware of the bitter joy of +feeling his arm around her, and the joy of it slid away like a snake, +leaving poison behind. He stood above her, alarmed and pitying. + +'Althea--shall I go and get some one? I am so awfully sorry--so +frightfully sorry,' he repeated. + +She shook her head, sitting there, her face in her hands and her elbows +on her knees. And in her great weakness an unbelievable thing happened +to her. She began to cry piteously, and she sobbed: 'O Gerald--don't be +unkind to me! don't be cruel! don't hurt me! O Gerald--love me--please +love me!' The barriers of her pride, of her thought, were down, and, +like the flowing of blood from an open wound, the truth gushed forth. + +For a moment Gerald was absolutely silent. It was a tense, a stricken +silence, and she felt in it something of the horror that the showing of +a fatal wound might give. Then he knelt beside her; he took her hand; he +put his arm around her. 'Althea, what a brute--what a brute I've been. +Forgive me.' It was for something else than his harsh words that he was +asking her forgiveness. He passed hurriedly from that further, that +inevitable hurt. 'I can't tell you how---- I mean I'm so completely +sorry. You see, I was so taken aback--so cut up, you know. I could think +of nothing else. She is such an old friend--my nearest friend. I never +imagined her marrying, somehow; it was like hearing that she was going +away for ever. And what you said made me angry.' Even he, with all his +compunction, could but come back to the truth. + +And, helpless, she could but lean on his pity, his sheer human pity. + +'I know. He was my nearest friend too. For all my life I've been first +with him. I was cut up too. I am sorry--I spoke so.' + +'Poor girl--poor dear. Here, take my arm. Here. Now, you do feel +better.' + +She was on her feet, her hand drawn through his arm, her face turned +from him and still bathed in tears. + +They walked back slowly along the road. They were silent. From time to +time she knew that he looked at her with solicitude; but she could not +return his look. The memory of her own words was with her, a strange, +new, menacing fact in life. She had said them, and they had altered +everything. Henceforth she depended on his pity, on his loyalty, on his +sense of duty to a task undertaken. Their bond was recognised as an +unequal one. Once or twice, in the dull chaos of her mind, a flicker of +pride rose up. Could she not emulate Helen? Helen was to marry a man who +did not love her. Helen was to marry rationally, with open eyes, a man +who was her friend. But Helen did not love the man who did not love her. +She was not his thrall. She gained, she did not lose, her freedom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + + +A week was gone since Helen had given her consent to Franklin, and again +she was in her little sitting-room and again waiting, though not for +Franklin. Franklin had been with her all the morning; and he had been +constantly with her through the week, and she had found the closer +companionship, until to-day, strangely easy. Franklin's very lacks +endeared him to her. It was wonderful to see any one so devoid of any +glamour, of any adventitious aid from nature, who yet so beamed. This +beaming quality was, for Helen, his chief characteristic. There was +certainly no brilliancy in Franklin's light; it was hardly a ray and it +emitted never a sparkle; but it was a mild, diffused effulgence, and she +always felt more peaceful and restored for coming within its radius. + +It had wrapped her around all the week, and it had remained so unchanged +that their relation, too, had seemed unchanged and her friend only a +little nearer, a little more solicitous. They had gone about together; +they had taken walks in the parks; they had made plans while strolling +beside the banks of the Serpentine or leaning on the bridge in St. +James's Park, to watch the ducks being fed. Already she and Franklin and +the deeply triumphant Aunt Grizel had gone on a journey down to the +country to look at a beautiful old house in order to see if it would do +as one of Helen's 'establishments.' Already Franklin had brought her a +milky string of perfect pearls, saying mildly, as he had said of the box +of sweets, 'I don't approve of them, but I hope you do.' And on her +finger was Franklin's ring, a noble emerald that they had selected +together. + +Helen had been pleased to feel in herself a capacity for satisfaction in +these possessions, actual and potential. She liked to look at the great +blot of green on her hand and to see the string of pearls sliding to her +waist. She liked to ponder on the Jacobean house with its splendid rise +of park and fall of sward. She didn't at all dislike it, either, when +Franklin, as calmly possessed as ever with a clear sense of his duties, +discussed with her the larger and more impersonal uses of their fortune. +She found that she had ideas for him there; that the thinking and active +self, so long inert, could be roused to very good purpose; that it was +interesting, and very interesting, to plan, with millions at one's +disposal, for the furtherance of the just and the beautiful. And she +found, too, in spite of her warnings to Franklin, that though she might +be a hard, a selfish, and a broken-hearted woman, she was a woman with a +very definite idea of her own responsibilities. It did not suit her at +all to be the mere passive receiver; it did not suit her to be greedy. +She turned her mind at once, carefully and consistently, to Franklin's +interests. She found atoms and kinetics rather confusing at first, but +Franklin's delighted and deliberate elucidations made a light for her +that promised by degrees to illuminate these dark subjects. Yes; +already life had taken hold of her and, ironically, yet not unwillingly, +she followed it along the appointed path. Yesterday, however, and +to-day, especially, a complication, subtle yet emphatic, had stolen upon +her consciousness. + +All the week long, in spite of something mastered and controlled in his +bearing, she had seen that he was happy, and though not imaginative as +to Franklin's past, she had guessed that he had never in all his life +been so happy, and that never had life so taken hold of him. He enjoyed +the pearls, he enjoyed the emerald, he enjoyed the Jacobean house and +going over it with her and Aunt Grizel; above all he enjoyed herself as +a thinking and acting being, the turning of her attention to atoms, her +grave, steady penetration of his life. And in this happiness the +something controlled and mastered had melted more and more; she had +intended that it should melt. She had guessed at the pain, the anxiety +for her that had underlain the dear little man's imperturbability, and +she had determined that as far as in her lay Franklin should think her +happy, should think that, at all events, she was serene and without +qualms or misgivings. And she had accomplished this. It was as if she +saw him breathing more deeply, more easily; as if, with a long sigh of +relief, he smiled at her and said, with a new accent of confidence: 'All +right.' And then, after the sigh of relief, she saw that he became too +happy. It was only yesterday that she began to see it; it was to-day +that she had clearly seen that Franklin had fallen in love with her. + +It wasn't that, in any blindness to what she meant, he came nearer and +made mistakes. He did not come a step nearer, and, in his happiness, his +unconscious happiness, he was further from the possibility of mistakes +than before. He did not draw near. He stood and gazed. Men had loved +Helen before, yet, she felt it, no man had loved her as Franklin did. +She could not have analysed the difference between his love and that of +other men, yet she felt it dimly. Franklin stood and gazed; but it was +not at charm or beauty that he gazed; whether he was really deeply aware +of them she could not tell; the only words she could find with which to +express her predicament and its cause sounded silly to her, but she +could find no others. Franklin was gazing at her soul. She couldn't +imagine what he found to fix him in it; he had certainly said that she +was the honestest woman he had known; she gloomily made out that she +was, she supposed, 'straight'; she liked clear, firm things, and she +liked to keep a bargain. It didn't seem to her a very arresting array of +virtues; but then--no, she couldn't settle Franklin's case so glibly as +that; if it wasn't what she might have of charm that he had fallen in +love with, it wasn't what she might have of virtue either. Perhaps one's +soul hadn't much to do with either charm or virtue. And, after all, +whatever it was, he was gazing at it, rapt, smiling, grave, in the +lover's trance. He saw her, and only her. And she saw him, and a great +many other things besides. + +The immediate hope that came to her was that Franklin, perhaps, might +really never know just what had happened to him. If he never recognised +it, it might never become explicit; it might be managed; it could of +course be managed in any case; but how she should hate having him made +conscious of pain. If he never said to himself, and far less to her, +that he had fallen in love with her, he might not really suffer in the +strange, ill-adjusted union before them. She did not think that he had +yet said it to himself; but she feared that he was hovering on the verge +of self-recognition. His very guilelessness in the realm of the emotions +exposed him to her, and with her perplexity went a yearning of pity as +she witnessed the soft, the hesitant, the delicate unfolding. + +For more had come than the tranced gaze. That morning, writing notes, +with Franklin beside her, her hand had inadvertently touched his once or +twice in taking the papers from him, and Helen then had seen that +Franklin blushed. Twice, also, looking up, she had found his eyes fixed +on her with the lover's dwelling tenderness, and both times he had +quickly averted his glance in a manner very new in him. + +Helen had pondered deeply in the moments before his departure. Franklin +had never kissed her; the time would come when he must kiss her. The +time would come when a kiss of farewell or greeting must, however rare, +be a facile, marital custom. How would Franklin--trembling on that verge +of a self-recognition that might make a chaos of his life--how and when +would he initiate that custom? How could it be initiated by him at all +unless with an emotion that would not only reveal him to himself, but +make it known to him that he was revealed to her. The revelation, if it +came, must come gradually; they must both have time to get used to it, +she to having a husband she did not love in love with her; he to loving +a wife who would never love him back. She shrank from the thought of +emotional revelations. It was her part to initiate and to make a kiss an +easy thing. Yet she found, sitting there, writing the last notes, with +Franklin beside her, that it was not an easy thing to contemplate. The +thought of her own cowardice spurred her on. When Franklin rose at last, +gave her his hand, said that he'd come back that evening, Helen rose +too, resolved. 'Good-bye,' she said. 'Don't forget the tickets for that +concert.' + +'No, indeed,' said Franklin. + +'And I think, don't you? that we might put the announcement in the +papers to-morrow. Aunt Grizel wants, I am sure, to see me safely Morning +Posted.' + +'So do I,' smiled Franklin. + +Helen was summoning her courage. 'Good-bye,' she repeated, and now she +smiled with a new sweetness. 'I think we ought to kiss each other +good-bye, don't you? We are such an old engaged couple.' + +Resolved, and firm in her resolve, though knowing commotion of soul, she +leaned to him and kissed his forehead and turned her cheek to him. +Franklin had kept her hand, and in the pause, where she did not see his +face, she felt his tighten on it; but he did not kiss her. Smiling a +little nervously, she raised her head and looked at him. He was gazing +at her with a shaken, stricken look. + +'You must kiss me good-bye,' said Helen, speaking as she would have +spoken to a departing child. 'Why, we have no right to be put in the +_Morning Post_ unless we've given each other a kiss.' + +And, really like the child, Franklin said: 'Must I?' + +He kissed her then, gently, and spoke no further word. But she knew, +when he had gone, and when thinking over the meaning of his face as it +only came to her when the daze of her own daring faded and left her able +to think, that she had hardly helped Franklin over a difficulty; she had +made him aware of it rather; she had shown him what his task must be. +And it could not reassure her, for Franklin, that his face, after that +stricken moment, and with a wonderful swiftness of delicacy, had +promised her that it should be accomplished. It promised her that there +should be no emotions, or, if there were, that they should be mastered +ones; it promised her that she should see nothing in him to make her +feel that she was refusing anything, nothing to make her feel that she +was giving pain by a refusal. It seemed to say that he knew, now, at +last, what the burden was that he laid upon her and that it should be as +light as he could make it. It did not show her that he saw his own +burden; but Helen saw it for him. She, too, made herself promises as she +stood after his departure, taking a long breath over her discovery; she +was not afraid in looking forward. All that she was afraid of--and it +was of this that she was thinking as she now stood leaning her arm upon +the mantelshelf and looking into the fire,--all that she was afraid of +was of looking back. It was for Gerald that she was waiting and it was +Gerald's note that hung from her hand against her knee, and since that +note had come, not long after Franklin had left her, her thoughts had +been centred on the coming interview. Gerald had not written to her +from the country; she had expected to have an answer to her announcement +that morning, but none had come. This note had been brought by hand, and +it said that if he could not find her at four would she kindly name some +other hour when he might do so. She had answered that he would find her, +and it was now five minutes to the hour. + +Gerald's note had not said much more, and yet, in the little it did say, +it had contrived to be tense and cool. It seemed to intimate that he +reserved a great deal to say to her, and that, perhaps more, he reserved +a great deal to think and not to say. It was a note that had startled +her and that then had filled her with a bitterness of heart greater than +any she had ever known. For that she would not accept, not that tone +from Gerald. That it should be Gerald--Gerald of all the people in the +world--to adopt that tone to her! The exceeding irony of it brought a +laugh to her lips. She was on edge. Her strength had only just taken her +through the morning and its revelations, there was none left now for +patience and evasion. Gerald must be careful, was the thought that +followed the laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + + +She heard the door-bell ring, and then his quick step. It did not seem +to her this afternoon that she had to master the disquiet of heart that +his coming always brought. It was something steeled and hostile that +waited for him. + +When he had entered and stood before her she saw that he intended to be +careful, to be very careful, and the recognition of that attitude in him +gave further bitterness to her cold, her fierce revolt. What right had +he to that bright formal smile, that chill pressure of her fingers, that +air of crisp cheerfulness, as of one injured but willing, magnanimously, +to conceal his hurt? What right--good heavens!--had Gerald to feel +injured? She almost laughed again as she looked at him and at this +unveiling of his sublime self-centredness. He expected to find his world +just as he would have it, his cushion at his head and his footstool at +his feet, the wife in her place fulfilling her comely duties, the +spinster friend in hers, administering balms and counsels; the wife at +Merriston House, and the spinster friend in the little sitting-room +where, for so many years, he had come to her with all his moods and +misfortunes. She felt that her eyes fixed themselves on him with a cold +menace as he stood there on the other side of the fire and, putting his +foot on the fender, looked first at her and then down at the flames. His +very silence was full of the sense of injury; but she knew that hers was +the compelling silence and that she could force him to be the first to +speak. And so it was that presently he said: + +'Well, Helen, this is great news.' + +'Yes, isn't it?' she answered. 'It has been a year of news, hasn't it?' + +He stared, courteously blank, and something in her was pleased to +observe that he looked silly with his affectation of blandness. + +'I beg your pardon?' + +'You had your great event, and I, now, have mine.' + +'Ah yes, I see.' + +'It's all rather queer when one comes to think of it,' said Helen. +'Althea, my new friend--whom I told you of here, only a few months +ago--and her friend. How important they have become to us, and how +little, last summer, we could have dreamed of it.' She, too, was +speaking artificially, and was aware of it; but she was well aware that +Gerald didn't find that she looked silly. She had every advantage over +the friend who came with his pretended calm and his badly hidden +rancour. And since he stood silent, looking at the fire, she added, +mildly and cheerfully: 'I am so glad for your happiness, Gerald, and I +hope that you are glad for mine.' + +He looked up at her now, and she could not read the look; it hid +something--or else it sought for something hidden; and in its +oddity--which reminded her of a blind animal dazedly seeking its +path--it so nearly touched her that, with a revulsion from any hint of +weakening pity for him, it made her bitterness against him greater than +before. + +'I'm afraid I can't say I'm glad, Helen,' he replied. 'I'm too amazed, +still, to feel anything except'--he seemed to grope for a word and then +to give it up--'amazement.' + +'I was surprised myself,' said Helen. 'I had not much hope left of +anything so fortunate happening to me.' + +'You feel it, then, so fortunate?' + +'Don't you think that it is--to marry millions,' Helen asked, smiling, +'and to have found such a good man to care for me?' + +'I think it is he who is fortunate,' said Gerald, after a moment. + +'Thank you; perhaps we both are fortunate.' + +Once more there was a long silence and then, suddenly, Gerald flung +away, thrusting his hands in his pockets and stopping before the window, +his back turned to her. 'I can't stand this,' he declared. + +'What can't you stand?' + +'You don't love this man. He doesn't love you.' + +'What is that to you?' asked Helen. + +'I can't think it of you; I can't bear to think it.' + +'What is it to you?' she repeated, in a deadened voice. + +'Why do you say that?' he took her up with controlled fury. 'How +couldn't it but be a great deal to me? Haven't you been a great +deal--for all our lives nearly? Do you mean that you're going to kick +me out completely--because you are going to marry? What does it mean to +me? I wish it could mean something to you of what it does to me. To give +yourself--you--you--to a man who doesn't love you--whom you don't +love--for money. Oh, I know we've always talked of that sort of thing as +if it were possible--and perhaps it is--for a man. But when it comes to +a woman--a woman one has cared for--looked up to--as I have to you--it's +a different matter. One expects a different standard.' + +'What standard do you expect from me?' asked Helen. There were tears, +but tears of rage, in her voice. + +'You know,' said Gerald, who also was struggling with an emotion that, +rising, overcame his control, 'you know what I think of you--what I +expect of you. A great match--a great man--something fitting for +you--one could accept that; but this little American nonentity, this +little American--barely a gentleman--whom you'd never have looked at if +he hadn't money--a man who will make you ridiculous, a man who can't +have a thought or feeling in common with you--it's not fit--it's not +worthy; it smirches you; it's debasing.' + +He had not turned to look at her while he spoke, perhaps did not dare to +look. He knew that his anger, his more than anger, had no warrant, and +that the words in which it cloaked itself--though he believed in all he +said--were unjustifiable. But it was more than anger, and it must speak, +must plead, must protest. He had no right to say these things, perhaps, +but Helen should understand the more beneath, should understand that he +was lost, bewildered, miserable; if Helen did not understand, what was +to become of him? And now she stood there behind him, not speaking, not +answering him, so that he was almost frightened and murmured on, half +inaudibly: 'It's a wrong you do--to me--to our friendship, as well as to +yourself.' + +Helen now spoke, and the tone of her voice arrested his attention even +before the meaning of her words reached him. It was a tone that he had +never heard from her, and it was not so much that it made him feel that +he had lost her as that it made him feel--strangely and +penetratingly--that he had never known her. + +'You say all this to me, Gerald, you who in all these years have never +taken the trouble to wonder or think about me at all--except how I might +amuse you or advise you, or help you.' These were Helen's words. 