Some days after Gerald had gone to Merriston, Franklin Kane received a little note from old Miss Buchanan. Helen, too, had gone to the country until Monday, as she had told Franklin when he had asked her to see some pictures with him on Saturday. Franklin had felt a little bereft, especially since, hoping for her on Saturday, he had himself refused an invitation. But he did not miss that; the invitations that poured in upon him, like a swelling river, were sources of cheerful amusement to him. He, too, was acquiring his little ironies and knew why they poured in. It was not the big house-party where he would have been a fish out of water—even though in no sense a fish landed—that he missed; he missed Helen; and he wouldn't think of going to see pictures without her. It was, therefore, pleasant to read Miss Buchanan's hospitable suggestion that he should drop in that afternoon for a cup of tea and to keep an old woman company. He was very glad indeed to keep Miss Buchanan company. She interested him greatly; he had not yet in the least made out what was her object in life, whether she had gained or missed it, and whether, indeed, she had ever had one to gain or miss. People who went thus unpiloted through life filled him with wonder and conjecture.

He found Miss Buchanan as he had found her on the occasion of his first visit to the little house in Belgravia. Her acute and rugged face showed not much greater softening for this now wonted guest—showed, rather, a greater acuteness; but any one who knew Miss Buchanan would know from its expression that she liked Franklin Kane. 'Well,' she said, as he drew his chair to the opposite side of the tea-table—very cosy it was, the fire shining upon them, and the canaries trilling intermittently—'Well, here we are, abandoned. We'll make the best of it, won't we?'

Franklin said that under the circumstances he couldn't feel at all abandoned. 'Nor do I,' said Miss Buchanan, filling the tea-pot. 'You and I get on very well together, I consider.' Franklin thought so too.

'I hope we may go on with it,' said Miss Buchanan, leaning back in her chair while the tea drew. 'I hope we are going to keep you over here. You've given up any definite idea of going back, I suppose.'

Franklin was startled by this confident assurance. His definite idea in coming over had been, of course, to go back at the end of the autumn, unless, indeed, a certain cherished hope were fulfilled, in which case Althea should have decided on any movements. He had hardly, till this moment, contemplated his own intentions, and now that he did so he found that he had been guided by none that were definable. It was not because he had suddenly grown rich and, in his funny way, the fashion, that he thus stayed on in London, working hard, it is true, and allowing no new developments to interfere with his work, yet making no plans and setting no goal before himself. To live as he had been living for the past weeks was, indeed, in a sense, to drift. There was nothing Franklin disapproved of more than of drifting; therefore he was startled when Miss Buchanan's remarks brought him to this realisation. 'Well, upon my word, Miss Buchanan,' he said, 'I hadn't thought about it. No—of course not—of course, I've not given up the idea of going back. I shall go back before very long. But things have turned up, you see. There is Althea's wedding—I must be at that—and there's Miss Helen. I want to see as much of her as I can before I go home, get my friendship firmly established, you know.'

Miss Buchanan now poured out the tea and handed Franklin his cup. 'I shouldn't think about going yet, then,' she observed. 'London is an admirable place for the sort of work you are interested in, and I entirely sympathise with your wish to see as much as you can of Helen.' She added, after a little pause in which Franklin, still further startled to self-contemplation, wondered whether it was work, Althea's wedding, or Helen who had most kept him in London,—'I'm troubled about Helen; she's not looking at all well; hasn't been feeling well all the summer. I trace it to that attack of influenza she had in Paris when she met Miss Jakes.'

Franklin's thoughts were turned from himself. He looked grave. 'I'm afraid she's delicate,' he said.

'There is nothing sickly about her, but she is fragile,' said Miss Buchanan. 'She can't stand wear and tear. It might kill her.'

Franklin looked even graver. The thought of his friend killed by wear and tear was inexpressibly painful to him. He remembered—he would never forget—the day in the woods, Helen's 'I'm sick to death of it.' That Helen had a secret sorrow, and that it was preying upon her, he felt sure, and there was pride for him in the thought that he could help her there; he could help her to hide it; even her aunt didn't know that she was sick to death of it. 'What do you suggest might be done?' he now inquired. 'Do you think she goes out too much? Perhaps a rest-cure.'

