'Yes, please try. You must see—I see it plainly enough—that Mr. Digby is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald had seen, and what she had not seen at all?
'You think it's Gerald who is in love with her?' she asked.
Again Franklin's eye was on her, and she now saw in it his deep perplexity. She couldn't bear to add to it. 'I've guessed nothing,' she said. 'You must enlighten me.'
'I wasn't sure at first,' said Franklin, groping his way. 'He seemed so devoted to Lady Pickering; but for some days it's been obvious, hasn't it, that that wasn't in the least serious?'
'Not in the least.'
'I couldn't have reconciled myself,' said Franklin, 'to the idea of a man, who could take Lady Pickering seriously, marrying Althea. I can't quite reconcile myself to the idea of a man who could, well, be so devoted to Lady Pickering, marrying Althea. He's your friend, I know, Miss Buchanan, as well as your relative, but you know what I feel for Althea, and you'll forgive my saying that if I'm not big enough for her he isn't big enough either; no, upon my soul, he isn't.'
Helen's eyes dwelt on him. She knew that, with all the forces of concealment at her command, she wanted to keep from Mr. Kane the blighting irony of her own inner comments; above everything, now, she dreaded lest her irony should touch one of Mr. Kane's ideals. It was so beautiful of him to think himself not big enough for Althea, that she was well content that he should see Gerald in the same category of unfitness. Perhaps Gerald was not big enough for Althea; Gerald's bigness didn't interest Helen; the great point for her was that Mr. Kane should not guess that she considered Althea not big enough for him. 'If Gerald is the lucky man,' she said, after the pause in which she gazed at him; 'if she cares enough for Gerald to marry him, then I think he will make her happy; and that's the chief thing, isn't it?'
Mr. Kane could not deny that it was, and yet, evidently, he was not satisfied. 'I believe you'll forgive me if I go on,' he said. 'You see it's so tremendously important to me, and what I'm going to say isn't really at all offensive—I mean, people of your world and Mr. Digby's world wouldn't find it so. I'll tell you the root of my trouble, Miss Buchanan. Your friend is a poor man, isn't he, and Althea is a fairly rich woman. Can you satisfy me on this point? I can give Althea up; I must give her up; but I can hardly bear it if I'm to give her up to a mere fortune-hunter, however happy he may be able to make her.'
Helen's cheeks had coloured slightly. 'Gerald isn't a mere fortune-hunter,' she said. 'People of my world do think fortune-hunting offensive.'
'Forgive me then,' said Franklin, gazing at her, contrite but unperturbed. 'I'm very ignorant of your world. May I put it a little differently. Would Mr. Digby be likely to fall in love with a woman if she hadn't a penny?'