'Why +should I go on considering you, who have never considered me?' + +It was so sudden, so amazing, and so cruel that, turning to her, he +literally stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed. 'I don't know what you +mean, Helen,' he said. + +'Of course you don't,' she continued in her measured voice, 'of course +you don't know what I mean; you never have. I don't blame you; you are +not imaginative, and all my life I've taken care that you should know +very little of what I meant. The only bit of me that you've known has +been the bit that has always been at your service. There is a good deal +more of me than that.' + +'But--what have you meant?' he stammered, almost in tears. + +Her face, white and cold, was bent on him, and in her little pause she +seemed to deliberate--not on what he should be told, that was fixed--but +on how to tell it; and for this she found finally short and simple +words. + +'Can't you guess, even now, when at last I've become desperate and +indifferent?' she said. 'Can't you see, even now, that I've always loved +you?' + +They confronted each other in a long moment of revelation and avowal. It +grew like a great distance between them, the distance of all the years +through which she had suffered and he been blind. Gerald saw it like a +chasm, dark with time, with secrecy, with his intolerable stupidity. He +gazed at her across it, and in her face, her strange, strong, fragile, +weary face, he saw it all, at last. Yes, she had loved him all her life, +and he had never seen it. + +She had moved, in speaking to him, away from her place near the fire, +and he now went to it, and put his arms on the mantelpiece and hid his +face upon them. 'Fool--fool that I am!' he uttered softly. He stood so, +his face hidden from her, and his words seemed to release some bond in +Helen's heart. The worst of the bitterness against him passed away. The +tragedy, after all, was not his fault, but Fate's, and to suggest that +he was accountable was to be grotesquely stupid. That he had not loved +her was the tragedy; that he had never seen was, in reality, the +tragedy's alleviation. Absurd to blame poor Gerald for not seeing. When +she spoke again it was in an altered voice. + +'No, you're not,' she said, and she seemed with him to contemplate the +chasm and to make it clear for him--she had always made things clear for +him, and there was now, with all the melancholy, a peacefulness in +sharing with him this, their last, situation. Never before had they +talked over one so strange, and never again would they talk over any +other so near; to speak at last was to make it, in its very nearness, +immeasurably remote, to put it away, from both their lives, for ever. +'No, you're not; I shouldn't have said that you were not imaginative; I +shouldn't have said that you had never considered me; you have--you have +been the best of friends; I was letting myself be cruel. It's only that +_I'm_ not a fool. A woman who isn't can always keep a man from +imagining; it's the one thing that even a stupid woman can do. And my +whole nature has been moulded by the instinct for concealment.' She +looked round mechanically for a seat while she spoke; she felt horribly +tired; and she sank on a straight, high chair near the writing-table. +Here, leaning forward, her arms resting on her knees, her hands clasped +and hanging, she went on, looking before her. 'I want to tell you about +it now. There are things to confess. I haven't been a nice woman in it +all; I've not taken it as a nice woman would. I've hated you for not +loving me. I've hated you for not wanting anything more from me and for +your contentment with what I gave you, and for caring as much as you +did, too, for being fonder of me than of any one else in the world, and +yet never caring more. Of course I understood; it was a little comfort +to my pride to understand. Even if I'd been the sort of woman you would +have fallen in love with, I was too near. I had to make myself too near; +that was my shield. I had to give you everything you wanted because +that was the sure way to hide from you that I had so much more to give. +And for years I went on hoping--not that you would see--I should have +lost everything then--but that, of yourself, you would want more.' + +Gerald had lifted his head, but his hand still hid his eyes. 'Helen, +dear Helen,' he said, and she did not understand his voice--it was pain, +but more than pain; 'why were you so cruel? why were you so proud? If +you'd only let me see; if you'd only given me a hint. Don't you know it +only needed that?' + +She paused over his question for so long that he put down his hand and +looked at her, and her eyes, meeting his unfalteringly, widened with a +strained, suffering look. + +'It's kind of you to say so,' she said. 'And I know you believe it now; +you are so fond of me, and so sorry for this horrid tale I inflict on +you, that you have to believe it. And of course it may be true. Perhaps +it did only need that.' + +They had both now looked away again, Gerald gazing unseeingly into the +mirror, Helen at the opposite wall. 'It may be true,' she repeated. 'I +had only, perhaps, to be instinctive--to withdraw--to hide--create the +little mysteries that appeal to men's senses and imaginations. I had +only to put aside my pride and to shut my eyes on my horrible, hard, +lucid self-consciousness, let instinct guide me, be a mere woman, and +you might have been in love with me. It's true. I used often to think +it, too. I used often to think that I might make you fall in love with +me if I could stop being your friend. But, don't you see, I knew myself +far too well. I _was_ too proud. I didn't want you if you only wanted me +because I'd lured you and appealed to your senses and imagination. I +didn't want you unless you wanted me for the big and not for the little +things of love. I couldn't pretend that I had something to hide--I know +perfectly how it is done--the air of evasion, of wistfulness--all the +innocent hypocrisies women make use of; but I couldn't. I didn't want +you like that. There was nothing for it but to look straight at you and +pretend, not that there was anything to hide, but that there was +nothing.' + +Again, his eyes meeting hers, she looked, indeed, straight at him and +smiled a little; for there was, indeed, nothing now to hide; and she +went on quietly, 'You see now, how I've been feeling for these last +months, when everything has gone, at last, completely. I'd determined, +long ago, to give up hope and marry some one else. But I didn't know +till this autumn, when you decided to marry Althea, I didn't know till +then how much hope there was still left to be killed. When a thing like +that has been killed, you see, one hasn't much feeling left for the rest +of life. I don't care enough, one way or the other, not to marry as I'm +doing. There is still one's life to live, and one may as well make what +seems the best of it. I've not succeeded, you see, in marrying your +great man, and I've fallen back very thankfully on my dear, good +Franklin, who is not, let me tell you, a nonentity in my eyes; I'm +fonder of him than of any one I've ever known except yourself. And it +was too much, just the one touch too much, to have you come to me to-day +with reproaches and an air of injury. But, at the same time, I ask your +pardon for having spoken to you like that--as though you'd done _me_ a +wrong. And if I've been too cruel, if the memory rankles and makes you +uncomfortable, you must keep away from me as long as you like. It won't +be for ever, I'm sure. In spite of everything I'm sure that we shall +always be friends.' + +She got up now, knowing in her exhaustion that she was near tears, and +she found her cigarette-case on the writing-table; it was an automatic +relapse to the customary. She felt that everything, indeed, was over, +and that the sooner one relapsed on every-day trivialities the better. + +Gerald watched her light the cigarette, the pulsing little flicker of +yellow flame illuminating her cheek and hair as she stood half turned +from him. She was near him and he had but one step to take to her. He +was almost unaware of motive. What he did was nearly as automatic, as +inevitable, as her search for the cigarette. He was beside her and he +put his arms around her and took the cigarette from her hand. Then, +folding her to him, he hid his face against her hair. + +It was, then, not excitement he felt so much as the envelopment of a +great, a beautiful necessity. So great, so beautiful, in its peace and +accomplishment, that it was as if he had stood there holding Helen for +an eternity, and as if all the miserable years that had separated them +were looked down at serenely from some far height. + +And Helen had stood absolutely still. When she spoke he heard in her +voice an amazement too great for anger. It was almost gentle in its +astonishment. 'Gerald,' she said, 'I am not in need of consolation.' + +Foolish Helen, he thought, breathing quietly in the warm dusk of her +hair; foolish dear one, to speak from that realm of abolished time. + +'I'm not consoling you,' he said. + +She was again silent for a moment and he felt that her heart was +throbbing hard; its shocks went through him. 'Let me go,' she said. + +He kissed her hair, holding her closer. + +Helen, starting violently, thrust him away with all her strength, and +though blissfully aware only of his own interpretation, Gerald half +released her, keeping her only by his clasp of her wrists. + +His kiss had confirmed her incredible suspicion. 'You insult me!' she +said. 'And after what I told you! What intolerable assumption! What +intolerable arrogance! What baseness!' + +Her eyes seemed to burn their eyelids; her face was transformed in its +wild, blanched indignation. + +'But I love you,' said Gerald, and he looked at her with a candour of +conviction too deep for pleading. + +'You love me!' Helen repeated. She could have wept for sheer fury and +humiliation had not her scornful concentration on him been too intent to +admit the flooding image of herself--mocked and abased by this +travesty--which might have brought the fears. 'I think that you are +mad.' + +'But I do love you,' Gerald reiterated. 'I've been mad, if you like; but +I'm quite sane now.' + +'You are a simpleton,' was Helen's reply; she could find no other word +for his fatuity. + +'Be as cruel as you like; I know I deserve it,' said Gerald. + +'You imagine I'm punishing you?' + +'I don't imagine anything, or see anything, Helen, except that we love +each other and that you've got to marry me.' + +Helen looked deeply into his eyes, deeply and, he saw it at last, +implacably. 'If your last chance hadn't been gone, can you believe that +I would ever have told you? Your last chance is gone. I will never marry +you.' And hearing steps outside, she twisted her hands from his, saying, +'Think of appearances, please. Here is Franklin.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + + +Gerald was standing at the window looking out when Franklin entered, and +Helen, in the place where he had left her, met the gaze of her affianced +with a firm and sombre look. There was a moment of silence while +Franklin stood near the door, turning a hesitant glance from Gerald's +back to Helen's face, and then Helen said, 'Gerald and I have been +quarrelling.' + +Franklin, feeling his way, tried to smile. 'Well, that's too bad,' he +said. He looked at her for another silent moment before adding, 'Do you +want to go on? Am I in the way?' + +'No, I don't want to go on, and you are very welcome,' Helen answered. +Her eyes were fixed on Franklin and she wondered at her own +self-command, for, in his eyes, so troubled and so kindly, she seemed to +see mutual memories; the memory of herself lying in the wood and saying +'I'm sick to death of it'; the memory of herself standing here and +saying to him 'I'm a broken-hearted woman.' And she knew that Franklin +was seeing in her face the same memories, and that, with his intuitive +insight where things of the heart were concerned, he was linking them +with the silent figure at the window. + +'I suppose,' he said, going to the fire and standing before it, his +back to the others, 'I suppose I can't help to elucidate things a +little.' + +'No, I think they are quite clear,' said Helen, 'or, at all events, you +put an end to them by staying; especially'--and she fixed her gaze on +the figure at the window--'as Gerald is going now.' + +But Gerald did not move and Franklin presently remarked, 'Sometimes, you +know, a third person can see things in another way and help things out. +If you could just, for instance, talk the matter over quietly, before +me, as a sort of adviser, you know. That might help. It's a pity for old +friends to quarrel.' + +Gerald turned from the window at this. He had come down from the heights +and knew that he had risen there too lightly, and that the tangles of +lower realities must be unravelled before he could be free to mount +again--Helen with him. He knew, at last, that he had made Helen very +angry and that it might take some time to disentangle things; but the +radiance of the heights was with him still, and if, to Helen's eye, he +looked fatuous, to Franklin, seeing his face now, for the first time, he +looked radiant. + +'Helen,' he said, smiling gravely at her, 'what Kane says is very +sensible. He is the one person in the world one could have such things +out before. Let's have them out; let's put the case to him and he shall +be umpire.' + +Helen bent her ironic and implacable gaze upon him and remained silent. + +'You think I've no right to put it before him, I suppose.' + +'You most certainly have no right. And you would gain nothing by it. +What I told you just now was true.' + +'I can't accept that.' + +'Then you are absurd.' + +'Very well, I am absurd, then. But there's one thing I have a right to +tell Kane,' Gerald went on, unsmiling now. 'I owe it to him to tell him. +He'll think badly of me, I know; but that can't be helped. We've all got +into a dreadful muddle and the only way out of it is to be frank. So I +must tell you, Kane, that Althea and I have found out that we have made +a mistake; we can't hit it off. I'm not the man to make her happy and +she feels it, I'm sure she feels it. It's only for my sake, I know, that +she hasn't broken off long ago. You are in love with Althea, and I am in +love with Helen; so there it is. I'm only saying what we are all +seeing.' Gerald spoke gravely, yet at the same time with a certain +blitheness, as though he took it for granted, for Franklin as well as +for himself, that he thus made both their paths clear and left any +hazardous element in their situations the same for both. Would Althea +have Franklin and would Helen have him? This was really all that now +needed elucidation. + +A heavy silence followed his words. In the silence the impression that +came to Gerald was as if one threw reconnoitring pebbles into a well, +expecting a swift response of shallowness, and heard instead, after a +wondering pause, the hollow reverberations of sombre, undreamed-of +depths. Franklin's eyes were on him and Helen's eyes were on him, and he +knew that in both their eyes he had proved himself once more, to say the +least of it, absurd. + +'Mr. Digby,' said Franklin Kane, and his voice was so strange that it +sounded indeed like the fall of the stone in far-off darkness, 'perhaps +you are saying what we all see; but perhaps we don't all see the same +things in the same way; perhaps,' Franklin went on, finding his way, +'you don't even see some things at all.' + +Gerald had flushed. 'I know I'm behaving caddishly. I've no right to say +anything until I see Althea.' + +'Well, perhaps not,' Franklin conceded. + +'But, you know,' said Gerald, groping too, 'it's not as if it were +really sudden--the Althea side of it, I mean. We've not hit it off at +all. I've disappointed her frightfully; it will be a relief to her, I +know--to hear'--Gerald stammered a little--'that I see now, as clearly +as she does, that we couldn't be happy together. Of course,' and he grew +still more red, 'it will be she who throws me over. And--I think I'd +better go to her at once.' + +'Wait, Gerald,' said Helen. + +He paused in his precipitate dash to the door. Only her gaze, till now, +had told of the chaos within her; but when Gerald said that he was going +to Althea, she found words. 'Wait a moment. I don't think that you +understand. I don't think, as Franklin says, that you see some things at +all. Do you realise what you are doing?' + +Gerald stood, his hand on the door knob, and looked at her. 'Yes; I +realise it perfectly.' + +'Do you realise that it will not change me and that I think you are +behaving outrageously?' + +'Even if it won't change you I'd have to do it now. I can't marry +another woman when I'm in love with you.' + +'Can't you? When you know that you can never marry me?' + +'Even if I know that,' said Gerald, staring at her and, with his +deepening sense of complications, looking, for him, almost stern. + +'Well, know it; once for all.' + +'That you won't ever forgive me?' Gerald questioned. + +'Put it like that if you like to,' she answered. + +Gerald turned again to go, and it was now Franklin who checked him. + +'Mr. Digby--wait,' he said; 'Helen--wait.' He had been looking at them +both while they interchanged their hostilities, and yet, though watching +them, he had been absent, as though he were watching something else even +more. 'What I mean, what I want to say, is this----' he rather +stammered. 'Don't please go to Althea directly. I'm to go to her this +evening. She asked me to come and see her at six.' He pulled out his +watch. 'It's five now. Will you wait? Will you wait till this evening, +please?' + +Gerald again had deeply flushed. 'Of course, if you ask it. Only I do +feel that I ought to see her, you know,' he paused, perplexed. Then, as +he looked at Franklin Kane, something came to him. The cloud of his +oppression seemed to pass from his face and it was once more +illuminated, not with blitheness, but with recognition. He saw, he +thought he saw, the way Franklin opened for them all. And his words +expressed the dazzled relief of that vision. 'I see,' he said, gazing on +at Franklin, 'yes, I see. Yes, if you can manage that it will be +splendid of you, Kane.' Flooded with the hope of swift elucidation he +seized the other's hand while he went on. 'It's been such a dreadful +mess. Do forgive me. You must; you will, won't you? It may mean +happiness for you, even though Helen says it can't for me. I do wish you +all good fortune. And--I'll be at my club until I hear from you. And I +can't say how I thank you.' With this, incoherently and rapidly +pronounced, Gerald was gone and Franklin and Helen were left standing +before each other. + +For a long time they did not speak, but Franklin's silence seemed caused +by no embarrassment. He still looked perplexed, but, through his +perplexity, he looked intent, as though tracing in greater and greater +clearness the path before him--the path that Gerald had seen that he was +opening and that might, Gerald had said, mean happiness to them all. It +was Helen watching him who felt a cruel embarrassment. She saw Franklin +sacrificed and she saw herself unable to save him. It would not save him +to tell him again that she would never marry Gerald. Franklin knew, too +clearly for any evasion, that Althea's was the desperate case, the case +for succour. She, Helen, could be thrown over--for they couldn't evade +that aspect--and suffer never a scratch; but for Althea to throw over +Gerald meant that in doing it she must tear her heart to pieces. + +And she could not save Franklin by telling him that she had divined his +love for her; that would give him all the more reason for ridding her of +a husband who hadn't kept to the spirit of their contract. No, the only +way to have saved him would have been to love him and to make him know +and feel it; and this was the only thing she could not do for Franklin. + +She took refuge in her nearest feeling, that of scorn for Gerald. 'It's +unforgivable of Gerald,' she said. + +Franklin's eyes--they had a deepened, ravaged look, but they were still +calm--probed hers, all their intentness now for her. 'Why, no,' he said, +after a moment, 'I don't see that.' + +Helen, turning away, had dropped into her chair, leaning her forehead on +her hand. 'I shall never forgive him,' she said. + +Franklin, on the other side of the fire, stood thinking, thinking so +hard that he was not allowing himself to feel. He was thinking so hard +of Helen that he was unconscious how the question he now asked might +affect himself. 'You do love him, Helen? It's him you've always loved?' + +'Always,' she said. + +'And he's found it out--only to-day.' + +'He didn't find it out; I told him. He came to reproach me for my +engagement.' + +Franklin turned it over. 'But what he has found out, then, is that he +loves you.' + +'So he imagines. It's not a valuable gift, as you see, Gerald's love.' + +Again Franklin paused and she knew that, for her sake, he was weighing +the value of Gerald's love. And he found in answer to what she said his +former words: 'Why, no, I don't see that,' he said. + +'I'm afraid it's all I do see,' Helen replied. + +He looked down upon her and after a silence he asked: 'May I say +something?' + +She nodded, resting her face in her hands. + +'You're wrong, you know,' said Franklin. 'Not wrong in feeling this way +now; I don't believe you can help that; but in deciding to go on feeling +it. You mustn't talk about final decisions.' + +'But they are made.' + +'They can't be made in life. Life unmakes them, I mean, unless you set +yourself against it and ruin things that might be mended.' + +'I'm afraid I can't take things as you do,' said Helen. 