'No; I don't think she over-tires herself; she doesn't go out nearly as much as she used to. There is nothing to cure and nothing to rest from. It isn't so much now; I'm here now to make things possible for her. It's after I'm gone. I'm an old woman; I'm devoted to my niece, and I don't see what's to become of her when I'm dead.'

If Franklin had been startled before, he was shocked now. He had never given much thought to the economic basis of Helen's life, taking it for granted that though she would like more money, she had, and always would have, quite enough to live on happily. The idea of an insecure future for her had never entered his head. He now knew that, for all his theories of the independence of women, it was quite intolerable to contemplate an insecure future for Helen. Some women might have it in them to secure themselves—she was not one of them. She was a flower in a vase; if the vase were taken away the flower would simply lie where it fell and wither. He had put down his tea-cup while Miss Buchanan spoke, and he sat gazing at her. 'Isn't Miss Helen provided for?' he asked.

'Yes, in a sense she is,' said Miss Buchanan, who, after drinking her tea, did not go on to her muffin, but still leaned back with folded arms, her deep-set, small grey eyes fixed on Franklin's face. 'I've seen to that as best I could; but one can't save much out of a small annuity. Helen, after my death, will have an income of £150 a year. It isn't enough. You have only to look at Helen to see that it isn't enough. She's not fit to scrape and manage on that.'

Franklin repeated the sum thoughtfully. 'Well, no, perhaps not,' he half thought, only half agreed; 'not leading the kind of life she does now. If she could only work at something as well; bring in a little more like that.' But Miss Buchanan interrupted him.

'Nonsense, my dear man; what work is there—work that will bring in money—for a decorative, untrained idler like Helen? And what time would she have left to live the only life she's fit to lead if she had to make money? I'm not worried about bare life for Helen; I'm worried about what kind of life it's to be. Helen was brought up to be an idler and to make a good marriage—like most girls of her class—and she hasn't made it, and she's not likely to make it now.'

'One hundred and fifty pounds isn't enough,' said Franklin, still thoughtfully, 'for a decorative idler.'

'That's just it,' Miss Buchanan acquiesced; and she went on after a moment, 'I'm willing to call Helen a decorative idler if we are talking of purely economic weights and measures; thank goodness there are other standards, and we are not likely to see them eliminated from civilised society for many a generation. For many a generation, I trust, there'll be people in the world who don't earn their keep, as one may say, and yet who are more worth while keeping than most of the people who do. To my mind Helen is such a person. I'd like to tell you a little about her life, Mr. Kane.'

'I should be very much obliged if you would,' Franklin murmured, his thin little face taking on an expression of most intense concentration. 'It would be a great privilege. You know what I feel about Miss Helen.'

'Yes; it's because I know what you feel about her that I want to tell you,' said Miss Grizel. 'Not that it's anything startling, or anything you wouldn't have supposed for yourself; but it illustrates my point, I think, very well, my point that Helen is the type of person we can't afford to let go under. Has Helen ever spoken to you about her mother?'

'Never,' said Franklin, his intent face expressing an almost ritualistic receptivity.

'Well, she's a poor creature,' said Miss Buchanan, 'a poor, rubbishy creature; the most selfish and reckless woman I know. I warned my brother how it would turn out from the first; but he was infatuated and had his way, and a wretched way it turned out. She made him miserable, and she made the children miserable, and she nearly ruined him with her extravagance; he and I together managed to put things straight, and see to it that Nigel should come into a property not too much encumbered and that Helen should inherit a little sum, enough to keep her going—a little more it was, as a matter of fact, than what I'll be able to leave her. Well, when my brother died, she was of age and she came into her modest fortune; for a young girl, with me to back her up, it wasn't bad. She had hardly seen her mother for three years—they'd always been at daggers drawn—when one day, up in Scotland, when she was with her brother—it was before Nigel married—who should appear but Daisy. She had travelled up there in desperate haste to throw herself on her children's mercy. She was in terrible straits. She had got into debt—cards and racing—and she was frightfully involved with some horror of a man. Her honour was wrecked unless she could pay her debts and extricate herself. Well, she found no mercy in Nigel; he refused to give her a farthing. It was Helen who stripped herself of every penny she possessed and saved her. I don't know whether she touched Helen's pity, or whether it was mere family pride; the thought of the horror of a man was probably a strong motive too. All Helen ever said about it to me was, "How could I bear to see her like that?" So, she ruined herself. Of course after that it was more than ever necessary that she should marry. I hadn't begun to save for her, and there was nothing else for her to look to. Of course I expected her to marry at once; she was altogether the most charming girl of her day. But there is the trouble; she never did. She refused two most brilliant offers, one after the other, and hosts of minor ones. There was some streak of girlish romance in her, I suppose. I wish I could have been more on the spot and put on pressure. But it was difficult to be on the spot. Helen never told me about her offers until long after; and pressure with her wouldn't come to much. Of course I didn't respect her the less for her foolishness. But, dear me, dear me,' said Miss Buchanan, turning her eyes on the fire, 'what a pity it has all been, what a pity it is, to see her wasted.'

