The human heart can play no more difficult rôle than to keep on with its every-day monotonous pulsations, so far as the world sees, when in reality every throb is a measured duration of infinite pain. Ten days had passed since De Peyster had so unconsciously been the cause of completely changing the even tenor of Helen’s existence, and during this time she had drifted helplessly in the deep waters of uncertainty. What was the wise thing to do? Helen knew Inez too well to deceive herself into thinking that what was said to Ferdinand had been simply an expedient to accomplish his dismissal, and her observations since then had confirmed her early convictions. Inez was in love with Jack. Jack was obviously fond of her companionship. Their work in the library had brought them constantly together, and at home an increasing proportion of the time had been devoted to a consideration and discussion of the various topics which had developed and into which Helen did not enter. Yet there was nothing in all this which was not perfectly natural; in fact, it was, as Helen said to herself, wholly the outcome of what she had originally suggested.
Helen’s convictions regarding Inez were confirmed, not by what her friend did, but rather by the efforts she made to avoid doing certain things. Never for an instant did Helen question Inez’ loyalty to her, and she could scarcely refrain from entering into the tremendous struggle in which she saw her engaged. Each woman’s heart was passing through fire, and Helen felt a new and strange bond of sympathy between her friend and herself because of their mutual suffering. But the struggle must continue. Helen must come to some decision wiser than any which had yet suggested itself to her before disclosing to any one, and to Inez least of all, that she possessed any knowledge of the situation.
Fortunately, at this crisis, the automobile became the controlling excitement. During the intervening days Jack had resisted the temptation, devoting himself assiduously to his self-appointed task, and satisfying himself with short excursions after his labors at the library were over. Now he could resist no longer. The book was assuming definite proportions, and, as he explained to himself and the others, the work would be all the better for a little holiday. So it was that the Armstrongs, with Miss Thayer and Uncle Peabody, made runs to Siena, Padua, and to all the smaller towns less frequented by visitors and consequently of greater interest. Miss Thayer forgot in the excitement the experience she was passing through; Uncle Peabody forgot Luigi Cornaro and the Japanese; Armstrong, for the time being, appeared indifferent to the hitherto compelling interests at the library; and Helen, at intervals, forgot her suffering and the heavy burden which lay upon her heart in her feeling of helplessness. New sensations, in this twentieth century, are rare, and the automobile is to be credited with supplying many. The exhilaration, the abandon, which comes with the utter annihilation of time and space, forces even those affairs of life which previously had been thought important to become miserably commonplace. The danger itself is not the least of the fascination.
“I would rather be killed once a week in an automobile,” asserted Uncle Peabody while the fever was on him, “than die the one ordinary death allotted to man.”
With the temporary cessation of the library work, there had been no occasion for separate interests. This, Helen felt, was most fortunate, as it gave her ample opportunity to arrive at her conclusions. It was all her own fault, she repeated to herself over and over again. Had she made an earlier effort to enter into Jack’s interests, even though it had proved her inability, matters need never have arrived at so serious a pass. Now she was convinced that it was too late to become a part of them; she had done an irreparable injury to Inez, whom she loved as a sister, and had taken chances on disrupting her own and her husband’s domestic happiness.
“As Jack said, I have found a cloud in the cloudless sky,” she thought.—“And poor Inez!”
Thus the burden resolved itself into two parts—solicitude for Inez and how best to undo the harm Helen felt she had wrought. Her first attempt had proved a failure, and she could not see the next step. While the motoring fever lasted there was nothing to do but to plan; for the excitement was infectious, and one trip followed another in rapid succession. Household regularity became conspicuous by its absence. Meals were served at all hours and were rushed through with reckless haste, entirely upsetting Uncle Peabody’s theories.
“You treat your stomach like a trunk,” he protested to Armstrong one morning, “and you throw the food into it just about the way an average man does his packing.”
“But you finish your breakfast just as soon as any of us,” was the retort.
“Yes, but if you observe carefully you will note that I actually eat about one-quarter as much as you do in the same given time. And what I have eaten will satisfy me about four times as long, because I have thoroughly masticated it and assimilated all the nourishing portions of the food. When I think of the gymnastic performances your poor stomach must go through in order to tear into shreds the chunks of food you have bolted down I admit my sympathy is fully aroused.”