'Some things are +ruined from the very beginning.' + +'Well, I don't know about that,' said Franklin; 'at all events some +things aren't. And you're wrong about this thing, I'm sure of it. You're +hard and you're proud, and you set yourself against life and won't let +it work on you. The only way to get anything worth while out of life is +to be humble with it and be willing to let it lead you, I do assure you, +Helen.' + +Suddenly, her face hidden in her hands, she began to cry. + +'He is spoiled for me. Everything is spoiled for me,' she sobbed. 'I'd +rather be proud and miserable than humiliated. Who wants a joy that is +spoiled? Some things can't be joys if they come too late.' + +She wept, and in the silence between them knew only her own sorrow and +the bitterness of the desecration that had been wrought in her own love. +Then, dimly, through her tears, she heard Franklin's voice, and heard +that it trembled. + +'I think they can, Helen,' he said. 'I think it's wonderful the way joy +can grow if we don't set ourselves against life. I'm going to try to +make it grow'--how his poor voice trembled, she was drawn from her own +grief in hearing it--'and I wish I could leave you believing that you +were going to try too.' + +She put down her hands and lifted her strange, tear-stained face. + +'You are going to Althea.' + +'Yes,' said Franklin, and he smiled gently at her. + +'You are going to ask her to marry you before she can know that Gerald +is giving her up.' + +He paused for a moment. 'I'm going to see if she needs me.' + +Helen gazed at him. She couldn't see joy growing, but she saw a +determination that, in its sudden strength, was almost a joy. + +'And--if she doesn't need you, Franklin?' + +'Ah, well,' said Franklin, continuing to smile rather fixedly, 'I've +stood that, you see, for a good many years.' + +Helen rose and came beside him. 'Franklin,' she said, and she took his +hand, 'if she doesn't have you--you'll come back.' + +'Come back?' he questioned, and she saw that all his hardly held +fortitude was shaken by his wonder. + +'To me,' said Helen. 'You'll marry me, if Althea won't have you. Even if +she does--I'm not going to marry Gerald. So don't go to her with any +mistaken ideas about me.' + +He was very pale, holding her hand fast, as it held his. 'You mean--you +hate him so much--for never having seen--that you'll go through with +it--to punish him.' + +She shook her head. 'No, I'm not so bad as that. It won't be for +revenge. It will be for you--and for myself, too; because I'd rather +have it so; I'd rather have you, Franklin, than the ruined thing.' + +She knew that it was final and supreme temptation that she put before +him, and she held it there resolved, so that if there were one chance +for him he should have it. She knew that she would stand by what she +said. Franklin was her pride and Gerald her humiliation; she would never +accept humiliation; and though she could see Franklin go without a +qualm, she could, she saw it clearly, have a welcome for him nearly as +deep as love's, if he came back to her. And what she hoped, quite +selflessly, was that the temptation would suffice; that he would not go +to Althea. She looked into his face, and she saw that he was tormented. + +'But, Helen,' he said, 'the man you love loves you; doesn't that settle +everything?' + +She shook her head again. 'It settles nothing. I told you that I was a +woman with a broken heart. It's not mended; it never can be mended.' + +'But, Helen,' he said, and a pitiful smile of supplication dawned on his +ravaged little face, 'that's where you're so wrong. You've got to let it +soften and then it will have to mend. It's the hard hearts that get +broken.' + +'Well, mine is hard.' + +'Let it melt, Helen,' he pleaded with her, 'please let it melt. Please +let yourself be happy, dear Helen.' + +But still she shook her head, looking deeply at him, and in the +negation, in the look, it was as if she held her cup of magic steadily +before him. She was there, for him, if he would have her. She kept him +to his word for his sake; but she kept him to his word for hers, too. +Yes, he saw that though it was for his sake, it was not for his +alone--there was the final magic--that her eyes met his in that long, +clear look. It was the nearest he would ever come to Helen; it was the +most she could ever do for him; and, with a pang, deep and piercing, he +felt all that it meant, and felt his love of her avowed in his own eyes, +and recognised, received in hers. Helplessly, now, he looked at her, his +lips pressed together so that they should not show their trembling, and +only a little muscle in his cheek quivering irrepressibly. And he +faltered: 'Helen--you could never love me back.' + +'Not in that way,' said Helen. She was grave and clear; she had not a +hesitation. 'But that way is ruined and over for me. I could live for +you, though. I could make it worth your while.' + +He looked, and he could say nothing. Against his need of Helen he must +measure Althea's need of him. He must measure, too--ah, cruel +perplexity--the chance for Helen's happiness. She was unhesitating; but +how could she know herself so inflexible, how could she know that the +hard heart might not melt? For the sake of Helen's happiness he must +measure not only Gerald's need of her against his own and Gerald's power +against his own mere pitifulness, but he must wonder, in an agony of +sudden surmise, which, in the long-run, could give her most, the loved +or the unloved man. In all his life no moment had ever equalled this in +its fulness, and its intensity, and its pain. It thundered, it rushed, +it darkened--like the moment of death by drowning and like the great +river that bears away the drowning man. Memories flashed in it, broken +and vivid--of Althea's eyes and Helen's smile; Althea so appealing, +Helen so strong; and, incongruous in its remoteness, a memory of the +bleak, shabby little street in a Boston suburb, the small wooden house +painted brown, where he was born, where scanty nasturtiums flowered on +the fence in summer, and in winter, by the light of a lamp with a ground +glass shade, his mother's face, careful, worn, and gentle, bent over the +family mending. Where, indeed, had the river borne him, and what had +been done to him? + +Helen's voice came to him, and Helen's face reshaped itself--a strange +and lovely beacon over the engulfing waters. She saw his torment and she +understood. 'Go to her if you must,' she said; 'and I know that you +must. But don't go with mistaken ideas. Remember what I tell you. +Nothing is changed--for me, or in me. If Althea doesn't want you +back--or if Althea does want you back--I shall be waiting.' And, seeing +his extremity, Helen, grave and clear, filled her cup of magic to the +brim. As she had said that morning, she said now--but with what a +difference: 'Kiss me good-bye, Franklin.' + +He could not move towards her; he could not kiss her; but, smiling more +tenderly than he could have thought Helen would ever smile, she put her +arms around him and drew his rapt, transfigured face to hers. And +holding him tenderly, she kissed him and said: 'Whatever happens--you've +had the best of me.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + + +Althea, since the misty walk with Gerald, had been plunged in a pit of +mental confusion. She swung from accepted abasement to the desperate +thought of the magnanimity in such abasement; she dropped from this +fragile foothold to burning resentment, and, seeing where resentment +must lead her, she turned again and clasped, with tight-closed eyes, the +love that, looked upon, could not be held without humiliation. +Self-doubt and self-analysis had brought her to this state of pitiful +chaos. The only self left seemed centred in her love; if she did not +give up Gerald, what was left her but accepted abasement? If she let him +go, it would be to own to herself that she had failed to hold him, to +see herself as a nonentity. Yet, to go on clinging, what would that +show? Only with closed eyes could she cling. To open them for the merest +glimmer was to see that she was, indeed, nothing, if she had not +strength to relinquish a man who did not any longer, in any sense, wish +to make her his wife. With closed eyes one might imagine that it was +strength that clung; with open eyes one saw that it was weakness. + +Miss Harriet Robinson, all alert gaiety and appreciation, had arrived at +Merriston on Saturday, had talked all through Sunday, and had come up +to London with Althea and Gerald on Monday morning. Gerald had gone to a +smoking-carriage, and Althea had hardly exchanged a word with him. She +and Miss Robinson went to a little hotel in Mayfair, a hotel supposed to +atone for its costliness and shabbiness by some peculiar emanation of +British comfort. Americans of an earnest, if luxurious type, congregated +there and found a satisfactory local flavour in worn chintzes and uneven +passages. Lady Blair had kindly pressed Althea to stay with her in South +Kensington and be married from her house; but even a week ago, when this +plan had been suggested, Althea had shrunk from it. It had seemed, even +then, too decisive. Once beneath Lady Blair's quasi-maternal roof one +would be propelled, like a labelled parcel, resistlessly to the altar. +Even then Althea had felt that the little hotel in Mayfair, with its +transient guests and impersonal atmosphere, offered further breathing +space for indefiniteness. + +She was thankful indeed for breathing space as, on the afternoon of her +arrival, she sat sunken in a large chair and felt, as one relief, that +she would not see Miss Robinson again until evening. It had been +tormenting, all the journey up, to tear herself from her own sick +thoughts and to answer Miss Robinson's unsuspecting comments and +suggestions. + +Miss Robinson was as complacent and as beaming as though she had herself +'settled' Althea. She richly embroidered the themes, now so remote, that +had once occupied poor Althea's imagination--house-parties at Merriston; +hostess-ship on a large scale in London; Gerald's seat in Parliament +taken as a matter-of-course. Althea, feeling the intolerable irony, had +attempted vague qualifications; Gerald did not care for politics; she +herself preferred a quieter life; they probably could not afford a town +house. But to such disclaimers Miss Robinson opposed the brightness of +her faith in her friend's capacities. 'Ah, my dear, it's your very +reticence, your very quietness, that will tell. Once settled--I've +always felt it of you--you will make your place--and your place can only +be a big one. My only regret is that you won't get your wedding-dress in +Paris--oh yes, I know that they have immensely improved over here; but, +for cut and _cachet_, Paris is still the only place.' + +This had all been tormenting, and Miss Buckston's presence at lunch had +been something of a refuge--Miss Buckston, far more interested in her +Bach choir practice than in Althea's plans, and lending but a +preoccupied attention to Miss Robinson's matrimonial talk. Miss +Buckston, at a glance, had dismissed Miss Robinson as frothy and +shallow. They were both gone now, thank goodness. Lady Blair would not +descend upon her till next morning, and Sally and Mrs. Peel were not due +in London until the end of the week. Althea sat, her head leaning back, +her eyes closed, and wondered whether Gerald would come and see her. He +had parted from her at the station, and the memory of his face, +courteous, gentle, yet so unseeing, made her feel like weeping +piteously. She spent the afternoon in the chair, her eyes closed and an +electric excitement of expectancy tingling through her, and Gerald did +not come. He did not come that evening, and the evening passed like a +phantasmagoria--the dinner in the sober little dining-room, Miss +Robinson, richly dressed, opposite her; and the hours in her +drawing-room afterwards, she and Miss Robinson on either side of the +fire, quietly conversing. And next morning there was no word from him. +It was then, as she lay in bed and felt the tears, though she did not +sob, roll down over her cheeks upon the pillow, that sudden strength +came with sudden revolt. A revulsion against her suffering and the cause +of it went through her, and she seemed to shake off a torpor, an +obsession, and to re-enter some moral heritage from which, for months, +her helpless love had shut her out. + +Lying there, her cheeks still wet but her eyes now stern and steady, she +felt herself sustained, as if by sudden wings, at a vertiginous height +from which she looked down upon herself and upon her love. What had it +been, that love? what was it but passion pure and simple, the craving +feminine thing, enmeshed in charm. To a woman of her training, her +tradition, must not a love that could finally satisfy her nature, its +deeps and heights, be a far other love; a love of spirit rather than of +flesh? What was all the pain that had warped her for so long but the +inevitable retribution for her back-sliding? Old adages came to her, +aerial Emersonian faiths. Why, one was bound and fettered if feeling was +to rule one and not mind. Friendship, deep, spiritual congeniality, was +the real basis for marriage, not the enchantment of the heart and +senses. She had been weak and dazzled; she had followed the +will-o'-the-wisp--and see, see the bog where it had led her. + +She saw it now, still sustained above it and looking down. Her love for +Gerald was not a high thing; it called out no greatness in her; +appealed to none; there was no spiritual congeniality between them. In +the region of her soul he was, and would always remain, a stranger. + +Sure of this at last, she rose and wrote to Franklin, swiftly and +urgently. She did not clearly know what she wanted of him; but she felt, +like a flame of faith within her, that he, and he only, could sustain +her at her height. He was her spiritual affinity; he was her wings. +Merely to see him, merely to steep herself in the radiance of his love +and sympathy, would be to recover power, poise, personality, and +independence. It was a goal she flew towards, though she saw it but in +dizzy glimpses, and as if through vast hallucinations of space. + +She told Franklin to come at six. She gave herself one more day; for +what she could not have said. A lightness of head seemed to swim over +her, and a loss of breath, when she tried to see more clearly the goal, +or what might still capture and keep her from it. + +She told Amelie that she had a bad headache and would spend the day on +her sofa, denying herself to Lady Blair; and all day long she lay there +with tingling nerves and a heavily beating heart--poor heart, what was +happening to it in its depths she could not tell--and Gerald did not +write or come. + +At tea-time Miss Robinson could not be avoided. She tip-toed in and sat +beside her sofa commenting compassionately on her pallor. 'I do so beg +you to go straight to bed, dear,' she said. 'Let me give you some sal +volatile; there is nothing better for a headache.' + +But Althea, smiling heroically, said that she must stay up to see +Franklin Kane. 'He wants to see me, and will be here at six. After he is +gone I will go to bed.' She did not know why she should thus arrange +facts a little for Miss Robinson; but all her nature was stretched on +its impulse towards safety, and it was automatically that she adjusted +facts to that end. After the first great moment of enfranchisement and +soaring, it was like relapsing to some sub-conscious function of the +organism--digestion or circulation--that did things for one if one +didn't interfere with it. Her mind no longer directed her course except +in this transformed and subsidiary guise; it had become part of the +machinery of self-preservation. + +'You really are an angel, my dear,' said Miss Robinson. 'You oughtn't to +allow your devotees to _accaparer_ you like this. You will wear yourself +out.' + +Althea, with a smile still more heroic, said that dear Franklin could +never wear her out; and Miss Robinson, not to be undeceived, shook her +head, while retiring to make room for the indiscreet friend. + +When she was gone, Althea got up and took her place in the chintz chair +where she had waited for so long yesterday. + +Outside, a foggy day closed to almost opaque obscurity. The fire burned +brightly, there were candles on the mantelpiece and a lamp on the table, +yet the encompassing darkness seemed to have entered the room. After the +aerial heights of the morning it was now at a corresponding depth, as if +sunken to the ocean-bed, that she seemed to sit and wait, and feel, in +a trance-like pause, deep, essential forces working. And she remembered +the sunny day in Paris, and the other hotel drawing-room where, empty +and aimless, she had sat, only six months ago. How much had come to her +since then; through how much hope and life had she lived, to what +heights been lifted, to what depths struck down. And now, once more she +sat, bereft of everything, and waiting for she knew not what. + +Franklin appeared almost to the moment. Althea had not seen him since +leaving London some weeks before, and at the first glance he seemed to +her in some way different. She had only time to think, fleetingly, of +all that had happened to Franklin since she had last seen him, all the +strange, new things that Helen must have meant to him; and the thought, +fleeting though it was, made more urgent the impulse that pressed her +on. For, after all, the second glance showed him as so much the same, +the same to the unbecomingness of his clothes, the flatness of his +features, the general effect of decision and placidity that he always, +predominatingly, gave. + +It was on Franklin's sameness that she leaned. It was Franklin's +sameness that was her goal; she trusted it like the ground beneath her +feet. She went to him and put out her hands. 'Dear Franklin,' she said, +'I am so glad to see you.' + +He took her hands and held them while he looked into her eyes. The face +she lifted to him was a woeful one, in spite of the steadying of its +pale lips to a smile. It was not enfranchisement and the sustained +height that he saw--it was fear and desolation; they looked at him out +of her large, sad eyes and they were like an uttered cry. He saw her +need, worse still, he saw her trust; and yet, ah yet, his hope, his +unacknowledged hope, the hope which Helen's magic had poured into his +veins, pulsed in him. He saw her need, but as he looked, full of +compassion and solicitude, he was hoping that her need was not of him. + +Suddenly Althea burst into sobs. She leaned her face against his +shoulder, her hands still held in his, and she wept out: 'O Franklin, I +had to send for you--you are my only friend--I am so unhappy, so +unhappy.' Franklin put an arm around her, still holding her hand, and he +slightly patted her back as she leaned upon him. 'Poor Althea, poor +dear,' he said. + +'Oh, what shall I do, Franklin?' she whispered. + +'Tell me all about it,' said Franklin. 'Tell me what's the matter.' + +She paused for a moment, and in the pause her thoughts, released for +that one instant from their place of servitude, scurried through the +inner confusion. His tone, the quietness, kindness, rationality of it, +seemed to demand reason, not impulse, from her, the order of truth and +not the chaos of feeling. But pain and fear had worked for too long upon +her, and she did not know what truth was. All she knew was that he was +near, and tender and compassionate, and to know that seemed to be +knowing at last that here was the real love, the love of spirit from +which she had turned to lower things. Impulse, not insincere, surged up, +and moved by it alone she sobbed on, 'O Franklin, I have made a mistake, +a horrible, horrible mistake. It's killing me. I can't go on. I don't +love him, Franklin--I don't love Gerald--I can't marry him. And how can +I tell him? How can I break faith with him?' + +Franklin stood very still, his hand clasping hers, the other ceasing its +rhythmic, consolatory movement. He held her, this woman whom he had +loved for so many years, and over her bent head he looked before him at +the frivolous and ugly wall-paper, a chaos of festooned chrysanthemums +on a bright pink ground. He gazed at the chrysanthemums, and he +wondered, with a direful pang, whether Althea were consciously lying to +him. + +She sobbed on: 'Even in the first week, I knew that something was wrong. +Of course I was in love--but it was only that--there was nothing else +except being in love. Doubts gnawed at me from the first; I couldn't +bear to accept them; I hoped on and on. Only in this last week I've seen +that I can't--I can't marry him. Oh----' and the wail was again +repeated, 'what shall I do, Franklin?' + +He spoke at last, and in the disarray of her sobbing and darkened +condition--her face pressed against him, her ears full of the sound of +her own labouring breath--she could not know to the full how strange his +voice was, though she felt strangeness and caught her breath to listen. + +'Don't take it like this, Althea,' he said. 'It's not so bad as all +this. It can all be made right. You must just tell him the truth and set +him free.' + +And now there was a strange silence. He was waiting, and she was waiting +too; she stilled her breath and he stilled his; all each heard was the +beating of his and her own heart. And the silence, to Althea, was full +of a new and formless fear, and to Franklin of an acceptation sad beyond +all the sadnesses of his life. Even before Althea spoke, and while the +sweet, the rapturous, the impossible hope softly died away, he knew in +his heart, emptied of magic, that it was he Althea needed. + +She spoke at last, in a changed and trembling voice; it pierced him, for +he felt the new fear in it: 'How can I tell him the truth, Franklin?' +she said. 