. There is still one's life to live, and one may as well make what
seems the best of it. I've not succeeded, you see, in marrying your
great man, and I've fallen back very thankfully on my dear, good
Franklin, who is not, let me tell you, a nonentity in my eyes; I'm
fonder of him than of any one I've ever known except yourself. And it
was too much, just the one touch too much, to have you come to me to-day
with reproaches and an air of injury. But, at the same time, I ask your
pardon for having spoken to you like that--as though you'd done _me_ a
wrong. And if I've been too cruel, if the memory rankles and makes you
uncomfortable, you must keep away from me as long as you like. It won't
be for ever, I'm sure. In spite of everything I'm sure that we shall
always be friends.'

She got up now, knowing in her exhaustion that she was near tears, and
she found her cigarette-case on the writing-table; it was an automatic
relapse to the customary. She felt that everything, indeed, was over,
and that the sooner one relapsed on every-day trivialities the better.

Gerald watched her light the cigarette, the pulsing little flicker of
yellow flame illuminating her cheek and hair as she stood half turned
from him. She was near him and he had but one step to take to her. He
was almost unaware of motive. What he did was nearly as automatic, as
inevitable, as her search for the cigarette. He was beside her and he
put his arms around her and took the cigarette from her hand. Then,
folding her to him, he hid his face against her hair.

It was, then, not excitement he felt so much as the envelopment of a
great, a beautiful necessity. So great, so beautiful, in its peace and
accomplishment, that it was as if he had stood there holding Helen for
an eternity, and as if all the miserable years that had separated them
were looked down at serenely from some far height.

And Helen had stood absolutely still. When she spoke he heard in her
voice an amazement too great for anger. It was almost gentle in its
astonishment. 'Gerald,' she said, 'I am not in need of consolation.'

Foolish Helen, he thought, breathing quietly in the warm dusk of her
hair; foolish dear one, to speak from that realm of abolished time.

'I'm not consoling you,' he said.

She was again silent for a moment and he felt that her heart was
throbbing hard; its shocks went through him. 'Let me go,' she said.

He kissed her hair, holding her closer.

Helen, starting violen