Franklin listened to this strange tale, dealing with matters to him particularly strange, such as gambling, dishonoured mothers, horrors of men and mercenary marriages. It all struck him as very dreadful; it all sank into him; but it didn't oppress him in its strangeness; no outside fact, however dreadful, ever oppressed Franklin. What did oppress him was the thought of Helen in it all. This oppressed him very much.

Miss Buchanan continued to look into the fire for a little while after she had finished her story, and then, bringing her eyes back to Franklin's countenance, she looked at him keenly and steadily. 'And now, Mr. Kane,' she said, 'you are perhaps asking yourself why I tell you all this?'

Franklin was not asking it at all, and he answered with earnest sincerity: 'Why, no; I think I ought to be told. I want to be told everything about my friends that I may hear. I'm glad to know this, because it makes me feel more than ever what a fine woman Miss Helen is, and I'm sorry, because she's wasted, as you say. I only wish,' said Franklin, and the intensity of cogitation deepened on his face, 'I only wish that one could think out some plan to give her a chance.'

'I wish one could,' said Miss Buchanan. And without any change of voice she added: 'I want you to marry her, Mr. Kane.'

Franklin sat perfectly still and turned his eyes on her with no apparent altering of expression, unless the arrested stillness of his look was alteration. His eyes and Miss Buchanan's plunged deep into each other's, held each other's for a long time. Then, slowly, deeply, Franklin flushed.

'But, Miss Buchanan,' he said, pausing between his sentences, for he did not see his way, 'I'm in love with another woman—that is——' and for a longer pause his way became quite invisible—'I've been in love with another woman for years.'

'You mean Miss Jakes,' said Miss Buchanan. 'Helen told me about it. But does that interfere? Helen isn't likely to be in love with you or to expect you to be in love with her. And the woman you've loved for years is going to marry some one else. It's not as if you had any hope.'

There was pain for Franklin in this reasonable speech, but he could not see clearly where it lay; curiously, it did not seem to centre on that hopelessness as regarded Althea. He could see nothing clearly, and there was no time for self-examination. 'No,' he agreed. 'No, that's true. It's not as if I had any hope.'

'I think Helen worthy of any man alive,' said Miss Buchanan, 'and yet, under the strange circumstances, I know that what I'm asking of you is an act of chivalry. I want to see Helen safe, and I think she would be safe with you.'

Franklin flushed still more deeply. 'Yes, I think she would,' he said. He paused then, again, trying to think, and what he found first was a discomfort in the way she had put it. 'It wouldn't be an act of chivalry,' he said. 'Don't think that. I care for Miss Helen too much for that. It's all the other way round, you know. I mean'—he brought out—'I don't believe she'd think of taking me.'

Miss Grizel's eyes were on him, and it may have been their gaze that made him feel the discomfort. She seemed to be seeing something that evaded him. 'I don't look like a husband for a decorative idler, do I, Miss Buchanan?' he tried to smile.

Her eyes, with their probing keenness, smiled back. 'You mayn't look like one, but you are one, with your millions,' she said. 'And I believe Helen might think of taking you. She has had plenty of time to outgrow youthful dreams. She's tired. She wants ease and security. She needs a husband, and she doesn't need a lover at all. She would get power, and you would get a charming wife—a woman, moreover, whom you care for and respect—as she does you; and you would get a home and children. I imagine that you care for children. Decorative idler though she is, Helen would make an excellent mother.'

'Yes, I care very much for children,' Franklin murmured, not confused—pained, rather, by this unveiling of his inner sanctities.

'Of course,' Miss Buchanan went on, 'you wouldn't want Helen to live out of England. Of course you 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.'