'How can I tell you the truth? How can I say that I turned +from the real thing, the deepest, most beautiful thing in my life--and +hurt it, broke it, put it aside, so blind, so terribly blind I was--and +took the unreal thing? How can I ever forgive myself--but, O Franklin, +much, much more, how can you ever forgive me?' her voice wailed up, +claiming him supremely. + +She believed it to be the truth, and he saw that she believed it. He +saw, sadly, clearly, that among all the twistings and deviations of her +predicament, one thing held firm for her, so firm that it had given her +this new faith in herself--her faith in his supreme devotion. And he saw +that he owed it to her. He had given it to her, he had made it her +possession, to trust to as she trusted to the ground under her feet, +ever since they were boy and girl together. Six months ago it would have +been with joy, and with joy only, that he would have received her, and +have received the gift of her bruised, uncertain heart. Six months--why +only a week ago he would have thought that it could only be with joy. + +So now he found his voice and he knew that it was nearly his old voice +for her, and he said, in answer to that despairing statement that +wailed for contradiction: 'Oh no, Althea, dear. Oh no, you haven't +wrecked our lives.' + +'But you are bound now,' she hardly audibly faltered. 'You have another +life opening before you. You can't come back now.' + +'No, Althea,' Franklin repeated, and he stroked her shoulder again. 'I +can come back, if you want me. And you do want me, don't you, dear? You +will let me try to make you happy?' + +She put back her head to look at him, her poor face, tear-stained, her +eyes wild with their suffering, and he saw the new fear in them, the +formless fear. 'O Franklin,' she said, and the question was indeed a +strange one to be asked by her of him: 'do you love me?' + +And now, pierced by his pity, Franklin could rise to all she needed of +him. The old faith sustained him, too. One didn't love some one for all +one's life like that, to be left quite dispossessed. Many things were +changed, but many still held firm; and though, deep in his heart, sick +with its relinquishment, Helen's words seemed to whisper, 'Some things +can't be joys when they come too late,' he could answer himself as he +had answered her, putting away the irony and scepticism of +disenchantment--'It's wonderful the way joy can grow,' and draw strength +for himself and for his poor Althea from that act of affirmation. + +'Why, of course I love you, Althea, dear,' he said. 'How can you ask me +that? I've always loved you, haven't I? You knew I did, didn't you, or +else you wouldn't have sent? You knew I wasn't bound if you were free. I +understand it all.' And smiling at her so that she should forget for +ever that she had had a new fear, he added, 'And see here, dear, you +mustn't delay a moment in letting Gerald know. Come, write him a note +now, and I'll have it sent to his club so that he shall hear right +away.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + + +Helen woke next morning after unbroken, heavy slumbers, with a mind as +vague and empty as a young child's. All night long she had been dreaming +strange, dreary dreams of her youth. There had been no pain in them, or +fear, only a sad lassitude, as of one who, beaten and weary, looks back +from a far distance at pain and fear outlived. And lying in her bed, +inert and placid, she felt as if she had been in a great battle, and +that after the annihilation of anaesthetics she had waked to find herself +with limbs gone and wounds bandaged, passive and acquiescent, in a world +from which all large issues had been eliminated for ever. + +It was the emptiest kind of life on which her eyes opened so quietly +this morning. She was not even to be life's captive. The little note +which had come to her last night from Franklin and now lay beside her +bed had told her that. He had told her that Althea had taken him back, +and he had only added, 'Thank you, dear Helen, for all that you have +given me and all that you were willing to give.' + +In the overpowering sense of sadness that had been the last of the day's +great emotions Helen had found no mitigation of relief for her own +escape. That she had escaped made only an added bitterness. And even +sadness seemed to be a memory this morning, and the relief that came, +profound and almost sweet, was in the sense of having passed away from +feeling. She had felt too much; though, had life been in her with which +to think or feel, she could have wept over Franklin. + +Sometimes she closed her eyes, too much at peace for a smile; sometimes +she looked quietly about her familiar little room, above Aunt Grizel's, +and showing from its windows only a view of the sky and of the +chimney-pots opposite, a room oddly empty of associations and links; no +photographs, few books, few pictures; only the vase of flowers she liked +always to have near her; her old Bible and prayer-book and hymnal, +battered by years rather than by use, for religion held no part at all +in Helen's life; and two faded prints of seventeenth-century +battleships, sailing in gallant squadrons on a silvery sea. These had +hung in Helen's schoolroom, and she had always been fond of them. The +room was symbolic of her life, so insignificant in every outer contact, +so centred, in her significant self, on its one deep preoccupation. But +there was no preoccupation now. Gerald's image passed before her and +meant nothing more than the other things she looked at, while her mind +drifted like an aimless butterfly from the flowers and the prints to the +pretty old mirror--a gift of Gerald's--and hovered over the graceful +feminine objects scattered upon the chairs and tables. The thought of +Gerald stirred nothing more than a mild wonder. What a strange thing, +her whole life hanging on this man, coloured, moulded by him. What did +such a feeling mean? and what had she really wanted of Gerald more than +he had given? She wanted nothing now. + +It was with an effort--a painful, dragging effort--that she roused +herself to talk to Aunt Grizel, who appeared at the same time as her +breakfast. Not that she needed to act placidity and acquiescence before +Aunt Grizel; she felt them too deeply to need to act; the pain, perhaps, +came from having nothing else with which to meet her. + +Aunt Grizel was amazed, distressed, nearly indignant; she only was not +indignant because of a pity that perplexed even while it soothed her. +She, too, had had a letter from Franklin that morning, and only that +morning had heard of the broken engagement and of how Franklin faced it. +She did not offer to show Helen Franklin's letter, which she held in her +hand, emphasising her perplexity by doubling it over and slapping her +palm with it. 'She sent for him, then.' It was on Althea that she longed +to discharge her smothered anger. + +Helen was ready for her; to have to be so ready was part of the pain. +'Well, in a sense perhaps, it was all she could do, wasn't it? when she +found that she couldn't go on with Gerald, and really wanted Franklin at +last.' + +'Rather late in the day to come to that conclusion when Mr. Kane was +engaged to another woman.' + +'Well--he was engaged to another woman only because Althea wouldn't have +him.' + +'Oh!--Ah!' Aunt Grizel was non-committal on this point. 'She lets him +seem to jilt you.' + +'Perhaps she does.' Helen's placidity was profound. + +'I know Mr. Kane, he wouldn't have been willing to do that unless +pressure had been brought to bear.' + +'Pressure was, I suppose; the pressure of his own feeling and of +Althea's unhappiness. He saw that his chance had come and he had to take +it. He couldn't go on and marry me, could he, Aunt Grizel? when he saw +the chance had come for him to take,' said Helen reasonably. + +'Well,' said Aunt Grizel, 'the main point isn't, of course, what the +people who know of your engagement will think--we don't mind that. What +we want to decide on is what we think ourselves. I keep my own counsel, +for I know you'd rather I did, and you keep yours. But what about this +money? He writes to me that he wants me to take over from him quite a +little fortune, so that when I die I can leave you about a thousand a +year. He has thought it out; it isn't too much and it isn't too little. +He is altogether a remarkable man; his tact never fails him. Of course +it's nothing compared with what he wanted to do for you; but at the same +time it's so much that, to put it brutally, you get for nothing the +safety I wanted you to marry him to get.' + +Helen's delicate and weary head now turned on its pillow to look at Aunt +Grizel. They looked at each other for some time in silence, and in the +silence they took counsel together. After the interchange Helen could +say, smiling a little, 'We mustn't put it brutally; that is the one +thing we must never do. Not only for his sake,' she wanted Aunt Grizel +to see it clearly, 'but for mine.' + +'How shall we put it, then? It's hardly a possible thing to accept, yet, +if he hadn't believed you would let him make you safe, would he have +gone back to Miss Jakes? One sees his point.' + +'We mustn't put it brutally, because it isn't true,' said Helen, +ignoring this last inference. 'I couldn't let you take it for me unless +I cared very much for him; and I care so much that I can't take it.' + +Aunt Grizel was silent for another moment. 'I see: it's because it's all +you can do for him now.' + +'All that he can do for me, now,' Helen just corrected her. + +'Wasn't it all he ever could do, and more? He makes you safe--of course +it's not what I wanted for you, but it's part of it--he makes you safe +and he removes himself.' + +Aunt Grizel saw the truth so clearly that Helen could allow her to seem +brutal. 'It's only because we could both do a good deal for each other +that doing this is possible,' she said. + +She then roused herself to pour out her coffee and butter her toast, and +Miss Buchanan sat in silence beside her, tapping Franklin Winslow Kane's +letter on her palm from time to time. And at last she brought out her +final decision. 'When I write to him and tell him that I accept, I shall +tell him too, that I'm sorry.' + +'Sorry? For what?' Helen did not quite follow her. + +'That it's all he can do now,' said Aunt Grizel; 'that he is removing +himself.' + +It was her tribute to Franklin, and Helen, even for the sake of all the +delicate appearances, couldn't protest against such a tribute. She was +glad that Franklin was to know, from Aunt Grizel, that he, himself, was +regretted. So that she said, 'Yes; I'm glad you can tell him that.' + +It was at this moment of complete understanding that the maid came in +and said that Mr. Digby was downstairs and wanted to see Miss Helen. He +would wait as long as she liked. There was then a little pause, and Aunt +Grizel saw a greater weariness pass over her niece's face. + +'Very well,' she spoke for her to the maid. 'Tell Mr. Digby that some +one will be with him directly,' and, as the door closed: 'You're not fit +to see him this morning, Helen,' she said; 'not fit to pour balms into +his wounds. Let me do it for you.' + +Helen lay gazing before her, and she was still silent. She did not know +what she wanted; but she did know that she did not want to see Gerald. +The thought of seeing him was intolerable. 'Will you pour balms?' she +said. 'I'm afraid you are not too sorry for Gerald.' + +'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not,' said Aunt Grizel, smiling a +little grimly. 'He takes things too easily, and I confess that it does +rather please me to see him, for once in his life, "get left." He needed +to "get left."' + +'Well, you won't tell him that, if I let you go to him instead of me? +You will be nice to him?' + +'Oh, I'll be nice enough. I'll condole with him.' + +'Tell him,' said Helen, as Aunt Grizel moved resolutely to the door, +'that I can't see anybody; not for a long time. I shall go away, I +think.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + + +Miss Grizel had known Gerald all his life, and yet she was not intimate +with him, and during the years that Helen had lived with her she had +come to feel a certain irritation against him. Her robust and caustic +nature had known no touch of jealousy for the place he held in Helen's +life. It was dispassionately that she observed, and resented on Helen's +account, the exacting closeness of a friendship with a man who, she +considered, was not worth so much time and attention. She suspected +nothing of the hidden realities of Helen's feeling, yet she did suspect, +acutely, that, had it not been for Gerald, Helen might have had more +time for other things. It was Gerald who monopolised and took for +granted. He came, and Helen was always ready. Miss Grizel had not liked +Gerald to be so assured. She was pleased, now, in going downstairs, that +Gerald Digby should find, for once, and at a moment of real need, that +Helen could not see him. + +He was standing before the fire, his eyes on the door, and as she looked +at him Miss Grizel experienced a certain softening of mood. She decided +that she had, to some extent, misjudged Gerald; he had, then, capacity +for caring deeply. Miss Jakes's defection had knocked him about badly. +There was kindness in her voice as she said: 'Good morning,' and gave +him her hand. + +But Gerald was not thinking of her or of her kindness. 'Where is Helen?' +he asked, shaking and then automatically retaining her hand. + +'You can't see Helen to-day,' said Miss Grizel, a little nettled by the +open indifference. 'She is not at all well. This whole affair, as you +may imagine, has been singularly painful for her to go through. She asks +me to tell you that she can see nobody for a long time. We are going +away; we are going to the Riviera,' said Miss Grizel, making the resolve +on the spot. + +Gerald held her hand and looked at her with a feverish unseeing gaze. 'I +must see Helen,' he said. + +'My dear Gerald,' Miss Grizel disengaged her hand and went to a chair, +'this really isn't an occasion for musts. Helen has had a shock as well +as you, and you certainly shan't see her.' + +'Does she say I shan't?' + +Miss Grizel's smile was again grim. 'She says you shan't, and so do I. +She's not fit to see anybody.' + +Gerald looked at her for another moment and then turned to the +writing-table. 'I beg your pardon; I don't mean to be rude. Only I +really must see her. Do you mind my writing a line? Will you have it +taken to her?' + +'Certainly,' said Miss Grizel, compressing her lips. + +Gerald sat down and wrote, quickly, yet carefully, pausing between the +sentences and fixing the same unseeing gaze on the garden. He then rose +and gave the note to Miss Grizel, who, ringing, gave it to the maid, +after which she and Gerald remained sitting on opposite sides of the +room in absolute silence for quite a long while. + +Gerald's note had been short. 'Don't be so unspeakably cruel,' it ran, +without preamble. 'You know, don't you, that it has all turned out +perfectly? Althea has thrown me over and taken Kane. I've made them +happy at all events. As for us--O Helen, you must see me. I can't wait. +I can't wait for an hour. I beseech you to come. Only let me see +you.--GERALD.' + +To this appeal the maid presently brought the answer, which Gerald, +oblivious of Miss Grizel's scrutiny, tore open and read. + +'Don't make me despise you, Gerald. You come because of what I told you +yesterday, and I told you because it was over, so that you insult me by +coming. You must believe me when I say that it is over, and until you +can meet me as if you had forgotten, I cannot see you. I will not see +you now. I do not want to see you.--HELEN.' + +He read this, and Miss Grizel saw the blood surge into his face. He +leaned back in his chair, crumpled Helen's note in his fingers, and +looked out of the window. Again Miss Grizel was sorry for him, though +with her sympathy there mingled satisfaction. Presently Gerald looked at +her, and it was as if he were, at last, aware of her. He looked for a +long time, and suddenly, like some one spent and indifferent, he said, +offering his explanation: 'You see--I'm in love with Helen--and she +won't have me.' + +Miss Grizel gasped and gazed. 'In love with Helen? You?' she repeated. +The gold locket on her ample bosom had risen with her astounded breath. + +'Yes,' said Gerald, 'and she won't have me.' + +'But Miss Jakes?' said Miss Grizel. + +'She is in love with Kane, and Kane with her--as he always has been, you +know. They are all right. Everything is all right, except Helen.' + +A queer illumination began to shoot across Miss Grizel's stupor. + +'Perhaps you told Helen that you loved her before Miss Jakes threw you +over. Perhaps you told Mr. Kane that Miss Jakes loved him before she +threw you over. Perhaps it's you who have upset the apple-cart.' + +'I suppose it is,' said Gerald, gloomily, but without contrition. 'I +thought it would bring things right to have the facts out. It has +brought them right--for Althea and Kane; they will be perfectly happy +together.' + +This simplicity, in the face of her own deep knowledge--the knowledge +she had built on in sending for Franklin Kane a week ago--roused a +ruthless ire in Miss Grizel. 'I'm afraid that you've let your own wishes +sadly deceive you,' she said. 'I must tell you, since you evidently +don't know it, that Mr. Kane is in love with Helen; deeply in love with +her. From what I understand of the situation you have sacrificed him to +your own feeling, and perhaps sacrificed Miss Jakes too; but I don't go +into that.' + +It was now Gerald's turn to gaze and gasp; he did not gasp, however; he +only gazed--gazed with a gaze no longer inward and unseeing. He was, at +last, seeing everything. He fell back on the one most evident thing he +saw, and had from the beginning seen. 'But Helen--she could never have +loved him. Such a marriage would be unfit for Helen. I'm not excusing +myself. I see I've been an unpardonable fool in one way.' + +Miss Grizel's ire increased. 'Unfit for Helen? Why, pray? He would have +given her the position of a princess--in our funny modern sense. I +intended, and I made the marriage. I saw he'd fallen in love with +her--dear little man--though at the time he didn't know it himself. And +since then I've had the satisfaction--one of the greatest of my life--of +seeing how happy I had made both of them. It was obvious, touchingly so, +that he was desperately in love with Helen. Yes, Gerald, don't come to +me for sympathy and help. You've wrecked a thing I had set my heart on. +You've wrecked Mr. Kane, and my opinion is that you've wrecked Helen +too.' + +Gerald, who had become very pale, kept his eyes on her, and he went back +to his one foothold in a rocking world. 'Helen could never have loved +him.' + +Miss Grizel shook her hand impatiently above her knee. 'Love! Love! What +do you all mean with your love, I'd like to know? What's this sudden +love of yours for Helen, you who, until yesterday, were willing to marry +another woman for her money--or were you in love with her too? What's +Miss Jakes's love of Mr. Kane, who, until a week ago, thought herself in +love with you? And you may well ask me what is Mr. Kane's love of Helen, +who, until a week ago, thought himself in love with Miss Jakes? But +there I answer you that he is the only one of you who seems to me to +know what love is. One can respect his feeling; it means more than +himself and his own emotions. It means something solid and dependable. +Helen recognised it, and Helen's feeling for him--though it certainly +wasn't love in your foolish sense--was something that she valued more +than anything you can have to offer her. And I repeat, though I'm sorry +to pain you, that it is clear to me that you have wrecked her life as +well as Mr. Kane's.' + +Miss Grizel had had her say. She stood up, her lips compressed, her eyes +weighty with their hard, good sense. And Gerald rose, too. He was at a +disadvantage, and an unfair one, but he did not think of that. He +thought, with stupefaction, of what he had done in this room the day +before to Franklin and to Helen. In the depths of his heart he couldn't +wish it undone, for he couldn't conceive of himself now as married to +Althea, nor could he, in spite of Miss Grizel's demonstrations, conceive +of Helen as married to Franklin Kane. But with all the depths of his +heart he wished what he had done, done differently. And although he +couldn't conceive of Helen as married to Franklin Kane, although he +couldn't accept Miss Grizel's account of her state as final, nor believe +her really wrecked--since, after all, she loved him, not Franklin--he +could clearly conceive from Miss Grizel's words that by doing it as he +had, he had wrecked many things and endangered many. What these things +were her words only showed him confusedly, and his clearest impulse now +was to see just what they were, to see just what he had done. Miss +Grizel couldn't show him, for Miss Grizel didn't know the facts; Helen +would not show him, she refused to see him; his mind leaped at once, as +he rose and stood looking rather dazedly about before going, to Franklin +Kane. Kane, as he had said yesterday, was the one person in the world +before whom one could have such things out. Even though he had wrecked +Kane, Kane was still the only person he could turn to. And since he had +wrecked him in his ignorance he felt that now, in his enlightenment, he +owed him something infinitely delicate and infinitely deep in the way of +apology. + +'Well, thank you,' he said, grasping Miss Grizel's hand. 