"I suspect that the objects of my observation are fellow-patriots of yours, but I am not certain. The man was a strong, fine-looking fellow with ability and determination written clearly in his face. He was evidently a deep student--perhaps a professor in some one of your American colleges. His companion, the heroine of my story, was a small woman, but so intense! I think it was her intensity which first attracted my attention."

"I am sure they could not have been Americans, professor," interrupted Helen. "No American woman would display her emotion like that, I am sure.--Do you take cream, and how many lumps of sugar, please?"

"You may be right, of course," continued Tesso, giving her the necessary information. "In fact, my whole story is based upon supposition.

However, as they sat there together, first he would say something to her, and they would look into each other's faces, and then she would say something to him, and the operation would be repeated. They spoke little, but the silent communion of their hearts as they looked at each other spoke more eloquently than words. It was beautiful to behold.

'There,' I said to myself, 'is a perfect union of well-mated souls. What a pity that they must ever go out into the world and run the risk of having something commonplace come between them and their devotion!'"

"Splendid!" cried Helen. "How I wish I might have been with you!"

"The whole episode could not have failed to interest you as it did me."

The professor was ingenuously sincere in his narrative. "In these days one so seldom sees husbands and wives properly matched up. Of course, it is quite possible that when this pair I speak of are actually married they will quarrel like cats and dogs. But for the present their devotion was so natural, so untainted by the world's actualities, that I confess myself guilty of having deliberately watched them far beyond the bounds of common decency."

"You should certainly pursue your investigations further," said Uncle Peabody. "After having discovered psychological subjects in a man and a woman perfectly adapted to each other, it would be a pity not to continue your researches that their perfections might be recorded for the benefit of others less fortunate."

"Have you no idea who they were?" asked Emory.

"Not the slightest. I might have found out, as my friend, whom I went to see, must know them; but I was aghast when I discovered the hour, and ran away without so much as leaving my name."

"Where did all this happen?" asked Helen.

"At the Laurenziana," replied Tesso. "I went to call on my old friend Cerini." The professor laughed guiltily. "I hope he never learns the reason why I failed to keep my appointment!"

Helen placed her cup abruptly upon the table and stared stonily at Tesso. Uncle Peabody and Emory glanced quickly at each other in absolute helplessness. The professor, however, failed to notice the effect of his words upon his auditors; he was too much amused by the mental picture of Cerini waiting for him while he, only a few feet away from the librarian's study, was gratifying his love for the romantic.

"May I join you?" cried a voice behind Helen, as Inez Thayer approached unnoticed in the dim light. "Mr. Armstrong went down to the station to send a cable, so I came back alone."

"Inez--Miss Thayer, let me present Professor Tesso," said Helen, mechanically.

The professor held out his hand and stepped toward her. As the features of her face became clear a great joy overwhelmed him.

"My heroine!" he cried, turning to the others. "This is the heroine of my story! Now, my dear Mr. Cartwright, I can record these perfections for the benefit of others less fortunate!"

XVI

What happened after Inez arrived, how she herself had acted, and how Professor Tesso's departure had been accomplished remained a blank to Helen. All that was clear to her was the pain--the sharp, aching pain--which came to her with a realization of the true significance of the story Tesso told. The crisis was coming fast, Helen was conscious of that; she even wondered if it was not at hand already.

Throughout the long, sleepless night Helen reviewed the events of the brief months of her married life. She even began earlier than that, and recalled those days in Boston when Jack Armstrong had appeared before her first as an acquaintance, then as a friend--sympathetic, helpful, congenial--and finally as a suitor for her hand. As she looked back now the period of friendship was recalled with the greatest happiness.

Perhaps this was because he had then been more thoughtful of her and less masterful, perhaps it was because the friendship entailed less responsibility--she could not tell. Even during their engagement she had laughed at those moods which she had not understood, and he had accepted her att.i.tude good-naturedly and become himself again. Now she wondered how she had dared to laugh at him!

