him that I absolutely knew you wanted to marry me, that you
would whenever you could, that seemed to help him a good deal."

"And that satisfied him?" Fred asked wonderingly. He could not quite
imagine what kind of person Dr. Archie might be.

"He took me by the shoulders once and asked, oh, in such a frightened
way, 'Thea, was he GOOD to you, this young man?' When I told him you
were, he looked at me again: 'And you care for him a great deal, you
believe in him?' Then he seemed satisfied." Thea paused. "You see, he's
just tremendously good, and tremendously afraid of things--of some
things. Otherwise he would have got rid of Mrs. Archie." She looked up
suddenly: "You were right, though; one can't tell people about things
they don't know already."

Fred stood in the window, his back to the sunlight, fingering the
jonquils. "Yes, you can, my dear. But you must tell it in such a way
that they don't know you're telling it, and that they don't know they're
hearing it."

Thea smiled past him, out into the air. "I see. It's a secret. Like the
sound in the shell."

"What's that?" Fred was watching her and thinking how moving that
faraway expression, in her, happened to be. "What did you say?"

She came back. "Oh, something old and Moonstony! I have almost forgotten
it myself. But I feel better than I thought I ever could again. I can't
wait to be off. Oh, Fred," she sprang up, "I want to get at it!"

As she broke out with this, she threw up her head and lifted herself a
little on her toes. Fred colored and looked at her fearfully,
hesitatingly. Her eyes, which looked out through the window, were
bright--they had no memories. No, she did not remember. That momentary
elevation had no associations for her. It was unconscious.

He looked her up and down and laughed and shook his head. "You are just
all I want you to be--and that is,--not for me! Don't worry, you'll get
at it. You are at it. My God! have you ever, for one moment, been at
anything else?"

Thea did not answer him, and clearly she had not heard him. She was
watching something out in the thin light of the false spring and its
treacherously soft air.

Fred waited a moment. "Are you going to dine with your friend to-night?"

"Yes. He has never been in New York before. He wants to go about. Where
shall I tell him to go?"

"Wouldn't it be a better plan, since you wish me to meet him, for you
both to dine with me? It would seem only natural and friendly. You'l