n 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 pret