Helen was sitting at her writing-table before the window, and the morning light fell on her gracefully disordered hair and gracefully shabby shoulders. The aspect of her back struck on Althea's bitter, breathless mood. There was no effort made for anything with Helen. She was the sort of person who would get things without seeking for them and be things without caring to be them. She had taken what she wanted, when she wanted it; first Franklin, and then—and perhaps it had been before Franklin had failed her, perhaps it had been before she, Althea, had failed Gerald—she had taken Gerald. Althea's mind, reeling, yet strangely lucid after the shock of the last great injury, was also aware, in the moment of her entrance, of many other injuries, old ones, small ones, yet, in their summing up—and everything seemed to be summed up now in the cruel revelation—as intolerable as the new and great one. More strongly than ever before she was aware that Helen was hard, that there was nothing in her soft or tentative or afraid; and the realisation, though it was not new, came with an added bitterness this morning. It did not weaken her, however; on the contrary, it nerved her to self-protection. If Helen was hard, she would not, to-day, show herself soft. It was she who must assume the air of success, and of rueful yet helpless possessorship. These impressions and resolutions occupied but an instant. Helen rose and came to her, and what Althea saw in her face armed her resolutions with hostility. Helen's face confirmed what Mrs. Mallison had said. It was not resentful, not ironically calm. A solicitous interest, even a sort of benignity, was in her bright gaze. Helen was hard; she did not really care at all; but she was kind, kinder than ever before; and Althea found this kindness intolerable.

'Dear Helen,' she said, 'I'm so glad to see you. I had to come at once when I heard that you were back. You don't mind seeing me?'

'Not a bit,' said Helen, who had taken her hand. 'Why should I?'

'I was afraid that perhaps you might not want to—for a long time.'

'We aren't so foolish as that,' said Helen smiling.

'No, that is what I hoped you would feel too. We have been in the hands of fate, haven't we, Helen? I've seemed weak and disloyal, I know—to you and to Gerald; but I think it was only seeming. When I found out my mistake I couldn't go on. And then the rest all followed—inevitably.'

Helen had continued to hold her hand while she spoke, and she continued to gaze at her for another moment before, pressing it, she let it fall and said: 'Of course you couldn't go on.'

Helen was as resolved—Althea saw that clearly—to act her part of unresentful kindness as she to act hers of innocent remorse. And the swordthrust in the sight was to suspect that had Helen been in reality the dispossessed and not the secretly triumphant, she might have been as kind and as unresentful.

'It's all been a dreadful mistake,' Althea said, going to a chair and loosening her furs. 'From the very beginning I felt doubt. From the very beginning I felt that Gerald and I did not really make each other happy. And I believe that you wondered about it too.'

Helen had resumed her seat at the writing-table, sitting turned from it, her hand hanging over the back of the chair, her long legs crossed, and she faced her friend with that bright yet softened gaze, interested, alert, but too benign, too contented, to search or question closely. She was evidently quite willing that Althea should think what she chose, and, this was becoming evident, she intended to help her to think it. So after a little pause she answered, 'I did wonder, rather; it didn't seem to me that you and Gerald were really suited.'

'And you felt, didn't you,' Althea urged, 'that it was only because I had been so blind, and had not seen where my heart really was, you know, that your engagement was possible? I was so afraid you'd think we'd been faithless to you—Franklin and I; but, when I stopped being blind——'

'Of course,' Helen helped her on, nodding and smiling gravely, 'of course you took him back. I don't think you were either of you faithless, and you mustn't have me a bit on your minds; it was startling, of course; but I'm not heart-broken,' Helen assured her.

Oh, there was no malice here; it was something far worse to bear, this wish to lift every shadow and smooth every path. Althea's eyes fixed themselves hard on her friend. Her head swam a little and some of her sustaining lucidity left her.

