babies, how could one? Did Helen think one
could? Gerald would finish dismally, standing before her with his hands
thrust deeply into his pockets and a ruffled brow of inquiry. Or else it
was the pretty Miss Oliver who had him--half alarmed, half enchanted--in
her toils, and Gerald couldn't imagine what she was going to do with
him. For such entanglements Helen's advice had always shown a way out,
and for his uncertainties--though she never took the responsibility of
actual guidance--her reflective questionings, her mere reflective
silences, were illuminating. They made clear for him, as for her, that
recklessness could only be worth while if one were really--off one's own
bat, as it were--'in love'; and that, this lacking, recklessness was
folly sure to end in disaster. 'Wait, either until you care so much that
you must, or else until you meet some one so nice, so rich, and so
suitable that you may,' said Helen. 'If you are not careful you will
find yourself married to some one who will bore you and quarrel with you
on twopence a year.'

'You must be careful for me,' said Gerald. 'Please warn and protect.'

And Helen replied that she would always do her best for him.

It had never occurred to Gerald to turn the tables on Helen and tell her
that she ought to marry. His imagination was not occupied with Helen's
state, though once, after a conversation with old Miss Buchanan, he
remarked to Helen, looking at her with a vague curiosity, that it was a
pity she hadn't taken Lord Henry or Mr. Fergusson. 'Miss Buchanan tells
me you might have been one of the first hostesses in London if you
hadn't thrown away your chances.'

'I'm all right,' said Helen.

'Yes, you yourself are; but after she dies?'

Helen owned, with a smile, that she could certainly do with some few
thousands a year; but that, in default of them, she could manage to
scrape along.

'But you've never had any better chances, have you?' said Gerald rather
tentatively. He might confide everything in Helen, but he realised, as a
restraining influence, that she never made any confidences, even to him,
who, he was convinced, knew her down to the ground.

Helen owned that she hadn't.

'Your aunt thinks it a dreadful pity. She's very much worried about
you.'

'It's late in the day for the poor dear to worry. The chances were over
long ago.'

'You didn't care enough?'

'I was young and foolish enough to want to be in love when I married,'
said Helen, sm