She had quite forgiven him. She smiled a little in answering. 'He has often fallen in love with women without a penny, but he could hardly marry a woman who hadn't one.'
'He wouldn't wish to marry Althea, then, if she had no money?'
'However much he would wish it, I don't think he would be so foolish as to do it,' said Helen.
'Can't a man worth his salt work for the woman he loves?'
'A man well worth his salt may not be trained for making money,' Helen returned. She knew the question clamouring in his heart, the question he must not ask, nor she answer: 'Is he in love with Althea?' Mr. Kane could never accept nor understand what the qualified answer to such a question would have to be, and she must leave him with his worst perplexity unsolved. But one thing she could do for him, and she hoped that it might soften a little the bitterness of his uncertainty. The sunlight suddenly had failed, and a slight wind passed among the boughs overhead. Helen got upon her feet, straightening her hat and putting back her hair. It was time to be going homewards. They went down the path and climbed over the palings, and it was on the hill-top that Helen said, looking far ahead of her, far over the now visible roofs of Merriston:
'I've known Gerald Digby all my life, and I know Althea, now, quite well. And if Gerald is to be the lucky man I'd like to say, for him, you know—and I think it ought to set your mind at rest—that I think Althea will be quite as lucky as he will be, and that I think that he is worthy of her.'
Franklin kept his eyes on her as she spoke, and though she did not meet them, her far gaze, fixed ahead, seemed in its impersonal gravity to commune with him, for his consolation, more than an answering glance would have done. She was giving him her word for something, and the very fact that she kept it impersonal, held it there before them both, made it more weighty and more final. Franklin evidently found it so. He presently heaved a sigh in which relief was mingled with acceptance—acceptance of the fact that, from her, he must expect no further relief. And presently, as they came out upon the winding road, he said: 'Thanks, that's very helpful.'
They walked on then in silence. The sun was gone and the wind blew softly; the freshness of the coming rain was in the air. Helen lifted her face to them as the first slow drops began to fall. In her heart, too, the fierceness of her pain was overcast. Something infinitely sad, yet infinitely peaceful, stilled her pulses. Infinitely sad, yet infinitely funny too. How small, how insignificant, this tangle of the whole-hearted and the half-hearted; what did it all come to, and how feel suffering as tragic when farce grimaced so close beside it? Who could take it seriously when, in life, the whole-hearted were so deceived and based their loves on such illusion? To feel the irony was to acquiesce, perhaps, and acquiescence, even if only momentary, like the lull and softness in nature, was better than the beating fierceness of rebellion. Everything was over. And here beside her went the dear ungainly dog. She turned her head and smiled at him, the raindrops on her lashes.
'You don't mind the rain, Miss Buchanan?' said Franklin, who had looked anxiously at the weather, and probably felt himself responsible for not producing an umbrella for a lady's need.
'I like it.' She continued to smile at him.