Cerini’s question brought Helen to herself.
“If you are really free from the world’s conventions,” she responded, quickly, “you will understand my answer. My husband is everything to me that a wife could ask, and his happiness is the highest object my life contains. Miss Thayer is the dearest friend I have, and my affection for her is second only to the love I bear my husband. While this side of his nature was not unknown to me, until we came to Florence—even until to-day—I have never fully appreciated its intensity. Yet when I feel that to a certain extent, at least, his welfare depends upon a gratification of this expression, is it unnatural that I, his wife, should wish to be the one person to experience that development with him?”
“You did not feel this strong desire when you first came to Florence?”
“I did not understand it.”
“Would your present comprehension have come at all if his companion had been a man rather than a woman?”
Helen flushed. “You are not so free from the world’s conventions as you think.”
“But you do not answer the question,” the old man pursued, relentlessly.
“You think, then, that my desire is prompted by jealousy? Let us speak frankly,” continued Helen as Cerini held up his hand deprecatingly. “The distinction in my own mind may be a fine one and difficult for another to comprehend, but I can say truly that no jealous thought has entered into any of my considerations. I could not love my husband and be jealous of him at the same time. On the other hand, it is probably quite true that were his companion a man I should not have recognized so strongly the importance of joining him in this particular work.”
Cerini rose quietly, and took from the bookcase near his desk a copy of a modern classic.
“The author has expressed an idea here which I think explains your position exactly.” He turned the pages quickly. “See here,” he said, drawing closer to Helen and pointing to a paragraph marked with a double score in the margin. “‘No man objects to the admiration his wife receives from his friends; it is the woman herself who makes the trouble.’ Now I suppose the reverse of that proposition is equally true.”