"Helen—don't you see?—Don't you see how impossible it is—how utterly impossible ...?"
"I know that I can do it ... and I will do it...."
* * * * * * * *
The sunlit lawn, and the blue sky over it, and the End House there behind the foliage of the giant elms. Someone came out of the house through the conservatories, walked briskly under the trees, and then across the broad belt of sunlight. Small of stature, rather fat, and utterly unlike an explorer to the head waters of the Amazon, he blinked owlishly as he stepped into the shadow near us.... Mr. Hermann, of Chicago.
Helen introduced us, and the man touched my hand—just touched it—with those fat clammy fingers of his—maybe the most valuable fingers in the world, anyhow. He was vurry glad to make my acquaintance.... And then, to Helen: "Can I have a few words with you, Mrs. Severn?"
"Now?" She had obviously assumed that he had come merely to say good-bye.
"If convenient."
She told him he might speak freely before me, and I wished she hadn't. Somehow I felt I wanted to get away, to walk by myself along the Spaniards Road and think over all that she and I had said; Mr. Hermann, of Chicago—(I will admit it)—jarred on me.
Then I heard him telling her that he was afraid what he had to say wasn't vurry good news.... No—she needn't alarm herself—he had just left her husband in the vurry best of health, having regard to the circumstances. It wasn't that....
"Please tell me," she said calmly.