His habit of keeping the various threads of his life distinct had led him to omit the consideration of what might be involved in their subtle relation, for they were all necessarily related since they were merged in the wholeness of his life; and it seemed to him now, all a-thrill as he was with Helen's sympathy, he had behaved abominably in not telling her that his spirit vibrated only for Margaret, that the thought of Margaret brought him all the magic emotion that floats and palpitates, like some wondrous sweet perfume, and that the elect who love true alone may know.
He had already told her to-day much of what he had hidden from her. Let him complete the confession and reveal even what was most sacred to him. Even now he was conscious of certain instincts that made for reservation, but he fought against them.
"Helen," he called, "I wonder whether you would care to listen to the sentimental chapters."
She had been watching his face whilst he had hesitated and she now grew white.
"You know we used to talk quite a deal about those sentimental chapters," he went on. "There was a sweet little girl, too, whose existence you suspected."
"I remember," said Helen faintly. "We did talk about those chapters, but you would never let me get a glimpse of what was inside them. And then I could never really learn whether they were real or imaginary. As a woman of the world, I believed there must be such chapters in the biography of a young man who had lived twenty-eight whole years; as a woman in love with the young man of twenty-eight, I longed to disbelieve in them. Which shows that the real nature of the individual is finer than life is. Life would make us all cynics if the noble in some of us did not find truth too plebeian a fellow to keep company with. I have long since suspected that truth is not that beautiful nude young person one sees rising out of wells at Academy Exhibitions. Illusion, at any rate, is every whit as real a factor of the universe, and it is far more agreeable to live with. So, naturally, Morgan, I chose it to live with, hoping, of course, it was not illusion. However, there was a sweet, little girl?"
"Your inference from my poem was perfectly correct."
"Farewell, my fine dreams," said Helen, in mock-heroic declamation, which did not blind him to the pain beneath. "But you'll introduce me to her, won't you?"
"It's the sweet little girl's sister," he corrected; "but I can't introduce you to her, because I shall never see her again."
"You shall see her again," said Helen. "Don't be such a faint heart."