“Then it is really true that my ‘dear present’ is worth something, after all?”
“Your ‘dear present’ is the saving clause. Without it we limit ourselves beyond the hope of recovery, just as I have done. The glories of the past are as splendid and as important as I ever painted them, but they must be awakened with the breath of present necessities. You have always felt this and expressed it; I have known it only since you taught it to me.”
“I am glad,” she answered, simply.
“But I am forgetting my errand,” Armstrong continued, bracing himself for a final effort. “As soon as you are able to travel you will, of course, wish to return home. It may be that, for the sake of appearances, you will wish me to go with you, in which case I shall make it as easy as possible for you. Or you can return with Uncle Peabody, as he tells me you once spoke to him of doing. He is eager to do anything you wish, but he has plans which need to be arranged after you have once decided.”
Helen’s gaze rested firmly upon her husband’s half-averted face, watching the changing expressions, reading the unspoken words. “He longs for the return to him of the wife he has always loved” rang in her ears, and now for the first time it seemed to ring true. Her mind was moving fast as Armstrong ceased speaking, and even when she replied, a moment later, it was not an answer.
“What is Inez going to do?” she inquired.
“As soon as we close the villa she will go to the pension where the Sinclair girls were.”
“She will stay in Florence?” Helen asked, surprised.
“Yes; she has arranged with Cerini to work with him upon his Humanistic Studies.”
Helen withdrew her hand from his as she leaned back upon the pillow and closed her eyes. Armstrong regarded her anxiously, fearful lest their interview had been too great a strain upon her returning strength; but as he looked her eyes opened again.