'You had to say +it, and it had to be said. Good-bye.' + +Miss Grizel, not displeased with his fashion of taking her chastisement, +returned his grasp. 'Yes,' she said, 'you couldn't go on as you were. +But all the same, I'm sorry for you.' + +'Oh,' Gerald smiled a little. 'I don't suppose you've much left for me, +and no wonder.' + +'Oh yes, I've plenty left for you,' said Miss Grizel. And, in thinking +over his expression as he had left her, the smile, its self-mockery, yet +its lack of bitterness, his courage, and yet the frankness of his +disarray, she felt that she liked Gerald more than she had ever liked +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + + +'Why, yes, of course I can see you. Do sit down.' Franklin spoke +gravely, scanning his visitor's face while he moved piles of pamphlets +from a chair and pushed aside the books and papers spread before him on +the table. + +Gerald had found him, after a fruitless morning call, at his lodgings in +Clarges Street, and Franklin, in the dim little sitting-room, had risen +from the work that, for hours, had given him a feeling of anchorage--not +too secure--in a world where many of his bearings were painfully +confused. Seeing him so occupied, Gerald, in the doorway, had hesitated: +'Am I interrupting you? Shall I come another time? I want very much to +see you, if I may.' And Franklin had replied with his quick reassurance, +too kindly for coldness, yet too grave for cordiality. + +Gerald sat down at the other side of the table and glanced at the array +of papers spread upon it. They gave him a further sense of being beyond +his depth. It was like seeing suddenly the whole bulk of some ocean +craft, of which before one had noticed only the sociable and very +insignificant decks and riggings, lifted, for one's scientific +edification, in its docks. All the laborious, underlying meaning of +Franklin's life was symbolised in these neat papers and heavy books. +Gerald tried to remember, with only partial success, what Franklin's +professional interests were; people's professional interests had rarely +engaged his attention. It was queer to realise that the greater part of +Franklin Kane's life was something entirely alien from his own +imagination, and Gerald felt, as we have said, beyond his depth in +realising it. Yet the fact of a significance he had no power of gauging +did not disconcert him; he was quite willing to swim as best he could +and even to splash grotesquely; quite willing to show Franklin Kane that +he was very helpless and very ignorant, and could only appeal for mercy. + +'Please be patient with me if I make mistakes,' he said. 'I probably +shall make mistakes; please bear with me.' + +Franklin, laying one pamphlet on another, did not reply to this, keeping +only his clear, kind gaze responsively on the other's face. + +'In the first place,' said Gerald, looking down and reaching out for a +thick blue pencil which he seemed to examine while he spoke, 'I must ask +your pardon. I made a terrible fool of myself yesterday afternoon. As +you said, there were so many things I didn't see. I do see them now.' + +He lifted his eyes from the pencil, and Franklin, after meeting them for +a moment, said gently: 'Well, there isn't much good in looking at them, +is there? As for asking my pardon--you couldn't have helped not knowing +those things.' + +'Perhaps I ought to have guessed them, but I didn't. I was able to play +the fool in perfect good faith.' + +'Well, I don't know about that; I don't know that you played the fool,' +said Franklin. + +'My second point is this,' said Gerald. 'Of course I'm not going to +pretend anything. You know that I love Helen and that I believe she +loves me, and that for that reason I've a right to seem silly and +fatuous and do my best to get her. I quite see what you must both of you +have thought of me yesterday. I quite see that she couldn't stand my +blindness--to all you meant and felt, you know, and then my imagining +that everything could be patched up between her and me. She wants me to +feel my folly to the full, and no wonder. But that sort of bitterness +would have to go down where people love--wouldn't it? it's something +that can be got over. But that's what I want to ask you; perhaps I'm +more of a fool than I yet know; perhaps what her aunt tells me is true; +perhaps I've wrecked Helen as well as wrecked you. It's a very queer +question to ask--and you must forgive me--no one can answer it but you, +except Helen, and Helen won't see me. Do you really think I have wrecked +her?' + +Everybody seemed to be asking this question of poor Franklin. He gave it +his attention in this, its new application, and before answering, he +asked: + +'What's happened since I saw you?' + +Gerald informed him of the events of the morning. + +'I suppose,' said Franklin, reflecting, 'that you shouldn't have gone so +soon. You ought to have given her more time to adjust herself. It looked +a little too sure, didn't it? as if you felt that now that you'd settled +matters satisfactorily you could come and claim her.' + +'I know now what it looked like,' said Gerald; 'but, you see, I didn't +know this morning. And I was sure, I am sure,' he said, fixing his +charming eyes sadly and candidly upon Franklin, 'that Helen and I belong +to one another.' + +Franklin continued to reflect. 'Well, yes, I understand that,' he said. +'But how can you make her feel it? Why weren't you sure long ago?' + +'Oh, you ask me again why I was a fool,' said Gerald gloomily, 'and I +can only reply that Helen was too clever. After all, falling in love is +suddenly seeing something and wanting something, isn't it? Well, Helen +never let me see and never let me want.' + +'Yes, that's just the trouble. She's let you see, so that you do want, +now. But that can't be very satisfactory to her, can it?' said Franklin, +with all his impartiality. + +'Of course it can't!' said Gerald, with further gloom. 'And don't, +please, imagine that I'm idiotic enough to think myself satisfactory. My +only point is that I belong to her, unsatisfactory as I am, and that, +unless I've really wrecked her, and myself--I must be able to make her +feel that it's her point too; that other things can't really count, +finally, beside it. Have I wrecked her?' Gerald repeated. 'I mean, would +she have been really happier with you? Forgive me for asking you such a +question.' + +Franklin again resumed his occupation of laying the pamphlets of one +pile neatly upon those of the other. He had all his air of impartial +reflection, yet his hand trembled a little, and Gerald, noticing this, +murmured again, turning away his eyes: 'Forgive me. Please understand. I +must know what I've done.' + +'You see,' said Franklin, after a further silence, while he continued +to transfer the pamphlets; 'quite apart from my own feelings--which do, +I suppose, make it a difficult question to answer--I really don't know +how to answer, because what I feel is that the answer depends on you. I +mean,' said Franklin, glancing up, 'do you love her most, or do I? And +even beyond that--because, of course, the man who loved her least might +make her happiest if she loved him--have you got it in you to give her +life? Have you got it in you to give her something beyond yourself to +live for? Helen doesn't love me, she never could have loved me, and I +believe, with you, that she loves you; but even so it's quite possible +that in the long-run I might have made her happier than you can, unless +you have--in yourself--more to make her happy with.' + +Gerald gazed at Franklin, and Franklin gazed back at him. In Gerald's +face a flush slowly mounted, a vivid flush, sensitive and suffering as a +young girl's. And as if Franklin had borne a mild but effulgent light +into the innermost chambers of his heart, and made self-contemplation +for the first time in his life, perhaps, real to him, he said in a +gentle voice: 'I'm afraid you're making me hopeless. I'm afraid I've +nothing to give Helen--beyond myself. I'm a worthless fellow, really, +you know. I've never made anything of myself or taken anything seriously +at all. So how can Helen take me seriously? Yes, I see it, and I've +robbed her of everything. Only,' said Gerald, leaning forward with his +elbows on the table and his forehead on his hands, while he tried to +think it out, 'it is serious, now, you know. It's really serious at +last. I would try to give her something beyond myself and to make +things worth while for her--I see what you mean; but I don't believe I +shall ever be able to make her believe it now.' + +They sat thus for a long time in silence--Gerald with his head leant on +his hands, Franklin looking at him quietly and thoughtfully. And as a +result of long reflection, he said at last: 'If she loves you still, you +won't have to try to make her believe it. I'd like to believe it, and so +would you; but if Helen loves you, she'll take you for yourself, of +course. The question is, does she love you? Does she love you enough, I +mean, to want to mend and grow again? Perhaps it's that way you've +wrecked her; perhaps it's withered her--going on for all these years +caring, while you didn't see and want.' + +From behind his hands Gerald made a vague sound of acquiescent distress. +'What shall I do?' he then articulated. 'She won't see me. She says she +won't see me until I can meet her as if I'd forgotten. It isn't with +Helen the sort of thing it would mean with most women. She's not saving +her dignity by threats and punishments she won't hold to. Helen always +means what she says--horribly.' + +Franklin contemplated the bent head. Gerald's thick hair, disordered by +the long, fine fingers that ran up into it; Gerald's attitude sitting +there, miserable, yet not undignified, helpless, yet not humble; +Gerald's whole personality, its unused strength, its secure sweetness, +affected him strangely. He didn't feel near Gerald as he had, in a +sense, felt near Helen. They were aliens, and would remain so; but he +felt tenderly towards him. And, even while it inflicted a steady, +probing wound to recognise it, he recognised, profoundly, sadly, and +finally, that Gerald and Helen did belong to each other, by an affinity +deeper than moral standards and immeasurable by the test of happiness. +Helen had been right to love him all her life. He felt as if he, from +his distance, loved him, for himself, and because he was loveable. And +he wanted Helen to take Gerald. He was sure, now, that he wanted it. + +'See here,' he said, in his voice of mild, fraternal deliberation, 'I +don't know whether it will do much good, but we'll try it. Helen has a +very real feeling for me, you know; Helen likes me and thinks of me as a +true friend. I'm certainly not satisfactory to her,' and Franklin smiled +a little; 'but all the same she's very fond of me; she'd do a lot to +please me; I'm sure of it. So how would it be if I wrote to her and put +things to her, you know?' + +Gerald raised his head and looked over the table across the piled +pamphlets at Franklin. For a long time he looked at him, and presently +Franklin saw that tears had mounted to his eyes. The emotion that he +felt to be so unusual, communicated itself to him. He really hadn't +known till he saw Gerald Digby's eyes fill with tears what his own +emotion was. It surged up in him suddenly, blotting out Gerald's face, +overpowering the long resistance of his trained control; and it was with +an intolerable sense of loss and desolation that, knowing that he loved +Gerald and that Gerald's tears were a warrant for his loveableness and +for the workings of fate against himself, he put his head down on his +arms and, not sobbing, not weeping, yet overcome, he let the waves of +his sorrow meet over him. + +He did not know, then, what he thought or felt. All that he was +conscious of was the terrible submerging of will and thought and the +engulfing sense of desolation; and all that he seemed to hear was the +sound of his own heart beating the one lovely and agonising word: +'Helen--Helen--Helen!' + +He was aware at last, dimly, that Gerald had moved, had come round the +table, and was leaning on it beside him. Then Gerald put his hand on +Franklin's hand. The touch drew him up out of his depths. He raised his +head, keeping his face hidden, and he clasped Gerald's hand for a +moment. Then Gerald said brokenly: 'You mustn't write. You mustn't do +anything for me. You must let me take my own chances--and if I've none +left, it will be what I deserve.' + +These words, like air breathed in after long suffocation under water, +cleared Franklin's mind. He shook his head, and he found Gerald's hand +again while he said, able now, as the light grew upon him, to think: + +'I want to write. I want you to have all the chances you can.' + +'I don't deserve them,' said Gerald. + +'I don't know about that,' said Franklin, 'I don't know about that at +all. And besides'--and now he found something of his old whimsicality to +help his final argument--'let's say, if you'd rather, that Helen +deserves them. Let's say that it's for Helen's sake that I want you to +have every chance.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + + +Helen received Franklin's letter by the first post next morning. She +read it in bed, where she had remained ever since parting from him, +lying there with closed eyes in the drowsy apathy that had fallen upon +her. + + 'DEAR HELEN,'--Franklin wrote, and something in the writing pained + her even before she read the words--'Gerald Digby has been with me + here. Your aunt has been telling him things. He knows that I care + for you and what it all meant yesterday. It has been a very painful + experience for him, as you may imagine, and the way he took it made + me like him very much. It's because of that that I'm writing to you + now. The thing that tormented me most was the idea that, perhaps, + with all my deficiencies, I could give you more than he could. I + hadn't a very high opinion of him, you know. I felt you might be + safer with me. But now, from what I've seen, I'm sure that he is the + man for you. I understand how you could have loved him for all your + life. He's not as big as you are, nor as strong; he hasn't your + character; but you'll make him grow--and no one else can, for he + loves you with his whole heart, and he's a broken man. + + 'Dear Helen, I know what it feels like now. You're withered and + burnt out. It's lasted too long to be felt any longer and you + believe it's dead. But it isn't dead, Helen; I'm sure it isn't. + Things like that don't die unless something else comes and takes + their place. It's withered, but it will grow again. See him; be kind + to him, and you'll find out. And even if you can't find out yet, + even if you think it's all over, look at it this way. You know our + talk about marriage and how you were willing to marry me, not loving + me; well, look at it this way, for his sake, and for mine. He needs + you more than anything; he'll be nothing, or less and less, without + you; with you he'll be more and more. Think of his life. You've got + responsibility for that, Helen; you've let him depend on you + always--and you've got responsibility, too, for what's happened now. + You told him--I'm not blaming you--I understand--I think you were + right; but you changed things for him and made him see what he + hadn't seen before; nothing can ever be the same for him again; you + mustn't forget that; your friendship is spoiled for him, after what + you've done. So at the very least you can feel sorry for him and + feel like a mother to him, and marry him for that--as lots of women + do. + + 'Now I'm going to be very egotistical, but you'll know why. Think of + my life, dear Helen. We won't hide from what we know. We know that I + love you and that to give you up--even if, in a way, I had to--was + the greatest sacrifice of my life. Now, what I put to you is this: + Is it going to be for nothing--I mean for nothing where you are + concerned? If I'm to think of you going on alone with your heart + getting harder and drier every year, and everything tender and + trustful dying out of you--I don't see how I can bear it. + + 'So what I ask you is to try to be happy; what I ask you is to try + to make him happy; just look at it like that; try to make him happy + and to help him to grow to be a fine, big person, and then you'll + find out that you are growing, too, in all sorts of ways you never + dreamed of. + + 'When you get this, write to him and tell him that he may come. And + when he is with you, be kind to him. Oh--my dear Helen--I do beg it + of you. Put it like this--be kind to me and try.--Your affectionate + + FRANKLIN.' + + +When Helen had read this letter she did not weep, but she felt as if +some hurt, almost deeper than she could endure, was being inflicted on +her. It had begun with the first sight of Franklin's letter; the writing +of it had looked like hard, steady breathing over some heart-arresting +pain. Franklin's suffering flowed into her from every gentle, careful +sentence; and to Helen, so unaware, till now, of any one's suffering but +her own, this sharing of Franklin's was an experience new and +overpowering. No tears came, while she held the letter and looked before +her intently, and it was not as if her heart softened; but it seemed to +widen, as if some greatness, irresistible and grave, forced a way into +it. It widened to Franklin, to the thought of Franklin and to Franklin's +suffering; its sorrow and its compassion were for Franklin; and as it +received and enshrined him, it shut Gerald out. There was no room for +Gerald in her heart. + +She would do part of what Franklin asked of her, of course. She would +see Gerald; she would be kind to him; she would even try to feel for +him. But the effort was easy because she was so sure that it would be +fruitless. For Gerald, she was withered and burnt out. If she were to +'grow'--dear, funny phrases, even in her extremity, Helen could smile +over them; even though she loved dear Franklin and enshrined him, his +phrases would always seem funny to her--but if she were to grow it must +be for Franklin, and in a different way from what he asked. She would +indeed try not to become harder and drier; she would try to make of her +life something not too alien from his ideal for her; she would try to +pursue the just and the beautiful. But to rekindle the burnt-out fires +of her love was a miracle that even Franklin's love and Franklin's +suffering could not perform, and as for marrying Gerald in order to be a +mother to him, she did not feel it possible, even for Franklin's sake, +to assume that travesty. + +It was at five o'clock that she asked Gerald to come and see her. She +went down to him in her sitting-room, when, on the stroke of the clock, +he was announced. She felt that it required no effort to meet him, +beyond the forcing of her weariness. + +Gerald was standing before the fire, and in looking at him, as she +entered and closed the door, she was aware of a little sense of +surprise. She had not expected to find him, since the crash of Aunt +Grizel's revelations, as fatuous as the day before yesterday; nor had +she expected the boyish sulkiness of that day's earlier mood. She +expected change and the signs of discomfort and distress. It was this +haggard brightness for which she was unprepared. He looked as if he +hadn't slept or eaten, and under jaded eyelids his eyes had the +sparkling fever of insomnia. + +Helen felt that she could thoroughly carry out the first of Franklin's +requests; she could be kind and she could be sorry; yes, Gerald was very +unhappy; it was strange to think of, and pitiful. + +'Have you had any tea?' she asked him, giving him her hand, which he +pressed mechanically. + +'No, thanks,' said Gerald. + +'Do have some. You look hungry.' + +'I'm not hungry, thanks.' He was neither hostile nor pleading; he only +kept his eyes fixed on her with bright watchfulness, rather as a +patient's eyes watch the doctor who is to pronounce a verdict, and +Helen, with all her kindness, felt a little irked and ill at ease before +his gaze. + +'You've heard from Kane?' Gerald said, after a pause. Helen had taken +her usual place in the low chair. + +'Yes, this morning.' + +'And that's why you sent for me?' + +'Yes,' said Helen, 'he asked me to.' + +Gerald looked down into the fire. 'I can't tell you what I think of him. +You can't care to hear, of course. You know what I've done to him, and +that must make you feel that I'm not the person to talk about him. But +I've never met any one so good.' + +'He is good. I'm glad to hear you say it. He is the best person I've +ever met, too,' said Helen. 'As for what you did to him, you didn't know +what you were doing.' + +'I don't think that stupidity is any excuse. I ought to have felt he +couldn't be near you like that, and not love you. I robbed him of you, +didn't I? If it hadn't been for what I did, you would have married him, +all the same--in spite of what you told me, I mean.' + +Helen had coloured a little, and after a pause in which she thought over +his words she said: 'Yes, of course I would have married him all the +same. But it was really I, in what I told you, who brought it upon +myself and upon Franklin.' + +For a little while there was silence and then Gerald said, delicately, +yet with a directness that showed he took for granted in her a detached +candour equal to his own: 'I think I asked it stupidly. I suppose the +thing I can't even yet realise is that, in a way, I robbed you too. I've +robbed you of everything, haven't I, Helen?' + +'Not of everything,' said Helen, glad really of the small consolation +she could offer him. 