"Oh, come, come, Mrs. Darling, you don't expect me to believe that you now, now are still trying to learn to please (as you call it) some mythically impossible man!"
"He's not mythically impossible. He's real."
"Then he's blind, deaf, and dumb, I suppose!" Mr. Donald Estey's voice was still wrathful.
In spite of herself Helen Denby laughed.
"No, no, oh, no! He's—" Suddenly her face grew grave, and very earnest. "Mr. Estey, I can't tell you. You wouldn't understand. If you—you care anything for me, you will not question me any more. I can't tell you. Please, please don't say any more."
But Mr. Donald Estey did say more—a little more. He did not say much, for the piteous pleading in the blue eyes stayed half the words on his lips before they were uttered. In the end he went away with a baffled, hurt pain in his own eyes, and Helen did not see him again for some days. But he came back in time. The pain still lurked in his eyes, but there was a resolute smile on his lips.
"If you'll permit, I want things to be as they were before," he told her. "I'm still your friend, and I hope you are mine."
"Why, of course, of course," she stammered. "Only, I—you—"
As she hesitated, plainly disturbed, he raised a quick hand of protest.
"Don't worry." His resolute smile became almost gay. "You'll see how good a friend I can be!"