would make generous settlements and give her
her proper establishments here. I want Helen to be safe; but I don't
want safety for her at the price of extinction.'
Obviously, Franklin could see that very clearly, whatever else was dim,
he was the vase for the lovely flower. That was his use and his supreme
significance in Miss Buchanan's eyes. And the lovely flower was to be
left on its high stand where all the world could see it; what other use
was there for it? He quite saw Miss Buchanan's point, and the strange
thing was, in spite of all the struggling of confused pain and
perplexity in him, that here he, too, was clear; with no sense of inner
protest he could make it his point too. He wanted Helen to stay in her
vase; he didn't want to take her off the high stand. He had not time now
to seek for consistency with his principles, his principles must
stretch, that was all; they must stretch far enough to take in Helen and
her stand; once they had done that he felt that there might be more to
say and that he should be able to say it; he felt sure that he should
say nothing that Helen would not like; even if she disagreed, she would
always smile at him.
'No,' he said, 'it wouldn't do for her to live anywhere but in England.'
'Well, then, what do you say to it?' asked Miss Buchanan. She had rather
the manner of a powerful chancellor negotiating for the marriage of a
princess.
'Why,' Franklin replied, smiling very gravely, 'I say yes. But I can't
think that Miss Helen will.'
'Try your chances,' said Miss Buchanan. She reached across the table and
shook his hand. 'I like you, Mr. Kane,' she said. 'I think you are a
good man; and, don't forget, in spite of my worldliness, that if I
weren't sure of that, all your millions wouldn't have made me think of
you for Helen.'
CHAPTER XXIII.
Helen returned to town on Monday afternoon, and, on going to her room,
found two notes there. One from Gerald said that he was staying on for
another week at Merriston, the other from Franklin said that he would
take his chances of finding her in at 5.30 that afternoon. Helen only
glanced at Franklin's note and then dropped it into the fire; at
Gerald's she looked long and attentively. She always, familiar as they
were, studied any letter of Gerald's that she received; they seemed, the
slightest of them, to have something of himself; the small crisp writing
was charming to her, and the very way he had of affixing his stamps i
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