Helen crossed the room and sat down in her favorite chair by the window.
"He ought to understand," was her thought. "Why cannot he see that it is impossible for his wife and me to harmonize. We have no common ground."
"I shall be glad to," she said aloud, inwardly shrinking at the need of speaking disingenuously to one with whom she had so long been upon terms of frankness. "I will come very soon; to-day or to-morrow. To-day, though, I must go and see my bas-relief. It is all ready to be cut for the furnace; I only want to take a last look at it, to be sure that every thing is right. If it will not bore you," she added, a little hesitatingly, "you might come too; it is your last chance to find fault to any advantage, for any changes must be made at once."
"I'd like to go," answered her friend, looking at his watch, "if I can get back to luncheon. Yes, there's plenty of time."
"Benedick, the married man," laughed Helen. "That I should ever live to see this air of domesticity!"
They crossed the Common, chatting idly, and both conscious that the frankness of their old intercourse was somehow lacking; that it was necessary to begin a new adjustment upon a basis different from the former one. They talked upon indifferent subjects, of what had occurred during the three weeks of Arthur's absence, playing the part of amiability without pleasure, endeavoring to simulate the old relations which no longer had real existence.
"Oh, Arthur," Helen laughed, suddenly, "let's not go on in this way! Let us quarrel, or something. Say a wicked epigram; do any thing, only don't be so eminently amiable!"
"My head is as empty of ideas," he returned laughing, in his turn, "as is a modern title-page of punctuation points. Besides, Edith has forbidden wicked epigrams."
"Does she therefore suppose she can suppress them?"
"Oh, I don't know," responded Fenton, good-humoredly. "I am not in as epigrammatic a frame of mind as I was."