"I got this to-day from the lawyers," she said. "It's about my darling's will, I think. I wonder if you would help me to understand it, I am so stupid at figures."
She slid a little closer to him, leaning her hand on his shoulder and looking over him as he read. The document required, as a matter of fact, very little exercise of intelligence. The house in Surrey where they had spent the week of the honeymoon was hers; and so was a very decent income of L15,000 a year, left to her without any condition whatever for her life; it was hers absolutely. The disposition of the rest of his fortune depended on whether she had a child. The details of that were not given: his lawyer only informed her what was hers.
She hid her face on the hand that rested on Archie's shoulder.
"Oh, Archie, I can never go back to that house," she said, "at least not for a long time. It would be tearing open the old wound again."
"Yes, I understand that," said he, with another pressure of his fingers. And, thinking of the L15,000 a year without conditions, he had a wild temptation to console her further by quoting—
"Let us grieve not, only find
Strength in what remains behind."
But he refrained: though, apparently, there was no limit to Helena's insincerity, there might be some in her acceptance of the insincerity of others.
"Oh, you do understand me so well," she said. "And, Archie, I want to ask a horribly selfish thing of you, but I can't help it. I am all alone now, except for you. You won't go out to the war, will you? I don't think I could bear it if you did."
It was quite easy for him to promise that, but an allusion to the misconception he might incur made his acquiescence sound difficult and noble.
Since then, up to the day when he was now expecting her entry for the third act, he had thought over the whole situation with the imaginative vision which absinthe inspired. He had not the slightest doubt in his mind that Helena, according to her capacity for loving, was in love with him, and that she thought he was still in love with her. But, when he considered it all, he found he had no longer the slightest intention of marrying her, even though she had L15,000 a year for life without conditions attached. Plenty of money was no doubt a preventive of discomfort in this life, and he felt it was fine of him not to be attracted by so ignoble a bait. But no amount of money would really compensate for the inseparable companionship of Helena, with her foolishness, her apparent inability to understand that her insincerities, so far from being convincing and beautiful, were no more than the most puerile and transparent counterfeits. Certainly she aroused the ardour of his senses, but how long would that last? And, even while it lasted, how could it compare with his ardour for his absinthe-coloured dreams, and the ecstasy of his communion with the spirit that had made its home in him? She would interrupt all that; and, as a companion, she could not compare with his father. She would always be wanting to be caressed and made much of and admired and taken care of. It would soon become most horribly tedious.