'Very well,' she spoke for her to the maid. 'Tell Mr. Digby that some one will be with him directly,' and, as the door closed: 'You're not fit to see him this morning, Helen,' she said; 'not fit to pour balms into his wounds. Let me do it for you.'
Helen lay gazing before her, and she was still silent. She did not know what she wanted; but she did know that she did not want to see Gerald. The thought of seeing him was intolerable. 'Will you pour balms?' she said. 'I'm afraid you are not too sorry for Gerald.'
'Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not,' said Aunt Grizel, smiling a little grimly. 'He takes things too easily, and I confess that it does rather please me to see him, for once in his life, "get left." He needed to "get left."'
'Well, you won't tell him that, if I let you go to him instead of me? You will be nice to him?'
'Oh, I'll be nice enough. I'll condole with him.'
'Tell him,' said Helen, as Aunt Grizel moved resolutely to the door, 'that I can't see anybody; not for a long time. I shall go away, I think.'
CHAPTER XXX.
Miss Grizel had known Gerald all his life, and yet she was not intimate with him, and during the years that Helen had lived with her she had come to feel a certain irritation against him. Her robust and caustic nature had known no touch of jealousy for the place he held in Helen's life. It was dispassionately that she observed, and resented on Helen's account, the exacting closeness of a friendship with a man who, she considered, was not worth so much time and attention. She suspected nothing of the hidden realities of Helen's feeling, yet she did suspect, acutely, that, had it not been for Gerald, Helen might have had more time for other things. It was Gerald who monopolised and took for granted. He came, and Helen was always ready. Miss Grizel had not liked Gerald to be so assured. She was pleased, now, in going downstairs, that Gerald Digby should find, for once, and at a moment of real need, that Helen could not see him.
He was standing before the fire, his eyes on the door, and as she looked at him Miss Grizel experienced a certain softening of mood. She decided that she had, to some extent, misjudged Gerald; he had, then, capacity for caring deeply. Miss Jakes's defection had knocked him about badly. There was kindness in her voice as she said: 'Good morning,' and gave him her hand.