Then her mind dwelt upon the ocean voyage--those days of cloudless happiness, of unalloyed joy. The visit in Paris, where the sights, although not new, seemed so different because of the companionship of her husband. The trip to Florence, the first glimpse of the Villa G.o.dilombra--which was to be their earliest home together--all came back to her with vivid distinctness. And the day at Fiesole--that day when her husband had become a boy again, and had shown her a side of his nature so unreserved, so natural that she had felt a new world opening before her, a new happiness, the like of which she had never known.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried, aloud, "why could not that day at Fiesole have lasted forever!"

Still the panorama of reminiscence continued. That evening when De Peyster, all unconsciously, repeated to her those words of Inez' which first altered the aspect of her entire world was clearly recalled.

Perhaps she might have prevented the present crisis had she recognized the danger then and acted upon the information she had unintentionally received. Perhaps if she had in some way interfered with the work at the library, and thus prevented the constant companionship of her husband and Inez, the trouble might have been averted. But she would have despised herself had she done that. If she could hold her husband's love only by preventing him from meeting other women her happiness had indeed never been secure.

And she had tried to enter into his life, to understand this phase of his nature which, after all her efforts, had baffled her intentions. She had gone to the library with him, expecting to apply herself to her self-appointed task until she succeeded in satisfying even so exacting a master as she knew her husband to be. He would have been patient with her; he would have appreciated the love which prompted her efforts, and all would have been well. But Cerini had interfered. She could hear his voice now; she could see the expression on his face as he spoke the words, "By not interfering with this character-building, you, his wife, will later reap rich returns." Helen laughed bitterly to herself. She was reaping the rich returns now--rich in sorrow and pain and suffering.

Perhaps she could have forced the crisis to come when Inez' confession to De Peyster had been disclosed by Emory. Jack's conduct at that time had almost brought Helen's resentment to the breaking-point; but what Inez had told her afterward had made her feel more in sympathy with him, even though she understood him no better than before. "Your husband is a G.o.d among them all," Inez had said; "you will be so proud of him--so proud that he belongs to you." She was proud of him, but her pride could in no way make up to her for the loss of his affection. In her mind's eye she could see him, with his masterpiece completed, receiving the world's plaudits, but entirely unmindful of her, his wife, who had stood aside and made it possible for him to accomplish it all. Oh, it was too cruel, too unfair! Helen buried her head in the pillows and moaned piteously.

She lived over again that one moment in the automobile, that one look in her husband's face which had given her relief. It had, indeed, been a brief respite! At that moment she felt that Jack's love for her still existed, strong and deathless, in the face of temporary abstraction.

With this certainty she could endure in patience whatever sacrifices were necessary to win him back to herself. But Jack's words to Inez on the steps, "You are the only one who understands me"--there could be no mistake there. It was to Inez and not to her that he turned for understanding and for comfort.

All through the day she had tried to deceive herself into believing that even this was the result of some mental illness from which Jack was suffering, but Tesso had added just the necessary detail to destroy even the semblance of comfort to which she had so tenaciously clung. "A perfect union of well-mated souls," the professor had called them. "What a pity to have something commonplace come between them and their devotion!" And she was that "commonplace something"!

At all events, the main point had been definitely settled. For weeks she had known that Inez loved Jack; now she felt sure that this affection must be reciprocated. She should have known it sooner, she told herself. "I have been such a coward," she said, inwardly--"I could not bear to know for a certainty what I feared to be true." Now the worst that could happen had happened. Jack would in all probability be the last one to suggest any break. He would keep on as at present with his book--perhaps he might extend the work somewhat, in order to be with Inez a little longer; but when this was completed he would come back to her again, his obsession would disappear, and outwardly there would be no change. They would return to Boston and be received by their friends with glad acclaim, and with congratulations upon the happy months of the honey-moon pa.s.sed under such congenial conditions! Jack would be an exemplary husband, she knew that. With the book completed and away from the overpowering influences which had controlled him in Florence he would again be to her, perhaps, all he had ever been. But what an irony it would be!