'I was so afraid,' she said, 'that you, perhaps, cared for Franklin—had come to care so much, I mean—that it might have been hard for you to forgive. I can't tell you the relief it is——'

'To see that I didn't care so much as that?' Helen smiled brightly, though with a brightness, now, slightly wary, as though with all her efforts to slide and not to press, she felt the ice cracking a little under her feet, and as though some care might be necessary if she were to skate safely away. 'Don't have that in the least on your mind, it was what you always disapproved of, you know, an arrangement of convenience. Franklin and I both understood perfectly. You know how mercenary I am—though I told you, I remember, that I couldn't think of marrying anybody I didn't like. I liked Franklin, more than I can say; but it was never a question of love.'

In Althea's ears, also, the ice seemed now to crack ominously. 'You mean,' she said, 'that you wouldn't have thought of marrying Franklin if it hadn't been for his money?'

There was nothing for Helen but to skate straight ahead. 'No, I don't suppose I should.'

'But you had become the greatest friends.'

She was aware that she must seem to be trying, strangely, incredibly, to prove to Helen that she had been in love with Franklin; to prove to her that she had no right not to resent anything; no right to find forgiveness so easy. But there was no time now to stop.

'Of course we became the greatest friends,' Helen said, and it was as if with relief for the outlet. She was bewildered, and did not know where they were going. 'I don't need to tell you what I think of Franklin. He is the dearest and best of men, and you are the luckiest of women to have won him.'

'Ah,' uncontrollably Althea rose to her feet with almost the cry, 'I see; you think me lucky to have won a man who, in himself, without money, wasn't good enough for you. Thank you.'

For a long moment—and in it they both recognised that the crash had come, and that they were struggling in dark, cold water—Helen was silent. She kept her eyes on Althea and she did not move. Then, while she still looked steadily upon her, a slow colour rose in her cheeks. It was helplessly, burningly, that she blushed, and Althea saw that she blushed as much for anger as for shame, and that the shame was for her.

She did not need Helen's blush to show her what she had done, what desecration she had wrought. Her own blood beat upwards in hot surges and tears rushed into her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and dropped again into her chair, sobbing.

Helen did not help her out. She got up and went to the mantelpiece and looked down at the fire for some moments. And at last she spoke, 'I didn't mean that either. I think that Franklin is too good for either of us.'

'Good!' wept Althea. 'He is an angel. Do you suppose I don't see that? But why should I pretend when you don't. I'm not in love with Franklin. I'm unworthy of him—more unworthy of him than you were—but I'm not in love with him, even though he is an angel. So don't tell me that I am lucky. I am a most miserable woman.' And she wept on, indifferent now to any revelations.

Presently she heard Helen's voice. It was harder than she had ever known it. 'May I say something? It's for his sake—more than for yours. What I advise you to do is not to bother so much about love. You couldn't stick to Gerald because you weren't loved enough; and you're doubting your feeling for Franklin, now, because you can't love him enough. Give it all up. Follow my second-rate example. Be glad that you're marrying an angel and that he has all that money. And do remember that though you're not getting what you want, you are getting a good deal and he is getting nothing, so try to play the game and to see if you can't make it up to him; see if you can't make him happy.'

Althea's sobbing had now ceased, though she kept her face still covered. Bitter sadness, too deep now for resentment, was in her silence, a silence in which she accepted what Helen's words had of truth. The sadness was to see at last to the full, that she had no place in Helen's life. There was no love, there was hardly liking, behind Helen's words. And so it had been from the very first, ever since she had loved and Helen accepted; ever since she had gone forth carrying gifts, and Helen had stood still and been vaguely aware that homage was being offered. It had, from the very beginning, been this; Helen, hard, self-centred, insensible, so that anything appealing or uncertain was bound to be shattered against her. And was not this indifference to offered love a wrong done to it, something that all life cried out against? Had not weakness and fear and the clinging appeal of immaturity their rights, so that the strong heart that was closed to them, that did not go out to them in tenderness and succour, was the dull, the lesser heart? Dimly she knew, not exculpating herself, not judging her beautiful Helen, that though she had, in her efforts towards happiness, pitifully failed, there was failure too in being blind, in being unconscious of any effort to be made. The more trivial, the meaner aspect of her grief was merged in a fundamental sincerity.

