'It's kind of you to say so,' she said. 'And I know you believe it now; you are so fond of me, and so sorry for this horrid tale I inflict on you, that you have to believe it. And of course it may be true. Perhaps it did only need that.'
They had both now looked away again, Gerald gazing unseeingly into the mirror, Helen at the opposite wall. 'It may be true,' she repeated. 'I had only, perhaps, to be instinctive—to withdraw—to hide—create the little mysteries that appeal to men's senses and imaginations. I had only to put aside my pride and to shut my eyes on my horrible, hard, lucid self-consciousness, let instinct guide me, be a mere woman, and you might have been in love with me. It's true. I used often to think it, too. I used often to think that I might make you fall in love with me if I could stop being your friend. But, don't you see, I knew myself far too well. I was too proud. I didn't want you if you only wanted me because I'd lured you and appealed to your senses and imagination. I didn't want you unless you wanted me for the big and not for the little things of love. I couldn't pretend that I had something to hide—I know perfectly how it is done—the air of evasion, of wistfulness—all the innocent hypocrisies women make use of; but I couldn't. I didn't want you like that. There was nothing for it but to look straight at you and pretend, not that there was anything to hide, but that there was nothing.'
Again, his eyes meeting hers, she looked, indeed, straight at him and smiled a little; for there was, indeed, nothing now to hide; and she went on quietly, 'You see now, how I've been feeling for these last months, when everything has gone, at last, completely. I'd determined, long ago, to give up hope and marry some one else. But I didn't know till this autumn, when you decided to marry Althea, I didn't know till then how much hope there was still left to be killed. When a thing like that has been killed, you see, one hasn't much feeling left for the rest of life. I don't care enough, one way or the other, not to marry as I'm doing. 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.