Not for a moment did she accuse him of having married her without believing that he loved her. Armstrong's sincerity was a characteristic which could never be denied. He had not known Inez then. Any one could see that he and Inez were meant for each other; Cerini saw it and said so; Tesso saw it and said so; she herself felt it without a question.

Her marriage to Jack had been a mistake, an awful mistake. If only he and Inez had met earlier! Her own life was ruined, but was there any reason why the tragedy should include the others? If it would help matters Helen might be selfish enough to let them share the pain, but as there was nothing to be gained it would be worse than selfish. Jack had no idea that she was aware of the true conditions. He would oppose her if she attempted to take it all into her own life, yet this was the only course to pursue which could minimize the suffering.

Helen shut her eyes, but sleep was still far distant. The first agony had not run its course, and it would have been a misdirected mercy to stem its flow. There was no resentment in Helen's heart, and at this she herself wondered. Inez was not to blame for loving Jack--it was the most natural thing in the world. She had tried her best to keep the knowledge of her affection to herself, and but for the double accident she might have succeeded. Jack was not to blame. He himself had not known the strength of the power which drew him back to Florence, nor could he have foreseen how wholly it would possess him when once he yielded himself to it. He had not sought Inez; Helen herself had brought them together. He had found her useful to him in his work; he had found her agreeable as a friend; all beyond that had been a natural growth which could not and perhaps should not have been checked. The more the pity of it!

At first Helen felt that if Jack could return to his old self inwardly it would be worth the struggle. Then she realized that this could never be. The intellectual strength of her husband had won Helen's profoundest admiration, even though it was beyond her understanding. She longed to be able to enter into it and respond to it as Inez did, yet she felt her limitations. But her love had increased in its intensity by pa.s.sing through the fire. The man she knew now was infinitely stronger and grander than ever before, and in the light of this new development of character she questioned whether her affection would not suffer a shock if Jack were to become again the man she had known in Boston. This new self was his real self, and the self which he must be in order to express his own individuality. It was even as Cerini had said--character-building had been in process, bringing to the surface qualities which had lain dormant perhaps for centuries; but--and here was where Cerini's wisdom had been at fault--this development had not been for her but for another.

The faint rays of dawn crept in through the lattice windows of Helen's room before she sank into a restless sleep. A few hours later Armstrong softly entered the room before leaving for the library and stood for several moments looking at his wife's face, in which the lines of her struggle still left their mark. When he returned to the hall he met Uncle Peabody.

"May I have a word with you?" Armstrong asked, leading the way to the library.

Uncle Peabody acquiesced.

"Helen is still asleep," said Armstrong by way of preliminaries. "The girl is overdoing somehow, and she acts very tired. As I looked at her just now she seemed ten years older than when we left Boston. Don't you think she is taking on too many of these social functions?"

Uncle Peabody glanced at Armstrong to make sure that he was quite sincere. "I am glad that you have noticed it at last," he replied, quietly. "I have wondered that you did not perceive the change."

"I must speak to her about it."

"But you have not hit on the cause of the change yet," continued Uncle Peabody, suggestively.

"What else can it be?"

"I wish I knew you well enough to talk frankly with you, Jack."

Uncle Peabody was bidding for an opening.

"I suppose that means that I have done something which has not met with your approval."

"That answers my question, Jack. I don't know you well enough, so I will refrain."

"Has it to do with Helen?" insisted Armstrong.

"It has," replied Uncle Peabody. "But what I have to say is not intended as a reproach. I simply feel that if you have not already discovered that Helen is a very unhappy girl it is time some one called your attention to it."

Armstrong was thoughtful. "Do you mean that Helen is really unhappy, or simply upset over some specific thing?"