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 o