'Not of financial safety, as it happens. It will +make you less unhappy to hear, so I must tell you, Franklin is arranging +things with Aunt Grizel so that when she dies I shall come into quite a +nice little bit of money. I shall have no more sordid worries. In that +way you mustn't have me on your conscience.' + +Gerald's eyes were on her and they took in this fact of her safety with +no commotion; it was but one--and a lesser--among the many strange facts +he had had to take in. And he forced himself to look squarely at what he +had conceived to be the final impossibility as he asked: 'And--in other +ways?--Could you have fallen in love with him, Helen?' + +It was so bad, so inconceivably bad a thing to face, that his relief +was like a joy when Helen answered. 'No, I could never have fallen in +love with dear Franklin. But I cared for him very much, the more, no +doubt, from having ceased to care about love. I felt that he was the +best person, the truest, the dearest, I had ever known, and that we +would make a success of our life together.' + +'Yes, yes, of course,' Gerald hastened past her qualifications to the +one liberating fact. 'Two people like you would have had to. But you +didn't love him; you couldn't have come to love him. I haven't robbed +you of a man you could have loved.' + +She saw his immense relief. The joy of it was in his eyes and voice; and +the thought of Franklin, of what she had not been able to do for +Franklin, made it bitter to her that because she had not been able to +save Franklin, Gerald should find relief. + +'You couldn't have robbed me of him if there'd been any chance of that,' +she said. 'If there had been any chance of my loving Franklin I would +never have let him go. Don't be glad, don't show me that you are +glad--because I didn't love him.' + +'I can't help being glad, Helen,' he said. + +She leaned her head on her hand, covering her eyes. While he was there, +showing her that he was glad because she had not loved Franklin, she +could not be kind, nor even just to him. + +'Helen,' he said, 'I know what you are feeling; but will you listen to +me?' She answered that she would listen to anything he had to say, and +her voice had the leaden tone of impersonal charity. + +'Helen,' Gerald said, 'I know how I've blundered. I see everything. But, +with it all, seeing it all, I don't think that you are fair to me. I +don't think it is fair if you can't see that I couldn't have thought of +all these other possibilities--after what you'd told me--the other day. +How could I think of anything, then, but the one thing--that you loved +me and that I loved you, and that, of course, I must set my mistake +right at once, set Althea free and come to you? I was very simple and +very stupid; but I don't think it's fair not to see that I couldn't +believe you'd really repulse me, finally, if you loved me.' + +'You ought to have believed it,' Helen said, still with her covered +eyes. 'That is what is most simple, most stupid in you. You ought to +have felt--and you ought to feel now--that to a woman who could tell you +what I did, everything is over.' + +'But, Helen, that's my point,' ever so carefully and patiently he +insisted. 'How can it be over when I love you--if you still love me?' + +She put down her hand now and looked up at him and she saw his hope; not +yet dead; sick, wounded, perplexed, but, in his care and patience, +vigilant. And it was with a sad wonder for the truth of her own words, +that she said, looking up at the face dear beyond all telling for so +many years, 'I don't want you, Gerald. I don't want your love. I'm not +blaming you. I am fair to you. I see that you couldn't help it, and that +it was my fault really. But you are asking for something that isn't +there any longer.' + +'You mean,' said Gerald, he was very pale, 'that I've won no rights; you +don't want a man who has won no rights.' + +'There are no rights to win, Gerald.' + +'Because of what I've done to him?' + +'Perhaps; but I don't think it's that.' + +'Because of what I've done to you--not seeing--all our lives?' + +'Perhaps, Gerald. I don't know. I can't tell you, for I don't know +myself. I don't think anything has been killed. I think something is +dead that's been dying by inches for years. Don't press me any more. +Accept the truth. It's all over. I don't want you any longer.' + +Helen had risen while she spoke and kept her eyes on Gerald's in +speaking. Until this moment, for all his pain and perplexity, he had not +lost hope. He had been amazed and helpless and full of fear, but he had +not believed, not really believed, that she was lost to him. Now, she +saw it in his eyes, he did believe; and as the patient, hearing his +sentence, gazes dumb and stricken, facing death, so he gazed at her, +seeing irrevocability in her unmoved face. And, accepting his doom, +sheer childishness overcame him. As Franklin the day before had felt, so +he now felt, the intolerableness of his woe; and, as with Franklin, the +waves closed over his head. Helen was so near him that it was but a +stumbling step that brought her within his arms; but it was not with the +lover's supplication that he clung to her; he clung, hiding his face on +her breast, like a child to its mother, broken-hearted, bewildered, +reproachful. And, bursting into tears, he sobbed: 'How cruel you are! +how cruel! It is your pride--you've the heart of a stone! If I'd loved +you for years and told you and made you know you loved me back--could I +have treated you like this--and cast you off--and stopped loving you, +because you'd never seen before? O Helen, how can you--how can you!' + +After a moment Helen spoke, angrily, because she was astounded, and +because, for the first time in her life, she was frightened, beyond her +depth, helpless in the waves of emotion that lifted her like great +encompassing billows. 'Gerald, don't. Gerald, it is absurd of you. +Gerald, don't cry.' She had never seen him cry. + +He heard her dimly, and the words were the cruel ones he expected. The +sense of her cruelty filled him, and the dividing sense that she, who +was so cruel, was still his only refuge, his only consolation. + +'What have I done, I'd like to know, that you should treat me like this? +If you loved me before--all those years--why should you stop now, +because I love you? why should you stop because of telling me?' + +Again Helen's voice came to him after a pause, and it seemed now to +grope, stupefied and uncertain, for answers to his absurdity. 'How can +one argue, Gerald, like this; perhaps it was because I told you? +Perhaps----' + +He took her up, not waiting to hear her surmises. 'How can one get over +a thing like that, all in a moment? How can it die like that? You're not +over it, not really. It is all pride, and you are punishing me for what +I couldn't help, and punishing yourself too, for no one will ever love +you as I do. O Helen--I can't believe it's dead. Don't you know that no +one will ever love you as I do? Can't you see how happy we could have +been together? It's so _silly_ of you not to see. Yes, you are silly as +well as cruel.' He shook her while he held her, while he buried his face +and cried--cried, literally, like a baby. + +She stood still, enfolded but not enfolding, and now she said nothing +for a long time, while her eyes, with their strained look of pain, gazed +widely, and as if in astonishment, before her; and he, knowing only the +silence, the unresponsive silence, continued to sob his protestation, +his reproach, with a helplessness and vehemence ridiculous and +heart-rending. + +Then, slowly, as if compelled, Helen put her arms around him, and, +dully, like a creature hypnotised to action strange to its whole nature, +she said once more, and in a different voice: 'Don't cry, Gerald.' But +she, too, was crying. She tried to control her sobs; but they broke from +her, strange and difficult, like the sobs of the hypnotised creature +waking from its trance to confused and painful consciousness, and, +resting her forehead on his shoulder, she repeated dully, between her +sobs: 'Don't cry.' + +He was not crying any longer. Her weeping had stilled his in an instant, +and she went on, between her broken breaths: 'How absurd--oh, how +absurd. Sit down here--yes--keep your head so, if you must, you foolish, +foolish child.' + +He held her, hearing her sobs, feeling them lift her breast, and, in all +his great astonishment, like a smile, the memory of the other day stole +over him, the stillness, the accomplishment, the blissful peace, the +lifting to a serene eternity of space. To remember it now was like +seeing the sky from a nest, and in the sweet darkness of sudden +security he murmured: '_You_ are the foolish child.' + +'How can I believe you love me?' said Helen. + +'How can you not?' + +They sat side by side, her arms around him and his head upon her breast. +'It was only because I told you----' + +'Well--isn't that reason enough?' + +'How can it be reason enough for me?' + +'How can it not? You've spent your whole life hiding from me; when I saw +you, why, of course, I fell in love at once. O Helen--dear, dear Helen!' + +'When you saw my love.' + +'Wasn't that seeing you?' + +They spoke in whispers, and their hearts were not in their words. He +raised his head and looked at her, and he smiled at her now with the +smile of the beautiful necessity. 'How you've frightened me,' he said. +'Don't be proud. Even if it did need your cleverness to show me that, +too. I mean--you've given me everything--always--and why shouldn't you +have given me the chance to see you--and to know what you are to me? How +you frightened me. You are not proud any longer. You love me.' + +She was not proud any longer. She loved him. Vaguely, in the +bewilderment of her strange, her blissful humility, among the great +billows of life that encompassed and lifted her, it seemed with enormous +heart-beats, Helen remembered Franklin's words. 'Let it melt--please let +it melt, dear Helen.' But it had needed the inarticulate, the +instinctive, to pierce to the depths of life. Gerald's tears, his head +so boyishly pressed against her, his arms so childishly clinging, had +told her what her heart might have been dead to for ever if, with +reason and self-command, he had tried to put it into words. + +She looked at him, through her tears, and she knew him dearer to her in +this resurrection than if her heart had never died to him; and, as he +smiled at her, she, too, smiled back, tremblingly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + + +Althea had not seen Gerald after the day that they came up from +Merriston together. The breaking of their engagement was duly announced, +and, with his little note to her, thanking her for her frankness and +wishing her every happiness, Gerald and all things connected with him +seemed to pass out of her life. She saw no more of the frivolous +relations who were really serious, nor of the serious ones who were +really frivolous. She did not even see Helen. Helen's engagement to +Franklin had never been formally announced, and few, beyond her circle +of nearest friends, knew of it; the fact that Franklin had now returned +to his first love was not one that could, at the moment, be made +appropriately public. But, of course, Helen had had to be told, not only +that Franklin had gone from her, but that he had come back to Althea, +and Althea wondered deeply how this news had been imparted. She had not +felt strength to impart it herself. When she asked Franklin, very +tentatively, about it, he said: 'That's all right, dear. I've explained. +Helen perfectly understands.' + +That it was all right seemed demonstrated by the little note, kind and +sympathetic, that Helen wrote to her, saying that she did understand, +perfectly, and was so glad for her and for Franklin, and that it was +such a good thing when people found out mistakes in time. There was not +a trace of grievance; Helen seemed to relinquish a good which, she +recognised, had only been hers because Althea hadn't wanted it. And this +was natural; how could one show one's grievance in such a case? Helen, +above all, would never show it; and Althea was at once oppressed, and at +the same time oddly sustained by the thought that she had, all +inevitably, done her friend an injury. She lay awake at night, turning +over in her mind Helen's present plight and framing loving plans for the +future. She took refuge in such plans from a sense of having come to an +end of things. To think of Helen, and of what, with their wealth, she +and Franklin could do for Helen, seemed, really, her strongest hold on +life. It was the brightest thing that she had to look forward to, and +she looked forward to it with complete self-effacement. She saw the +beautiful Italian villa where Helen should be the fitting centre, the +English house where Helen, rather than she, should entertain. She felt +that she asked nothing more for herself. She was safe, if one liked to +put it so, and in that safety she felt not only her ambitions, but even +any personal desires, extinguished. Her desire, now, was to unite with +Franklin in making the proper background for Helen. But at the moment +these projects were unrealisable; taste, as well as circumstance, +required a pause, a lull. It was a relief--so many things were a relief, +so few things more than merely that--to know that Helen was in the +country somewhere, and would not be back for ten days or a fortnight. + +Meanwhile, Miss Harriet Robinson, very grave but very staunch, sustained +Althea through all the outward difficulties of her _volte-face_. Miss +Robinson, of course, had had to be told of the reason for the +_volte-face_, the fact that Althea had found, after all, that she cared +more for Franklin Winslow Kane. It was in regard to the breaking of her +engagement that Miss Robinson was staunch and grave; in regard to the +new engagement, Althea saw that, though still staunch, she was much +disturbed. Miss Robinson found Franklin hard to place, and found it hard +to understand why Althea had turned from Gerald Digby to him. Franklin's +millions didn't count for much with Miss Robinson, nor could she suspect +them of counting for anything, where marriage was concerned, with her +friend. She had not, indeed, a high opinion of the millionaire type of +her compatriots. Her standards were birth and fashion, and poor Franklin +could not be said to embody either of these claims. His mitigating +qualities could hardly shine for Miss Robinson, who, accustomed to +continually seeing and frequently evading the drab, dry, utilitarian +species of her country-people, could not be expected to find in him the +flavour of oddity and significance that his English acquaintance prized. +Franklin didn't make any effort to place himself more favourably. He was +very gentle and very attentive, and he followed all Althea's directions +as to clothes and behaviour with careful literalness; but even barbered +and tailored by the best that London had to offer, he seemed to sink +inevitably into the discreetly effaced position that the American +husband so often assumes behind his more brilliant mate, and Althea +might have been more aware of this had she not been so sunken in an +encompassing consciousness of her own obliteration. She felt herself +nearer Franklin there, and the sense of relief and safety came most to +her when she could feel herself near Franklin. It didn't disturb her, +standing by him in the background, that Miss Robinson should not +appreciate him. After all, deeper than anything, was the knowledge that +Helen had appreciated him. Recede as far as he would from the gross +foreground places, Helen's choice of him, Helen's love--for after a +fashion, Helen must have loved him--gave him a final and unquestionable +value. It was in this assurance of Helen's choice that she found a +refuge when questionings and wonders came to drag her down to suffering +again. There were many things that menaced the lull of safety, things +she could not bear yet to look at. The sense of her own abandonment to +weak and disingenuous impulses was one; another shadowed her unstable +peace more darkly. Had Helen really minded losing Franklin--apart from +his money? What had his value really been to her? What was she feeling +and doing now? What was Gerald doing and feeling, and what did they both +think or suspect of her? The answer to some of these questionings came +to her from an unsuspected quarter. It was on a morning of chill mists +and pale sunlight that Althea, free of Miss Robinson, walked down +Grosvenor Street towards the park. She liked to go into the park on such +mornings, when Miss Robinson left her free, and sit on a bench and +abandon herself to remote, impersonal dreams. It was just as she entered +Berkeley Square that she met Mrs. Mallison, that aunt of Gerald's who +had struck her, some weeks ago, as so disconcerting, with her skilfully +preserved prettiness and her ethical and metaphysical aspirations. This +lady, furred to her ears, was taking out two small black pomeranians for +an airing. She wore long pearl ear-rings, and her narrow, melancholy +face was delicately rouged and powdered. Althea's colour rose painfully; +she had seen none of Gerald's relatives since the severance. Mrs. +Mallison, however, showed no embarrassment. She stopped at once and took +Althea's hand and gazed tenderly upon her. Her manner had always +afflicted Althea, with its intimations of some deep, mystical +understanding. + +'My dear, I'm so glad--to meet you, you know. How nice, how right you've +been.' Mrs. Mallison murmured her words rather than spoke them and could +pronounce none of her r's. 'I'm so glad to be able to tell you so. +You're walking? Come with me, then; I'm just taking the dogs round the +square. Do you love dogs too? I am sure you must. You have the eyes of +the dog-lover. I don't know how I could live without mine; they +understand when no one else does. I didn't write, because I think +letters are such soulless things, don't you? They are the tombs of the +spirit--little tombs for failed things--too often. I've thought of you, +and felt for you--so much; but I couldn't write. And now I must tell you +that I agree with you with all my heart. Love's the _only_ thing in +life, isn't it?' Mrs. Mallison smiled, pressing Althea's arm +affectionately. Althea remembered to have heard that Mrs. Mallison had +made a most determined _mariage de convenance_ and had sought love in +other directions; but, summoning what good grace she could, she +answered that she, too, considered love the only thing. + +'You didn't love him enough, and you found it out in time, and you told +him. How brave; how right. And then--am I too indiscreet? but I know you +feel we are friends--you found you loved some one else; the reality came +and showed you the unreality. That enchanting Mr. Kane--oh, I felt it +the moment I looked at him--there was an affinity between us, our souls +understood each other. And so deliciously rich you'll be, not that money +makes any difference, does it? but it is nice to be able to do things +for the people one loves.' + +Althea struggled in a maze of discomfort. Behind Mrs. Mallison's +caressing intonations was something that perplexed her. What did Mrs. +Mallison know, and what did she guess? She was aware, evidently, of her +own engagement to Franklin and, no doubt, of Franklin's engagement to +Helen and its breaking off. What did she know about the cause of that +breaking off? Her troubled cogitations got no further, for Mrs. Mallison +went on: + +'And how happily it has all turned out--all round--hasn't it? How horrid +for you and Mr. Kane, if it hadn't; not that you'd have had anything to +reproach yourselves with--really--I know--because love _is_ the only +thing; but if Helen and Gerald had just been left _plantes la_, it would +have been harder, wouldn't it? I've been staying with them at the same +house in the country and it's quite obvious what's happened. You knew +from the first, no doubt; but of course they are saying nothing, just as +you and Mr. Kane are saying nothing. They didn't tell me, but I guessed +at once. And the first thing I thought was: Oh--how happy--how perfect +this makes it for Miss Jakes and Mr. Kane. They've _all_ found out in +time.' + +Althea grew cold. She commanded her voice. 'Helen? Gerald?' she said. +'Haven't you mistaken? They've always been the nearest friends.' + +'Oh no--no,' smiled Mrs. Mallison, with even greater brightness and +gentleness, 'I never mistake these things; an affair of the heart is the +one thing that I always see. Helen, perhaps, could hide it from me; she +is a woman and can hide things--Helen is cold too--I am never very sure +of Helen's heart--of course I love her dearly, every one must who knows +her; but she is cold, unawakened, the type that holds out the cheek, not +the type that kisses. I confess that I love most the reckless, loving +type; and I believe that you and I are unlike Helen there--we kiss, we +don't hold out the cheek. But, no, I never would have guessed from +Helen. It was Gerald who gave them both away. Poor, dear Gerald, never +have I beheld such a transfigured being--he is radiantly in love, quite +radiantly; it's too pretty to see him.' + +The vision of Gerald, radiantly in love, flashed horridly for Althea. It +was dim, yet bright, scintillating darkly; she could only imagine it in +similes; she had never seen anything that could visualise it for her. +The insufferable dogs, like tethered bubbles, bounded before them, +constantly impeding their progress. Althea was thankful for the excuse +afforded her by the tangling of her feet in the string to pause and +stoop; she felt that her rigid face must betray her. She stooped for a +long moment and hoped that her flush would cover her rigidity. It was +when she raised herself that she saw suddenly in Mrs. Mallison's face +something that gave her more than a suspicion. She didn't suspect her of +cruelty or vulgar vengeance--Gerald's aunt was quite without rancour on +the score of her jilting of him; but she did suspect, and more than +suspect her--it was like the unendurable probing of a wound to feel +it--of idle yet implacable curiosity, and of a curiosity edged, perhaps, +with idle malice. She summoned all her strength. She smiled and shook +her head a little. 