“Granted. But why suggest a modern miracle?”
“It has shown me another thing,” Helen continued, fearful lest she should be diverted from her main theme. “Inez is already much more to you than I.”
Armstrong sprang to his feet, with difficulty holding back the angry words upon his lips. “This is going too far, Helen,” he said, with forced calm. “Do you realize that you are actually making an accusation?”
Helen regarded him calmly but sadly. “I am making no accusation,” she said, quietly. “I believe in your loyalty to me and in your sense of what is right, but the fact remains. Inez loves you, and has loved you almost since the day she arrived. Is it possible that you are insensible to this?”
“You must stop!” expostulated Armstrong. “You cannot realize what you are saying!”
“Do you remember what she told Ferdy De Peyster—‘I love him better than my life’? Do you remember the scene at the table when Phil Emory spoke of it and her reply? Have you been with her day after day without discovering that she worships the very ground you walk on?”
“It would be useless to try to answer you, Helen,” Armstrong replied, forcefully. “The most generous view I can take of what you say is to attribute it to a jealousy as unfounded as it is unworthy of you.”
“Ah, Jack, if you only knew!” Helen looked at him reproachfully. “There is no jealousy in my heart even now, my husband, nothing but the greatest admiration and the deepest love. Sometime you will understand. You have a great career before you—greater, perhaps, than I can realize, because I know of your work only through others. This career is one which I must not injure, which I shall not limit. Inez can help you in attaining it, and it is right that she should do so.”
Armstrong’s curiosity gained the better of his resentment. “What do you propose to do to bring all this about?” he asked, incredulously.
“Whatever may be necessary,” Helen replied, looking at him firmly, “even though it breaks my heart.”