"Yes. But lots of things are horrible. War isn't the worst one. One has to—" "Yes, get up and face them. And do something. As much as you can."
The words echoed Helen's own feeling. In the folds of her coat, curled against a drift log, she listened, quiet, adding a word occasionally. She felt now the charm of this companionship, demanding nothing, unconstrained, full of understanding. It was freedom, relaxation, without loneliness. Like a plant kept too long in constricting soil and now transplanted to friendlier earth, she felt stirring within her innumerable impulses reaching out for nourishment.
"You know," said Dodo suddenly, putting a warm hand over Helen's. "I like you."
Helen flushed with delight.
"I like you too."
She remembered the words for long months, remembered the glow of fire-light, the white, curving line of foam on the sand, the far lights scattered on a dozen hills, and the cool darkness over the bay. That evening had made her one of the group, given her the freedom of the luncheon table reserved for them in the quiet little restaurant, opened for her the door of a new and satisfying relationship.
She could always find one or two of the girls at the table, rarely all of them. They dropped in when they pleased, sure of finding a friend and sympathetic talk. When she had an idle half hour after luncheon she might go shopping with Willetta, always hunting bargains in dainty things for the little daughter in a convent. She learned the tragedy that had shattered Willetta's home, and the reason for the cynicism that sometimes sharpened Dodo's tongue. If they wondered about her own life they asked no questions, and they accepted Paul's Sunday visits without comment.
Any other evening in the week might see Willetta running up the steps, knitting in hand, to spend an hour curled among the cushions on the hearth or to depart blithely if Helen were busy. Dodo's voice might come over the telephone. "Tickets for the concert! Want to come down?" The crackling fire might blaze upon them all, gathered by chance, chattering like school-girls while Marian speared marshmallows with a hat-pin, toasting them and her tired, sparkling face at the same time. But Sunday found Helen tacitly left to Paul.
His unexpected coming upon the whole group broke ever so slightly the charm of their companionship. She had felt the same thing in entering her office when all the salesmen were there. Some intangible current of sympathy was cut, an alien element introduced. One thought before speaking, as if to a stranger who did not perfectly comprehend the language.
"There is a subtle division between men and women," she thought, talking brightly to Paul while they climbed Tamalpais together or wandered in Golden Gate park. "Each of us has his own world." After a silence, passing some odd figure on the trail or struck breathless by a vista of heart-stopping beauty, she sought his eyes for the flash of intimate understanding she expected, and found only adoration or surprise.