'Faithless Gerald! So soon,' she said. 'He is +consoled quickly. No, I never guessed anything at all.' + +Mrs. Mallison had again passed her arm through hers and again pressed +it. 'It _is_ soon, isn't it? A sort of _chasse-croise_. But how strange +and fortunate that it should be soon--I know you feel that too.' + +'Oh yes, of course, I feel it; it is an immense relief. But they ought +to have told me,' Althea smiled. + +'I wonder at that too,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'It is rather bad of them, I +think, when they must know what it would mean to you of joy. When did it +happen, do you suppose?' + +Althea wondered. Wonders were devouring her. + +'It happened with you quite suddenly, didn't it?' said Mrs. Mallison, +who breathed the soft fragrance of her solicitude into Althea's face as +she leaned her head near and pressed her arm closely. + +'Quite suddenly,' Althea replied, 'that is, with me it was sudden. +Franklin, of course, has loved me for a great many years.' + +'So he was faithless too, for his little time?' + +Althea's brain whirled. 'Faithless? Franklin?' + +'I mean, while he made his mistake--while he thought he was in love with +Helen.' + +'It wasn't a question of that. It was to be a match of reason, and +friendship--everybody knew,' Althea stammered. + +'_Was_ it?' said Mrs. Mallison with deep interest. 'I see, like yours +and Gerald's.' + +'Oh----' Althea was not able in her headlong course to do more than +glance at the implications that whizzed past. 'Gerald and I made the +mistake, I think; we believed ourselves in love.' + +'_Did_ you?' Mrs. Mallison repeated her tone of affectionate and +brooding interest. 'What a strange thing the human heart is, isn't it?' + +'Very, very strange.' + +'How dear and frank of you to see it all as you do. And there are no +more mistakes now,' said Mrs. Mallison. 'No one is reasonable and every +one is radiant.' + +'Every one is radiant and reasonable too, I hope,' said Althea. Her head +still whirled as she heard herself analysing for Mrs. Mallison's +correction these sanctities of her life. Odious, intolerable, insolent +woman! She could have burst into tears as she walked beside her, held by +her, while her hateful dogs, shrilly barking, bounded buoyantly around +them. + +'It's dear of you too, to tell me all about it,' said Mrs. Mallison. +'Have you seen Helen yet? She is just back.' + +'No, I've not seen her.' + +'You will meet? I am sure you will still be friends--two such real +people as you are.' + +'Of course we shall meet. Helen is one of my dearest friends.' + +'I see. It is so beautiful when people can rise above things. You make +me very happy. Don't tell Helen what I've told you,' Mrs. Mallison with +gentle gaiety warned her. 'I knew--in case you hadn't heard--that it +would relieve you so intensely to hear that she and Gerald were happy, +in spite of what you had to do to them. But it would make Helen cross +with me if she knew I'd told you when she hadn't. I'm rather afraid of +Helen, aren't you? I'm sure she'll give Gerald dreadful scoldings +sometimes. Poor, dear Gerald!' Mrs. Mallison laughed reminiscently. +'Never have I beheld such a transfigured being. I didn't think he had it +in him to be in love to such an extent. Oh, it was all in his face--his +eyes--when he looked at her.' + +Yes, malicious, malicious to the point of vulgarity; that was Althea's +thought as, like an arrow released from long tension, she sped away, the +turn of the square once made and Mrs. Mallison and her dogs once more +received into the small house in an adjacent street. Tears were in +Althea's eyes, hot tears, of fury, of humiliation, and--oh, it flooded +over her--of bitterest sorrow and yearning. Gerald, radiant Gerald--lost +to her for ever; not even lost; never possessed. And into the sorrow and +humiliation, poisonous suspicions crept. When did it happen? Where was +she? What had been done to her? She must see; she must know. She hailed +a hansom and was driven to old Miss Buchanan's house in Belgravia. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + + +Helen was sitting at her writing-table before the window, and the +morning light fell on her gracefully disordered hair and gracefully +shabby shoulders. The aspect of her back struck on Althea's bitter, +breathless mood. There was no effort made for anything with Helen. She +was the sort of person who would get things without seeking for them and +be things without caring to be them. She had taken what she wanted, when +she wanted it; first Franklin, and then--and perhaps it had been before +Franklin had failed her, perhaps it had been before she, Althea, had +failed Gerald--she had taken Gerald. Althea's mind, reeling, yet +strangely lucid after the shock of the last great injury, was also +aware, in the moment of her entrance, of many other injuries, old ones, +small ones, yet, in their summing up--and everything seemed to be summed +up now in the cruel revelation--as intolerable as the new and great one. +More strongly than ever before she was aware that Helen was hard, that +there was nothing in her soft or tentative or afraid; and the +realisation, though it was not new, came with an added bitterness this +morning. It did not weaken her, however; on the contrary, it nerved her +to self-protection. If Helen was hard, she would not, to-day, show +herself soft. It was she who must assume the air of success, and of +rueful yet helpless possessorship. These impressions and resolutions +occupied but an instant. Helen rose and came to her, and what Althea saw +in her face armed her resolutions with hostility. Helen's face confirmed +what Mrs. Mallison had said. It was not resentful, not ironically calm. +A solicitous interest, even a sort of benignity, was in her bright gaze. +Helen was hard; she did not really care at all; but she was kind, kinder +than ever before; and Althea found this kindness intolerable. + +'Dear Helen,' she said, 'I'm so glad to see you. I had to come at once +when I heard that you were back. You don't mind seeing me?' + +'Not a bit,' said Helen, who had taken her hand. 'Why should I?' + +'I was afraid that perhaps you might not want to--for a long time.' + +'We aren't so foolish as that,' said Helen smiling. + +'No, that is what I hoped you would feel too. We have been in the hands +of fate, haven't we, Helen? I've seemed weak and disloyal, I know--to +you and to Gerald; but I think it was only seeming. When I found out my +mistake I couldn't go on. And then the rest all followed--inevitably.' + +Helen had continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and she continued +to gaze at her for another moment before, pressing it, she let it fall +and said: 'Of course you couldn't go on.' + +Helen was as resolved--Althea saw that clearly--to act her part of +unresentful kindness as she to act hers of innocent remorse. And the +swordthrust in the sight was to suspect that had Helen been in reality +the dispossessed and not the secretly triumphant, she might have been as +kind and as unresentful. + +'It's all been a dreadful mistake,' Althea said, going to a chair and +loosening her furs. 'From the very beginning I felt doubt. From the very +beginning I felt that Gerald and I did not really make each other happy. +And I believe that you wondered about it too.' + +Helen had resumed her seat at the writing-table, sitting turned from it, +her hand hanging over the back of the chair, her long legs crossed, and +she faced her friend with that bright yet softened gaze, interested, +alert, but too benign, too contented, to search or question closely. She +was evidently quite willing that Althea should think what she chose, +and, this was becoming evident, she intended to help her to think it. So +after a little pause she answered, 'I did wonder, rather; it didn't seem +to me that you and Gerald were really suited.' + +'And you felt, didn't you,' Althea urged, 'that it was only because I +had been so blind, and had not seen where my heart really was, you know, +that your engagement was possible? I was so afraid you'd think we'd been +faithless to you--Franklin and I; but, when I stopped being blind----' + +'Of course,' Helen helped her on, nodding and smiling gravely, 'of +course you took him back. I don't think you were either of you +faithless, and you mustn't have me a bit on your minds; it was +startling, of course; but I'm not heart-broken,' Helen assured her. + +Oh, there was no malice here; it was something far worse to bear, this +wish to lift every shadow and smooth every path. Althea's eyes fixed +themselves hard on her friend. Her head swam a little and some of her +sustaining lucidity left her. + +'I was so afraid,' she said, 'that you, perhaps, cared for Franklin--had +come to care so much, I mean--that it might have been hard for you to +forgive. I can't tell you the relief it is----' + +'To see that I didn't care so much as that?' Helen smiled brightly, +though with a brightness, now, slightly wary, as though with all her +efforts to slide and not to press, she felt the ice cracking a little +under her feet, and as though some care might be necessary if she were +to skate safely away. 'Don't have that in the least on your mind, it was +what you always disapproved of, you know, an arrangement of convenience. +Franklin and I both understood perfectly. You know how mercenary I +am--though I told you, I remember, that I couldn't think of marrying +anybody I didn't like. I liked Franklin, more than I can say; but it was +never a question of love.' + +In Althea's ears, also, the ice seemed now to crack ominously. 'You +mean,' she said, 'that you wouldn't have thought of marrying Franklin if +it hadn't been for his money?' + +There was nothing for Helen but to skate straight ahead. 'No, I don't +suppose I should.' + +'But you had become the greatest friends.' + +She was aware that she must seem to be trying, strangely, incredibly, to +prove to Helen that she had been in love with Franklin; to prove to her +that she had no right not to resent anything; no right to find +forgiveness so easy. But there was no time now to stop. + +'Of course we became the greatest friends,' Helen said, and it was as +if with relief for the outlet. She was bewildered, and did not know +where they were going. 'I don't need to tell you what I think of +Franklin. He is the dearest and best of men, and you are the luckiest of +women to have won him.' + +'Ah,' uncontrollably Althea rose to her feet with almost the cry, 'I +see; you think me lucky to have won a man who, in himself, without +money, wasn't good enough for you. Thank you.' + +For a long moment--and in it they both recognised that the crash had +come, and that they were struggling in dark, cold water--Helen was +silent. She kept her eyes on Althea and she did not move. Then, while +she still looked steadily upon her, a slow colour rose in her cheeks. It +was helplessly, burningly, that she blushed, and Althea saw that she +blushed as much for anger as for shame, and that the shame was for her. + +She did not need Helen's blush to show her what she had done, what +desecration she had wrought. Her own blood beat upwards in hot surges +and tears rushed into her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and +dropped again into her chair, sobbing. + +Helen did not help her out. She got up and went to the mantelpiece and +looked down at the fire for some moments. And at last she spoke, 'I +didn't mean that either. I think that Franklin is too good for either of +us.' + +'Good!' wept Althea. 'He is an angel. Do you suppose I don't see that? +But why should I pretend when you don't. I'm not in love with Franklin. +I'm unworthy of him--more unworthy of him than you were--but I'm not in +love with him, even though he is an angel. So don't tell me that I am +lucky. I am a most miserable woman.' And she wept on, indifferent now to +any revelations. + +Presently she heard Helen's voice. It was harder than she had ever known +it. 'May I say something? It's for his sake--more than for yours. What I +advise you to do is not to bother so much about love. You couldn't stick +to Gerald because you weren't loved enough; and you're doubting your +feeling for Franklin, now, because you can't love him enough. Give it +all up. Follow my second-rate example. Be glad that you're marrying an +angel and that he has all that money. And do remember that though you're +not getting what you want, you are getting a good deal and he is getting +nothing, so try to play the game and to see if you can't make it up to +him; see if you can't make him happy.' + +Althea's sobbing had now ceased, though she kept her face still covered. +Bitter sadness, too deep now for resentment, was in her silence, a +silence in which she accepted what Helen's words had of truth. The +sadness was to see at last to the full, that she had no place in Helen's +life. There was no love, there was hardly liking, behind Helen's words. +And so it had been from the very first, ever since she had loved and +Helen accepted; ever since she had gone forth carrying gifts, and Helen +had stood still and been vaguely aware that homage was being offered. It +had, from the very beginning, been this; Helen, hard, self-centred, +insensible, so that anything appealing or uncertain was bound to be +shattered against her. And was not this indifference to offered love a +wrong done to it, something that all life cried out against? Had not +weakness and fear and the clinging appeal of immaturity their rights, so +that the strong heart that was closed to them, that did not go out to +them in tenderness and succour, was the dull, the lesser heart? Dimly +she knew, not exculpating herself, not judging her beautiful Helen, that +though she had, in her efforts towards happiness, pitifully failed, +there was failure too in being blind, in being unconscious of any effort +to be made. The more trivial, the meaner aspect of her grief was merged +in a fundamental sincerity. + +'What you say is true,' she said, 'for I know that I am a poor creature. +I know that I give Franklin nothing, and take everything from him. But +it is easy for you to talk of what is wise and strong, Helen, and to +tell me what I ought to do and feel. You have everything. You have the +man who loves you and the man you love. It is easy for you to be clear +and hard and see other people's faults. I know--I know about you and +Gerald.' + +Helen turned to her. Althea had dropped her hands. She did not look at +her friend, but, with tear-disfigured eyes, out of the window; and there +was a desolate dignity in her aspect. For the first time in their +unequal intercourse they were on an equal footing. Helen was aware of +Althea, and, in a vague flash, for self-contemplation was difficult to +her, she was aware of some of the things that Althea saw: the lack of +tenderness; the lack of imagination; the indifference to all that did +not come within the circle of her own tastes and affections. It was just +as Franklin had said, and Gerald, and now Althea; her heart was hard. +And she was sorry, though she did not know what she was to do; for +though she was sorry for Althea her heart did not soften for her as it +had softened for Franklin, and for the thought of Franklin--too good for +them all, sacrificed to them all. It was the thought of the cruelty of +nature, making of Franklin, with all his wealth of love, a creature +never to be desired, that gave to her vision of life, and of all this +strange predicament in which life had involved them, an ironic colour +incompatible with the warmth of trust and tenderness which Franklin had +felt lacking in her. She was ironic, she was hard, and she must make the +best of it. But it was in a gentle voice that, looking at her friend's +melancholy head, she asked: 'Who told you that?' + +'Mrs. Mallison,' said Althea. 'I've been a hypocrite to you all the +morning.' + +'And I have been an odious prig to you. That ass of a Kitty Mallison. I +had not intended any one to know for months.' Even in her discomfiture +Helen retained her tact. She did not say 'we.' + +'For my sake, I suppose?' + +'Oh no! why for yours?' Helen was determined that Althea should be hurt +no further. If pity for Franklin had edged her voice, pity for Althea +must keep from her the blighting knowledge of Franklin's sacrifice. + +'It was we who were left, wasn't it--Gerald and I? I don't want us to +appear before people's eyes at once as consolation prizes to each +other.' + +Althea now turned a sombre gaze upon her. 'He couldn't be that to you, +since you've never loved Franklin; and I know that you are not that to +him; Gerald didn't need to be consoled for losing me. He did need to be +consoled when he heard that you were marrying Franklin. I remember the +day that your letter came--the letter that said you were engaged. That +really ended things for us.' Her lip trembled. 'It is easy for you to +say that I didn't stick to Gerald because he didn't love me enough. How +could I have stuck to some one who, I see it well enough now, was +beginning to love some one else?' + +Helen contemplated her and the truths she put before her. 'Try to +forgive me,' she said. + +'There's nothing to forgive,' said Althea, rising. 'You told me the +truth, and what I had said was so despicable that I deserved to have it +told to me. All the mistakes are mine. I've wanted things that I've no +right to; I suppose it's that. You and I weren't made for each other, +just as Gerald and I weren't, and it's all only my mistake and my +misfortune--for wanting and loving people who couldn't want or love me. +I see it all at last, and it's all over. Good-bye, Helen.' She put out +her hand. + +'Oh, but don't--don't----' Helen clasped her hand, strangely shaken by +impulses of pity and self-reproach that yet left her helpless before her +friend's sincerity. 'Don't say you are going to give me up,' she +finished, and tears stood in her eyes. + +'I'm afraid I must give up all sorts of things,' said Althea, smiling +desolately. 'If we hadn't got so near, we might have gone on. I'm afraid +when people aren't made for each other they can't get so near without +its breaking them. Good-bye. I shall try to be worthy of Franklin. I +shall try to make him happy.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + + +She drove back to her hotel. She felt very tired. The world she gazed at +seemed vast and alien, a world in which she had no place. The truth had +come to her and she looked at it curiously, almost indifferently. London +flowed past her, long tides of purpose to right and left. The trees in +Green Park were softly blurred on the chill, white sky. She looked at +the trees and sky and at the far lift of Piccadilly, blackened with +traffic, and, at the faces that went by, as if it were all a vast +cinematograph and she the idlest of spectators. And it was here that +love had first come to her, and here that despair had come. Now both +were over and she accepted her defeat. + +She thought, when the hotel was reached, and as she went upstairs, that +she would go to bed and try to sleep. But when she entered her little +sitting-room she found Franklin there waiting for her. He had been +reading the newspapers before the fire and had risen quickly on hearing +her step. It was as if she had forgotten Franklin all this time. + +She stood by the door that she had closed, and gazed at him. It was +without will, or hope, or feeling that she gazed, as if he were a part +only of that alien world she had looked at, and this outward seeing was +relentless. A meagre, commonplace, almost comic little man. She saw +behind him his trite and colourless antecedents; she saw before him--and +her--the future, trite and colourless too, but for the extraneous +glitter of the millions that surrounded him as incongruously as a halo +would have done. He was an angel, of course; he was good; but he was +only that; there were no varieties, no graces, no mysteries. His very +interests were as meagre as his personality; he had hardly a taste, +except the taste for doing his best. Books, music, pictures--all the +great world of beauty and intellect that the world of goodness and +workaday virtues existed, perhaps, only to make possible--its finer, +more ethereal superstructure--only counted for Franklin as recreations, +relaxations, things half humorously accepted as one accepts a glass of +lemonade on a hot day. Not only was he without charm, but he was unaware +of charm; he didn't see it or feel it or need it. And she, who had seen +and felt, she who had known Gerald and Helen, must be satisfied with +this. It was this that she must strive to be worthy of. She was +unworthy, and she knew it; but that acceptation was only part of the +horror of defeat. And the soulless gaze with which she looked at him +oddly chiselled her pallid face. She was like a dumb, classic mask, too +impersonal for tragedy. Her lips were parted in their speechlessness and +her eyes vacant of thought. + +Then, after that soulless seeing, she realised that she had frightened +Franklin. He came to her. 