As he went from one part of the villa to another, he was constantly reminded with painful forcefulness of the days which they had first enjoyed there together. The flowers in the garden, the singing of the birds in the trees, the distant view of the city—each possessed a personal significance. “I love the present,” she had said to him—“I love the sky, the air, the sunshine, and the flowers.”
Happy, buoyant nature—the natural humanist! She assimilated all that was best in life, and had he given her the opportunity would have breathed it out again to those around her richer and more inspiring because of its contact with her own rare self! Fool that he had been! With the riches of the past lying at his hand to be drawn upon for material, he had selfishly insisted that his own methods of using them were the only ones, recognizing too late the inspiration and the real assistance which she was amply able to give him in transforming these riches into even purer gold by the magic touch of the present. Armstrong groaned as the irony of it came to him.
Helen recovered slowly, and with a sweetness which touched the hearts of all about her. Inez and Uncle Peabody were with her much of the time, but Armstrong, true to his conviction that he had become distasteful to her, waited to be asked for; and Helen did not ask. The only event which happened to interrupt the even tenor of the days was a call from the Contessa Morelli, who was solicitous for her condition.
“Make some excuse,” Helen said, quietly, to Inez, who announced the visitor. “Don’t say anything to hurt her feelings, but I really can’t see her. She does not understand the life I know and love, and I don’t want to understand hers.”
So it was Jack whom the contessa met as she took her departure.
“I am so relieved to know that your wife is in no danger,” she said, sympathetically.
“So are we all,” Armstrong replied, in a perfunctory way, still feeling ill at ease in the contessa’s presence. “This villa will soon be considered as a hospital if any more of us become invalids.”
“Miss Thayer is not ill?” inquired the contessa, smiling archly.
“She is quite well, I believe,” he replied, coldly, but with an effort to be civil.
“How fortunate!” Amélie continued. “With Mrs. Armstrong in no danger and Miss Thayer in good health, you will soon, no doubt, resume your charming tête-à-têtes at the library?”