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