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