Helen smiled, but the old man was serious.
“Better than you know him, even though you are his wife. But see this choir-book. It was illuminated by Lorenzo Monaco, teacher of Fra Angelico. Can anything be more wonderful than these miniatures, in the beauty of their line and color?”
Helen assented with a show of interest, but she was not thinking of the blazoned page before her. The old man’s words were burning in her heart. Passing through a smaller room to reach Cerini’s study, they came suddenly to a corner lighted only by a small window where Armstrong and Inez were at work. So intent were they that the approach of Helen and the librarian had not been noticed. Cerini held up his hand warningly.
“Quiet!” he commanded, softly. “Let us not disturb them. I have never seen two individualities cast in so identical a mould. One sometimes sees it in two men, but rarely in a man and a woman.”
Helen felt her breath come faster as she watched them for a moment longer. Inez was pointing out something in the text of the original letter which lay before them. Armstrong’s head was bent, studying it intently. Then Inez spoke, and her companion answered loud enough for Helen to hear.
“Splendid! And to think that we are the first ones to put these facts together!”
The expression of sheer joy upon her husband’s face held Helen spellbound, and Cerini was obliged to repeat his suggestion that they return to his study by another route.
“It is just as you have seen it, day after day,” said the librarian as he closed the door quietly, and Helen seated herself in the Savonarola chair beside his desk. “When I heard from him that he was to be married I hoped that his wife might be able to enter into this joy of his life; but, since that could not be, it is well that he has found a friend so sympathetic.”
Helen told herself that the old man could not intend deliberately to wound her as he was doing.
“Why are you so sure that his wife cannot enter into it also?” she asked, quietly.