and her friend only a
little nearer, a little more solicitous. They had gone about together;
they had taken walks in the parks; they had made plans while strolling
beside the banks of the Serpentine or leaning on the bridge in St.
James's Park, to watch the ducks being fed. Already she and Franklin and
the deeply triumphant Aunt Grizel had gone on a journey down to the
country to look at a beautiful old house in order to see if it would do
as one of Helen's 'establishments.' Already Franklin had brought her a
milky string of perfect pearls, saying mildly, as he had said of the box
of sweets, 'I don't approve of them, but I hope you do.' And on her
finger was Franklin's ring, a noble emerald that they had selected
together.

Helen had been pleased to feel in herself a capacity for satisfaction in
these possessions, actual and potential. She liked to look at the great
blot of green on her hand and to see the string of pearls sliding to her
waist. She liked to ponder on the Jacobean house with its splendid rise
of park and fall of sward. She didn't at all dislike it, either, when
Franklin, as calmly possessed as ever with a clear sense of his duties,
discussed with her the larger and more impersonal uses of their fortune.
She found that she had ideas for him there; that the thinking and active
self, so long inert, could be roused to very good purpose; that it was
interesting, and very interesting, to plan, with millions at one's
disposal, for the furtherance of the just and the beautiful. And she
found, too, in spite of her warnings to Franklin, that though she might
be a hard, a selfish, and a broken-hearted woman, she was a woman with a
very definite idea of her own responsibilities. It did not suit her at
all to be the mere passive receiver; it did not suit her to be greedy.
She turned her mind at once, carefully and consistently, to Franklin's
interests. She found atoms and kinetics rather confusing at first, but
Franklin's delighted and deliberate elucidations made a light for her
that promised by degrees to illuminate these dark subjects. Yes;
already life had taken hold of her and, ironically, yet not unwillingly,
she followed it along the appointed path. Yesterday, however, and
to-day, especially, a complication, subtle yet emphatic, had stolen upon
her consciousness.

All the week long, in spite of something mastered and controlled in his
bearing, she had seen that he was happy, and though not imaginative as
to