“Sometimes I have thought of sending it back to her. You seem to have ideas on this subject, Doctor Merrick. Perhaps you will tell me; should I?”
“By no means. It wouldn’t be valuable to her any more if she accepted it. She really can’t take it back now, you see, because—because …”
Helen’s lips were parted, and she was a bit breathless as she urged, insistently, “Yes?—because—because what?”
“Well—because—by this time she has possibly—probably—used it all up, herself.”
She stared at him steadily for a moment, as if she had seen a ghost. Then, half-articulately, and for his ears only, she murmured, “So—that’s—what—that—means!”
“Yes—exactly! That’s what it means!”
Her eyes were misty and her fingers trembled as she refastened the little cross inside the neck of her gown.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said, under her breath. “I have so often wondered.”
Joyce put down both hands with a sudden gesture of impatience.
“What on earth are you people talking about! … Do you know, Nancy?”
“Oh—vaguely, I think,” she replied … “You liked the little towns best, didn’t you, Helen? Let’s hear some more about them. There was Bellagio. Tell us about that.”
“Oh, do!” echoed Joyce. “You wrote such wonderful letters from there. What was the name of that little hotel—on the top of the hill?”
“The Villa Serbelloni?” Helen grew moody. “Yes—I quite liked it, at first; but I grew very lonely there. I became so unhappy I left, one afternoon, on a moment’s impulse—in a drenching rain.”
“Why—what was the matter, darling?” inquired Joyce solicitously.
“Just sheer loneliness! The season was over, really, and almost everybody had gone away. There was a young woman I had found congenial, but she turned out to be a writing person, and seeing that was what she was there for I couldn’t impose myself on her when she needed all her time for writing; so, one dreadfully lonely, stormy day, I left.”
“Ever see any of her work?” Nancy wanted to know.
Helen shook her head.
“Perhaps you should make some inquiries,” suggested Joyce. “Maybe you figured in some of her tales, yourself. Wouldn’t it be odd to pick up a story and find oneself cavorting about in it?”
During all this Bellagio talk, Helen had addressed herself chiefly to the others. As she replied to Joyce’s comment, however, she turned her eyes slowly in his direction.
“It’s quite possible I may have qualified for some minor part in a story; for I had been as garrulous as a high school girl before I discovered her occupation.”
“I am sure you were the heroine of the piece,” he had declared stoutly. “I would swear to that!”
“You seem as certain as if you really knew.” She had leaned slightly toward him. Her nearness gave him a chance to mutter, in an undertone, “I do!”
The talk had drifted, then, to ships. Nancy was anxious to know all about voyages; what to wear, how much and whom to tip, how long in advance one should book passage to insure good space.
“Helen had hers on a day’s notice, coming back,” remembered Joyce.
“But it’s not always that way,” Nancy argued. “I recall a quite hectic experience we had in getting accommodations for some friend of Bobby’s who was suddenly required to go to Buenos Aires.”
He had glanced apprehensively at Helen, and found her staring into his eyes, her brows knitted in perplexity. Quickly collecting herself, she said:
“Perhaps the season had something to do with the congestion. When was it?”
“When was it, Bobby?” queried Nancy. “You ought to remember. You were no end excited over getting him off by that boat. It must have been about a year ago; possibly a little earlier than this.”
“Something like that,” he had agreed disinterestedly.
The waiters had handed them menu cards. Joyce and Nancy had their heads together in consultation over parfait flavours. Helen had raised her card until it screened her face from them.
“That was very good of you,” she said softly. “I never guessed—until now.”
“I didn’t intend you should. I hope you will never give it another thought. I’m sorry the matter inadvertently came up.”
Her face was studious for a moment; then brightened, suddenly, with illumination.
“Oh—I see!” she murmured.
“I wonder if you do.”
She nodded her head vigorously.
“It is something like—like my Bordinis—and my little cross, isn’t it?”
“Yes—exactly like that!”
Joyce had put an end to their cryptic byplay with a demand for light on the dessert problem … It had been a very tender moment. As he mulled it over now, analytically, it occurred to him that had he been called away, on some emergency duty, at that juncture, he might at this moment be exulting in the hope that their misunderstanding had been definitely cleared …
He rose and paced the room, digging his fingertips into his temples, paused at the little table, refilled his pipe, replenished the grate, and sank again into his chair. A small cathedral clock on the mantel wearily tolled the first quarter.
Those four strokes, when, on occasion, they caught his attention, invariably sent a momentary cloud drifting across his mood. It was not so at the half. The clock seemed to have cheered up, noticeably, by that time. It was almost reassuring when it came to the third quarter. But, always, that jaded, resigned, mocking, Amarish da-de-di-dum at the first quarter impressed him with the solemn asininity of whatever he happened to be doing and the futility of everything he was planning to do. It was exactly as if Eternal Destiny stretched its long arms and yawned. He could never be sure precisely what it said. Sometimes the strokes were but four gradations of an articulate sigh of inexpressible fatigue.
The vibrations still lingered. He glanced up. It was fifteen minutes past two … He resumed his reflections, moodily, realizing that his memories, from this point, would be disturbing.
The short trip to the nearby theatre had been uneventful, made in his own car. As it drew up at the kerb, he had heard Helen exclaim to Nancy, “What a beautiful car! What is it?” … He had not caught
