As the afternoon wore on her gloom lifted and passed. She grew light minded and humorous, almost indifferent. She took herself to task in some dismay: in the fitness of things she should be passionately serious when he arrived. “Are there really no great crises in life?” she thought. “Are we all comedians gone wrong, personified jokes?” But she was helpless; the reaction was inevitable.
Clive was late. He was always late. Helena felt no uneasiness, but sat idly, wondering how they would meet, her mind occasionally drifting to other things. She had carried a large hat lined with white and covered with white plumes, in a box through the damaging brush, and hidden the box in a hollow redwood. The hat, pushed backward on her brilliant hair, enhanced the oval colorous beauty of her face. She took it off suddenly and threw it on the ground; the attempt was too evident; all men were not consistently dense.
She heard a crackling in the brush on the other side of the creek, then the Chinaman’s protesting voice.
“Can’t hully when catchee pigtail allee time, Mister Clive. Me got thlee velly bad sclatches, and clothes allee same no washee.”
There was no answer from Clive, but he was in view presently. The Chinaman retreated hastily, wrapping his pigtail round his neck. Helena rose and went forward. She felt suddenly resentful and haughty.
After all, it was presumption in a man to take upon himself the deciding of a question which was as vital to her as to him. She wondered if she really did love him; certainly she felt neither tenderness nor tolerance at the moment.
Clive walked slowly across the felled redwood which served as bridge between the high banks of the creek. As he approached Helena forgot herself and her moods.
“He has suffered horribly,” she thought. “What am I that I did not know he must?”
And then she realized that she could not comprehend his experience of the past three days; that her mind merely grasped the fact; she had no profounder, more sympathetic understanding. She drew back, frightened and chilled.
“I am sorry to see you looking so badly,” she said coldly, as they shook hands. “Perhaps we had better have it out at once.”