Helen smiled. “You mean that the reason I am not jealous of my husband in this instance is because he has given me no occasion?”
“Exactly.”
“That is perfectly true.”
“But you fear that it may not always be true?”
Helen was no match for the old man in argument, yet she struggled to meet him.
“Perhaps,” she said; “there is always that danger. Why not avoid it by making this other companionship unnecessary?”
“But suppose you yourself are not temperamentally fitted to gratify this particular craving in your husband’s life?” Cerini watched the effect of his words upon his companion. She was silent for several moments before she raised her eyes to his.
“I know that you are right,” she answered, simply. “I have felt it always, but my husband has insisted that in my case it was lack of application rather than of temperament. I came here to-day to try the experiment, and you have shown me that my own judgment is correct.”
“It is correct,” agreed Cerini, delighted by Helen’s unexpected acquiescence. “It was your husband’s heart rather than his head which led him astray in his advice. You have just shown me your intelligence by coming so promptly to this conclusion; now you are going to manifest your devotion to him by leaving him undisturbed in this work which he has undertaken. It can only last during a limited period at best. It is the expression of but one side of his nature. Before many weeks have passed you and he will be returning to your great country into a complexity of conditions where this experience will become only a memory. These conditions will call to the surface the expression of his other characteristics into which you can fully enter. By not interfering with this character-building now going on, you, his wife, will later reap rich returns.”
A tap sounded on the door of the study.