'What you say is true,' she said, 'for I know that I am a poor creature. I know that I give Franklin nothing, and take everything from him. But it is easy for you to talk of what is wise and strong, Helen, and to tell me what I ought to do and feel. You have everything. You have the man who loves you and the man you love. It is easy for you to be clear and hard and see other people's faults. I know—I know about you and Gerald.'

Helen turned to her. Althea had dropped her hands. She did not look at her friend, but, with tear-disfigured eyes, out of the window; and there was a desolate dignity in her aspect. For the first time in their unequal intercourse they were on an equal footing. Helen was aware of Althea, and, in a vague flash, for self-contemplation was difficult to her, she was aware of some of the things that Althea saw: the lack of tenderness; the lack of imagination; the indifference to all that did not come within the circle of her own tastes and affections. It was just as Franklin had said, and Gerald, and now Althea; her heart was hard. And she was sorry, though she did not know what she was to do; for though she was sorry for Althea her heart did not soften for her as it had softened for Franklin, and for the thought of Franklin—too good for them all, sacrificed to them all. It was the thought of the cruelty of nature, making of Franklin, with all his wealth of love, a creature never to be desired, that gave to her vision of life, and of all this strange predicament in which life had involved them, an ironic colour incompatible with the warmth of trust and tenderness which Franklin had felt lacking in her. She was ironic, she was hard, and she must make the best of it. But it was in a gentle voice that, looking at her friend's melancholy head, she asked: 'Who told you that?'

'Mrs. Mallison,' said Althea. 'I've been a hypocrite to you all the morning.'

'And I have been an odious prig to you. That ass of a Kitty Mallison. I had not intended any one to know for months.' Even in her discomfiture Helen retained her tact. She did not say 'we.'

'For my sake, I suppose?'

'Oh no! why for yours?' Helen was determined that Althea should be hurt no further. If pity for Franklin had edged her voice, pity for Althea must keep from her the blighting knowledge of Franklin's sacrifice.

'It was we who were left, wasn't it—Gerald and I? I don't want us to appear before people's eyes at once as consolation prizes to each other.'

Althea now turned a sombre gaze upon her. 'He couldn't be that to you, since you've never loved Franklin; and I know that you are not that to him; Gerald didn't need to be consoled for losing me. He did need to be consoled when he heard that you were marrying Franklin. I remember the day that your letter came—the letter that said you were engaged. That really ended things for us.' Her lip trembled. 'It is easy for you to say that I didn't stick to Gerald because he didn't love me enough. How could I have stuck to some one who, I see it well enough now, was beginning to love some one else?'

Helen contemplated her and the truths she put before her. 'Try to forgive me,' she said.

'There's nothing to forgive,' said Althea, rising. 'You told me the truth, and what I had said was so despicable that I deserved to have it told to me. All the mistakes are mine. I've wanted things that I've no right to; I suppose it's that. You and I weren't made for each other, just as Gerald and I weren't, and it's all only my mistake and my misfortune—for wanting and loving people who couldn't want or love me. I see it all at last, and it's all over. Good-bye, Helen.' She put out her hand.

'Oh, but don't—don't——' Helen clasped her hand, strangely shaken by impulses of pity and self-reproach that yet left her helpless before her friend's sincerity. 'Don't say you are going to give me up,' she finished, and tears stood in her eyes.

'I'm afraid I must give up all sorts of things,' said Althea, smiling desolately. 'If we hadn't got so near, we might have gone on. I'm afraid when people aren't made for each other they can't get so near without its breaking them. Good-bye. I shall try to be worthy of Franklin. I shall try to make him happy.'