He worshipped her, and she saw that he looked with a sort of pity on other women, young or old, as not worthy to be compared with her in any way. She had begun to hope that she might be spared the humiliation of ever seeing him in love, despised or pitied, as the case might be, by some commonplace, pretty girl with white teeth and pink cheeks. She feared that, and she feared lest he should some day taste drink, and follow his father's ways to the same ruin. But as yet he had been like a child.
It was no wonder that she shuddered when, as he looked at Sylvia Strahan, she saw something in his face which had never been there before and heard that queer word of his uttered in such a tone. She wondered whether Colonel Wimpole had heard and seen, too, and for some time the three walked on in silence.
"Will you come in?" asked Mrs. Harmon, as they reached the door of her hotel.
The colonel followed her to her little sitting-room, and Archie disappeared; for the conversation of those whom he still, in his own thoughts, regarded as 'grown-up people' wearied him beyond bearing.
"My dear friend," said Colonel Wimpole, when they were alone, "I am so very glad to see you!"
He held one of her hands in his while he spoke the conventional words, his eyes were a little misty, and there was a certain tone in his voice which no one but Helen Harmon had ever heard.
"I am glad, too," she said simply, and she drew away her hand from his with a sort of deprecation which he only half understood, for he only knew that half of the truth which was in himself.
They sat down as they had sat many a time in their lives, at a little distance from each other, and just so that each had to turn the head a little to face the other. It was easier to talk in that position because there was a secret between them, besides many things which were not secrets, but of which they did not wish to speak.
"It is terribly long since we last met," said the colonel. "Do you remember? I went to see you in New York the day before we started for Japan. You had just come back from the country, and your house was in confusion."
"Oh yes, I remember," replied Mrs. Harmon. "Yes, it is terribly long; but nothing is changed."