"Or yourself?"
He said, simply: "We've been very good friends, that's all I can say."
Then he began suddenly to talk in sharp jerks of words, as if speaking the thoughts that came to him.
"Of course, in any case, it couldn't have gone on for long. She's young now—not twenty-one till next month.... Sooner or later, she's bound to marry somebody—somebody with wealth and position, most likely—and—naturally—it couldn't go on after that...."
"What couldn't go on?"
"Our—friendship."
I knew then, from the curious way he spoke the word "friendship", that he had begun to love her....
IV
Somehow I had never thought of that, had never even hoped for it.... And now, with all its train of dazzling possibilities, it was leaping towards me.... Not Helen—but June.... That wanted some realizing.... And with the realization, and the serenity of it, came just a faint flavour of sadness too. I think there is always a sadness in feeling that time does count, and that grandes passions can fade away.
Mother and daughter.... What sort of a battle had they been waging, silently, perhaps unconsciously, during the months that had passed? Helen, I know, had been scrupulously platonic, and maybe, after all, it was a just irony that he should come to desire no more than her friendship. But June? Was there more than friendship there?