'Dear--what is the matter?' he asked. + +He came so near that she looked into his eyes. She looked deeply, for a +long time, in silence. And while she looked, while Franklin's hands +gently found and held hers, life came to her with dreadful pain again. +She felt, rather than knew--and with a long shudder--that the world was +vast; she felt and feared it as vast and alien. She felt that she was +alone, and the loneliness was a terror, beating upon her. And she +felt--no longer seeing anything but the deeps of Franklin's eyes--that +he was her only refuge; and closing her own eyes she stumbled towards +him and he received her in his arms. + +They sat on the sofa, and Franklin clasped her while she wept, and she +seemed to re-enter childhood where all that she wanted was to cry her +heart out and have gentle arms around her while she confessed every +wrong-doing that had made a barrier between herself and her mother's +heart. 'O Franklin,' she sobbed, 'I'm so unhappy!' + +He said nothing, soothing her as a mother might have done. + +'Franklin, I loved him!' she sobbed. 'It was real: it was the reallest +thing that ever happened to me. I only sent for you because I knew that +he didn't love me. I loved him too much to go on if he didn't love me. +What I have suffered, Franklin. And now he is going to marry Helen. He +loves Helen. And I am not worthy of you.' + +'Poor child,' said Franklin. He pressed his lips to her hair. + +'You know, Franklin?' + +'Yes, I know, dear.' + +'I am not worthy of you,' Althea repeated. 'I have been weak and +selfish. I've used you--to hide from myself--because I was too +frightened to stand alone and give up things.' + +'Well, you shan't stand alone any more,' said Franklin. + +'But, Franklin--dear--kind Franklin--why should you marry me? I don't +love you--not as I loved him. I only wanted you because I was afraid. I +must tell you all the truth. I only want you now, and cling to you like +this, because I am afraid, because I can't go on alone and have nothing +to live for.' + +'You'll have me now, dear,' said Franklin. 'You'll try that, won't you, +and perhaps you'll find it more worth while than you think.' + +Something more now than fear and loneliness and penitence was piercing +her. His voice: poor Franklin's voice. What had she done to him? What +had they all done to him among them? And dimly, like the memory of a +dream, yet sharply, too, as such memory may be sharp, there drifted for +Althea the formless fear that hovered--formless yet urgent--when +Franklin had come to her in her desperate need. It hovered, and it +seemed to shape itself, as if through delicate curves of smoke, into +Helen's face--Helen's eyes and smile. Helen, charm embodied; Helen, all +the things that Franklin could never be; all the things she had believed +till now, Franklin could never feel or need. What did she know of +Franklin? so the fear whispered softly. What had Helen done to Franklin? +What had it meant to Franklin, that strange mingling with magic? + +She could never ask. She could never know. It would hover and whisper +always, the fear that had yet its beauty. It humbled her and it lifted +Franklin. He was more than she had believed. She had believed him all +hers, to take; but it was he who had given himself to her, and there +was an inmost shrine--ah, was there not?--that was not his to give. And +pity, deep pity, and sadness immeasurable for a loss not hers alone, was +in her as she sobbed: 'Ah, it is only because you are sorry for me. I +have killed all the rest. You are not in love with me any +longer--poor--poor Franklin--and everything is spoiled.' + +But Franklin could show her that he had seen the fear, and yet that life +was not spoiled by shrines in each heart from which the other was shut +out. It was difficult to know how to say it; difficult to tell her that +some truth she saw and yet that there was more truth for them +both--plenty of truth, as he would have said, for them both to live on. +And though it took him a little while to find the words, he did find +them at last, completely, for her and for himself, saying gently, while +he held her, 'No, it isn't, dear. It's not spoiled. It's not the +same--for either of us--is it?--but it isn't spoiled. We've taken +nothing from each other; some things weren't ours, that's all. And even +if you don't much want to marry me, you must please have me, now; +because I want to marry you. I want to live for you so much that by +degrees, I feel sure of it, you'll want to live for me, too. We must +live for each other; we've got each other. Isn't that enough, Althea?' + +'Is it--_is_ it enough?' she sobbed. + +'I guess it is,' said Franklin. + +His voice was sane and sweet, even if it was sad. It seemed the voice of +life. Althea closed her eyes and let it fold her round. Only with +Franklin could she find consolation in her defeat, or strength to live +without the happiness that had failed her. Only Franklin could console +her for having to take Franklin. Was that really all that it came to? +No, she felt it growing, as they sat in silence, her sobs quieting, her +head on his shoulder; it came to more. But she saw nothing clearly after +the hateful, soulless seeing. The only clear thing was that it was good +to be with Franklin. + + + +THE END. + + +PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN. + +ESTABLISHED 1798 +[Illustration:] +T. NELSON AND SONS +PRINTERS AND PUBLISHERS + + + * * * * * + + +THE NELSON LIBRARY OF COPYRIGHT FICTION + + Uniform with this Volume and same Price. + + _FORTHCOMING VOLUMES._ + + +MANALIVE. G. K. Chesterton. + +Mr. Chesterton is avowedly the maker of fantasies, half allegorical in +motive; but like all true allegories, they touch ordinary life at many +points. This story will be found as daring and subtle in conception, and +as brilliant in presentation as his best work. (_May 19._) + + +WHITE WINGS. William Black. + +William Black's famous novel may be described as a classic of yachting. +No sunnier tale of the seas has ever been written. (_June 2._) + + +SCARLET RUNNER. C. N. and A. M. Williamson. + +In this book Mr. and Mrs. Williamson describe the various doings of a +young gentleman whose sole worldly possession is a large touring car. +Adventures are to the adventurous, and Christopher Race found them in +full. (_June 16._) + + + _Already Published._ + + +TRENT'S LAST CASE. E. C. Bentley. + +This has been by far the most successful detective novel of recent +years. Mr. Lewis Hind in _The Daily Chronicle_ described it as the best +detective story of the century. + + +THE OPEN QUESTION. Elizabeth Robins. + +This was the book with which Miss Robins first won her great reputation +as a novelist. The scene is laid in America, and the story is described +by the author as a "study of two temperaments." + + +THE MONEY MARKET. E. F. Benson. + +A brilliant study of London society and of the strife between love and +the power of purse. + + +THE LUCK OF THE VAILS. E. F. Benson. + +In this story of modern country-house life Mr. Benson mingles mystery, +intrigue, and comedy with the skill of which he alone has the secret. + + +THE POTTER'S THUMB. Flora Annie Steel. + +"Sometimes the potter's thumb slips in the moulding, so in the firing +the pot cracks." Mrs. Steel's brilliant study of Anglo-Indian life is +based upon this text. It is one of the most dramatic and moving of her +Indian novels. + + +ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. Flora Annie Steel. + +This book is generally regarded as Mrs. Steel's masterpiece. It is a +story of the Indian Mutiny, and contains a wonderful picture of the +heroism of English men and women in that time of terror. + + +THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. Stanley J. Weyman. + +This, one of the first of Mr. Weyman's famous novels, deals with France +in the time of the Huguenot wars, and contains a brilliant picture of +the massacre of St. Bartholomew. + + +MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD. A. Courlander. + +This realistic story of life on a great London newspaper is probably the +best novel of journalism ever written. + + +A WALKING GENTLEMAN. James Prior. + +In this delightful fantasia a young peer, on the eve of his marriage, +walks out of his park into the world of common folk, and in the +adventures which follow finds that zest for life which he had hitherto +found wanting. + + +BROTHERS. H. A. Vachell. + +The publishers are happy to be able to add to the Nelson Library Mr. +Vachell's most famous novel, one of the most successful of recent years. +It is a brilliant study of character, full of drama and profound +humanity. + + +THE EXPLOITS OF BRIGADIER GERARD. A. Conan Doyle. + +The doings of this soldier of Napoleon have long been among Sir A. Conan +Doyle's most popular achievements in the art of fiction. As Mr. +Merriman's Barlasch represents the graver type of French veteran, so +Brigadier Gerard represents the dash and braggadocio of the Grande +Armee. + + +WHITE HEATHER. William Black. + +This charming love story is one of the most popular of Mr. Black's +romances of Highland life and sport. + + +SIMON DALE. Anthony Hope. + +This is Mr. Anthony Hope's only historical novel. It deals with the +Court of Charles II., and gives a brilliant picture of that complex age, +relieved by a charming love story. + + +A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Stanley J. Weyman. + +This is the first novel by which Mr. Weyman won his great reputation. It +is a tale of France during the religious wars of the sixteenth century, +and has long ranked as one of the most brilliant historical romances of +our day. + + +THE WAR IN THE AIR. H. G. Wells. + +"The War in the Air" is a story of the awful devastation following a +conflict between two first-class powers with the resources of the air at +their command. It is one of the most brilliant and successful of Mr. +Wells's studies in futurity. + + +RUPERT OF HENTZAU. Anthony Hope. + +This is a sequel to the famous "Prisoner of Zenda," already published in +the Nelson Library. It tells of the end of the long vendetta between +young Rupert of Hentzau and the Englishman, Rudolph Rassendyll. It is +needless to praise a book which, with its predecessor, has been +recognized as one of the greatest of modern romances. + + +SALT OF THE SEA. Morley Roberts. + +This is a collection of Mr. Morley Roberts's best sea stories selected +from half a dozen of his former volumes. "The Promotion of the Admiral" +and its sequel have been ranked by good critics as among the best modern +short stories. Mr. Roberts is scarcely less fine in his eerie tales, as +in the wonderful tale of "Billy be-damned." + + +THE MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. A. Conan Doyle. + +The publishers are happy to be able to add to their Nelson Library the +first collection of those stories which have made the name of Sherlock +Holmes a household word throughout the world. + + +THE PALADIN. H. A. Vachell. + +Mr. Vachell's gift of sympathetic understanding has rarely appeared to +better advantage than in this story. It is a fascinating study of +quixotry and idealism. + + +THE OSBORNES. E. F. Benson. + +In this book Mr. Benson has provided a careful and sympathetic study of +a middle-class family who rise to affluence. It is full of brilliant +humour and wide human sympathy. + + +THE RETURN OF THE EMIGRANT. Lydia M. Mackay. + +This is a story of modern Highland life, full of carefully studied +types, and lit with all the glamour of the Western Highlands. It is the +most important recent contribution to Scottish fiction. + + +PRINCESS PRISCILLA'S FORTNIGHT. + +By the Author of "Elizabeth and her German Garden." This tale, famous +both as a book and as a play, tells how a young and beautiful German +princess, growing weary of Court restrictions, flies from her home, and +with her maid seeks refuge in an English village. Her royal generosity +soon leads her into financial straits, and she is rescued and restored +to her family by her lover. The humour and piquancy of the situations +are not less great than the charm of the heroine. + + +LADY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING. "Q" (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch). + +Sir Oliver Vyell, the British Collector of Customs at Boston, rescues a +poor girl from the stocks, educates her, and makes her mistress of his +household. The scene moves to Lisbon, and there is a wonderful picture +of the earthquake. + + +HETTY WESLEY. "Q." + +This love story of one of the members of the Wesley family is perhaps +"Q's" most brilliant novel, as distinct from those romances with which +his name is chiefly associated. + + +HURRISH. Hon. Emily Lawless. + +This is a tale of peasant life in Ireland which has few rivals in Irish +literature. It is done with the dignity and restraint of a Greek +tragedy. + + +JEMMY ABERCRAW. Bernard Capes. + +In this brilliant romance the chief figure is a highwayman who conducts +his profession in a spirit of light-hearted chivalry. The last of the +Jacobite plots in England is introduced into the narrative. + + +RULES OF THE GAME. Stewart Edward White. + +Mr. S. E. White is one of the best of those younger American novelists +who deal with man in his conflicts with nature. This is a story of the +Californian Sierras and the great duel between the financial trusts and +the Government for the preservation of the forests. Like all Mr. White's +books it is full of swift incident and the magic of the wilds. + + +WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC. Sir Gilbert Parker. + +In this charming story Sir Gilbert Parker tells of the fortunes of a +young adventurer in Canada in the early nineteenth century who claimed +to be the son of the great Napoleon. The mystery of his life and his +tragic death make up one of the most original and moving of recent +romances. The author does for Quebec what in other works he has done for +the Western and Northern wilds--he interprets to the world its essential +romance. + + +THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Booth Tarkington. + +In this book the author of "Monsieur Beaucaire" tells a story of his own +country. "The Gentleman from Indiana" is a tale of a young university +graduate who becomes a newspaper owner and editor in a Western town, and +wages war against "graft" and corruption. His crusade brings him into +relations with the girl who had captured his heart at college, and their +love story is subtly interwoven with his political campaign. It is one +of the best of modern American novels, and readers will delight not only +in the stirring drama of the plot, but in the fresh and sympathetic +pictures given of the young townships of the West. + + +THE INVIOLABLE SANCTUARY. George A. Birmingham. + +Mr. Birmingham's novel takes us to the west of Ireland. The heroine is a +young lady of fifteen, who, with the help of a boy cousin, discovers a +mystery in the bay, and lands the whole parish in a bog of intrigue. It +is in every way as amusing and delightful as "Spanish Gold" and "The +Simpkins Plot." + + * * * * * + +THE NELSON LIBRARY. + + _Uniform with this Volume and same Price._ + + CONDENSED LIST. + + _Arranged alphabetically under Authors' Names._ + + BAILEY, H. C. + Springtime. + Beaujeu. + + BECKE, LOUIS. + Edward Barry, South Sea Pearler. + + BELLOC, HILAIRE. + Mr. Clutterbuck's Election. + The Girondin. + + BENSON, E. F. + Daisy's Aunt. + The Luck of the Vails. + The Money Market. + The Osbornes. + The Princess Sophia. + + BENTLEY, E. C. + Trent's Last Case. + + BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE A. + The Simpkins Plot. + The Inviolable Sanctuary. + + BLACK, WILLIAM. + White Heather. + + BRADDON, Miss. + Lady Audley's Secret. + Vixen. + + BRAMAH, ERNEST. + The Secret of the League. + + BUCHAN, JOHN. + Prester John. + + BURNETT, MRS. F. H. + The Making of a Marchioness. + + By The Author of "Elizabeth and + her German Garden." + Princess Priscilla's Fortnight. + + CAINE, HALL. + A Son of Hagar. + + CAPES, BERNARD. + Jemmy Abercraw. + + CARR, M. E. + The Poison of Tongues. + + CASTLE, A. and E. + If Youth but Knew. + Incomparable Bellairs. + French Nan. + The Rose of the World. + The Panther's Cub. + + CHILDERS, ERSKINE. + The Riddle of the Sands. + + CHOLMONDELEY, MARY. + Red Pottage. + + CLIFFORD, MRS. W. K. + Woodside Farm. + + CONRAD, JOSEPH. + Romance. + + COPPING, A. + Gotty and the Guv'nor. + + COURLANDER, A. + Mightier than the Sword. + + DOUGLAS, GEORGE. + The House with the Green Shutters. + + DOYLE, A. CONAN. + The Refugees. + The Great Shadow. + Micah Clarke. + The Sign of Four. + Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. + The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. + The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. + The Hound of the Baskervilles. + + DUNCAN, SARA JEANETTE. + Set in Authority. + + FALKNER, J. MEADE. + Moonfleet. + + FINDLATER, MARY AND JANE. + Crossriggs. + + FORREST, R. E. + Eight Days. + + FUTRELLE, JACQUES. + The Lady in the Case. + + GARNETT, MRS. + The Infamous John Friend. + + GISSING, GEORGE. + Odd Women. + Born in Exile. + + GRIER, SYDNEY. + The Warden of the Marches. + + HARLAND, HENRY. + The Cardinal's Snuff-Box. + My Friend Prospero. + + HARRADEN, BEATRICE. + Katharine Frensham. + Interplay. + Out of the Wreck I Rise. + + HOBBES, JOHN OLIVER. + Love and the Soul-hunters. + + HOPE, ANTHONY. + The Intrusions of Peggy. + Quisante. + The King's Mirror. + The God in the Car. + Count Antonio. + The Dolly Dialogues. + The Prisoner of Zenda. + A Man of Mark. + Rupert of Hentzau. + Sophy of Kravonia. + Tristram of Blent. + The Great Miss Driver. + Simon Dale. + Tales of Two People. + + HORNUNG, E. W. + Raffles. + Mr. Justice Raffles. + A Thief in the Night: the Last Chronicles of Raffles. + Stingaree. + + HYNE, C. J. CUTCLIFFE. + Thompson's Progress. + Mr. Horrocks, Purser. + + JACOB, VIOLET. + The Interloper. + + JACOBS, W. W. + The Lady of the Barge. + The Skipper's Wooing. + + JAMES, HENRY. + The American. + + LAWLESS, Hon. EMILY. + Hurrish. + + LONDON, JACK. + White Fang. + Adventure. + A Daughter of the Snows. + + LORIMER, G. H. + Old Gorgon Graham. + + MACNAUGHTAN, S. + The Fortune of Christina M'Nab. + A Lame Dog's Diary. + Selah Harrison. + The Expensive Miss Du Cane. + The Gift. + + MACKAY, L. MILLER. + Return of the Emigrant. + + MALET, LUCAS. + The Wages of Sin. + The Gateless Barrier. + + MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD. + Exton Manor. + + MASEFIELD, JOHN. + Captain Margaret. + Multitude and Solitude. + + MASON, A. E. W. + Clementina. + The Four Feathers. + The Broken Road. + + MERRICK, LEONARD. + The House of Lynch. + The Call from the Past. + + MERRIMAN, H. SETON. + The Last Hope. + The Isle of Unrest. + The Vultures. + In Kedar's Tents. + Roden's Corner. + Barlasch of the Guard. + The Velvet Glove. + + MORRISON, ARTHUR. + A Child of the Jago. + + NICHOLSON, MEREDITH. + The War of the Carolinas. + The House of a Thousand Candles. + + NORRIS, FRANK. + The Octopus. + The Pit. + Shanghaied. + + OLLIVANT, ALFRED. + Owd Bob. + + PAIN, BARRY. + The One Before. + + PARKER, SIR GILBERT. + The Battle of the Strong. + The Translation of a Savage. + An Adventurer of the North. + When Valmond came to Pontiac. + The Right of Way. + Donovan Pasha. + The Seats of the Mighty. + + PASTURE, Mrs. H. De La. + The Man from America. + The Lonely Lady of Grosvenor Square. + The Grey Knight. + + PHILLPOTTS, EDEN. + The American Prisoner. + The Farm of the Dagger. + + PRIOR, JAMES. + Forest Folk. + A Walking Gentleman. + + "Q." + Sir John Constantine. + Major Vigoureux. + Shining Ferry. + True Tilda. + Lady Good-for-Nothing. + Hetty Wesley. + + RIDGE, W. PETT. + Mrs. Galer's Business. + + ROBERTS, MORLEY. + Salt of the Sea. + + ROBINS, E. + Come and Find Me. + The Open Question. + + SAVILE, FRANK. + The Road. + + SEDGWICK, Miss A. D. + Valerie Upton. + + SIDGWICK, Mrs. A. + Cynthia's Way. + Cousin Ivo. + + SILBERRAD, UNA L. + The Good Comrade. + John Bolsover. + Ordinary People. + + SNAITH, J. C. + Fortune. + + STEEL, FLORA ANNIE. + The Potter's Thumb. + On the Face of the Waters. + + TARKINGTON, BOOTH. + Monsieur Beaucaire, and The Beautiful Lady. + The Gentleman from Indiana. + + TWAIN, MARK. + Tom Sawyer. + Huckleberry Finn. + + VACHELL, H. A. + John Charity. + The Waters of Jordan. + The Other Side. + The Paladin. + Brothers. + + VERNEDE, R. E. + The Pursuit of Mr. Faviel. + + WARD, MRS. HUMPHRY. + The Marriage of William Ashe. + Robert Elsmere. + Marcella. + Lady Rose's Daughter. + Sir George Tressady. + Helbeck of Bannisdale. + Eleanor. + + WELLS, H. G. + Kipps. + The Food of the Gods. + Love and Mr. Lewisham. + The First Men in the Moon. + The Sleeper Awakes. + The Invisible Man. + The History of Mr. Polly. + The Country of the Blind. + The War in the Air. + + WEYMAN, STANLEY J. + The House of the Wolf. + A Gentleman of France. + Sophia. + + WHITE, STEWART E. + The Blazed Trail. + Rules of the Game. + + WHITEING, RICHARD. + No. 5 John Street. + + WILLIAMSON, C. N. and A. M. + The Princess Passes. + Love and the Spy. + The Lightning Conductor. + + +T. NELSON & SONS, London, Edinburgh, Dublin, and New York. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Franklin Kane, by Anne Douglas Sedgwick + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKLIN KANE *** + +***** This file should be named 18886.txt or 18886.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/8/8/18886/ + +Produced by Louise Pryor, Janet Blenkinship and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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