"Am I?" Amelie asked, innocently. "But your education has been so far developed in other directions that you can easily recognize the importance of what I say. A woman who meets the world face to face must be able to estimate the elements against which she has to contend."

"Into how many cla.s.ses do you divide us?" Armstrong was interested in her nave presentment.

"The three princ.i.p.al divisions are, of course, single men, married men, and widowers, but the subdivisions are really more important. For my own use I find it more convenient to separate those I meet into four cla.s.ses--the interesting, the uninteresting, the safe, and the dangerous."

"You have developed an absolute system," Armstrong a.s.serted.

"Yes, indeed," Amelie responded, cheerfully; "without one you men would have too distinct an advantage over us."

"I wish you would enlarge on your cla.s.sification a little more. It is gratifying to me to know that members of my s.e.x receive such careful consideration."

"Well, suppose we eliminate the uninteresting--they really don't count except in considering matrimony; then we have to weigh the material advantages they offer against their lack of interest. This brings us down to the interesting and safe, and the interesting and dangerous."

"Have I the honor to be included in one of these two cla.s.ses?"

"Yes," the contessa replied, frankly.

"May I ask which? You see, my curiosity is getting the upper hand."

Amelie threw back her head with a hearty laugh. "I was certainly wrong in my first diagnosis," she said. "A man who was merely a thinking-machine would possess no curiosity. Usually a learned man is entirely safe."

"Then you really consider me dangerous?" There was a tone in Armstrong's voice which caused the contessa to look up at him quickly.

"Most men would consider that a compliment, Mr. Armstrong."

Receiving no reply, Amelie continued:

"Your wife has such original ideas! I have found my acquaintance with her positively refreshing."

"How does this bear upon our present conversation?" Armstrong inquired, still weighed down by the contessa's estimate of him. Amelie's frankness showed that no doubt existed in her mind as to his att.i.tude toward Miss Thayer, and he felt that denials would be worse than useless. If impressions such as these lay in the mind of a casual observer like the contessa it was but natural that they should a.s.sume greater proportions to Helen; and it was with a foreboding that he heard her name mentioned in the present conversation. Amelie, however, could not sense the effect of her words upon her companion.

"Because we once discussed the same subject," she replied to his question, "and her att.i.tude was most unusual. She even said that were she convinced that her husband really loved some other woman she would step aside and give him a clear field."

"Did she say that?" Armstrong demanded.

"She did," a.s.serted the contessa. "You are a very lucky man, Mr.

Armstrong," she continued, looking into his face meaningly; "my husband is not so fortunate."

While Armstrong hesitated in order to make no mistake in his reply, Helen returned accompanied by Cerini, and the moment when he could have formulated an answer had pa.s.sed. The old man held up a finger reproachfully as he saw the contessa.

"You have never made another appointment to study those ma.n.u.scripts with me," he said, as he took her hand. "Tell me that your interest has not flagged."

The librarian spoke feelingly, although he tried to conceal his disappointment. It was such a triumph that his work should appeal to one so devoted to a life of social gayety. Amelie remembered her interview with him at the library and felt that she deserved the reproach.

"Surely not," she replied, with so much apparent sincerity in her voice that the old man believed her and was mollified. "I have even received a new impetus from listening to Mr. Armstrong's enthusiastic account of his work with you and his impatience to return to it."

Armstrong glanced quickly at Helen as the contessa attributed to him a desire so opposed to the definite statement he had made the day before, while Cerini smiled contentedly. Helen gave no sign of having particularly noticed the remark, but Jack felt keenly his inability at that moment to set himself right.

"I was just about to take my departure," Amelie continued, "and I am glad not to be obliged to leave the invalid alone. I know how delighted you will be to take my place," she said to Cerini.

The old man dropped into the chair the contessa left vacant, while Armstrong watched the two figures until they disappeared in the hallway.

Then he turned to his friend--but it was to Cerini the priest, the father-confessor, rather than to Cerini the librarian. He felt the seriousness of the situation more acutely than at any time since a realization of its complexity came to him. Cerini watched him curiously.

"You are not so well to-day," he said, at length. "You must go slowly, my son, and give Nature ample time to make her repairs."

"I fear even Nature has no remedy sufficiently powerful to cure my malady," Armstrong replied, bitterly. "I would to G.o.d she had!"

Cerini was at a loss to understand his manner or his words.

"What has happened?" he asked, sympathetically. "Is there some complication of which I know not?"

Armstrong bowed his head, overcome for the moment by an overwhelming sense of his own impotency.

"What is it?" urged the old man, himself affected by his companion's att.i.tude. "I have missed you sadly at the library these weeks, and I am impatient for your return."

"I shall never return!" cried Armstrong, fiercely. "I have proved myself utterly unworthy of the work I undertook with you."

"My son! my son!" Cerini was aghast at what he heard. Then his voice softened as he thought he divined the explanation.

"Slowly, slowly," he said, soothingly. "It is too soon to put so heavy a burden upon your brain after the shock it has sustained. There is no haste. Your friends at the library will be patient, as you must be."

Armstrong easily read what was pa.s.sing through the librarian's mind, and it increased his bitterness against himself. Cerini's calmness, however, quieted him, and he was more contained as he replied.

"I wish that the facts were as you think," he said, decisively. "It would be a positive relief to me if I could believe that my mind was still unbalanced as a result of the accident, but it is so nearly recovered that I must consider myself practically well. But I am glad of this chance to tell you how we have both been deceived. It will be a comfort to have you act as my confessor, and if your affection still holds after my recital I know that you will advise me as to what future course I must pursue."

In tense, clear-cut sentences Armstrong poured out to Cerini the story of the past months as he looked back upon them. He was frank in speaking of what he believed to be his accomplishments, as he was pitiless in his arraignment of himself in his failures. He showed how he had a.s.similated the lessons of the past only in his capacity of scribe; he explained how self-centred, selfish, and neglectful of his duty toward others he had been in his personal life. He spoke freely of his companionship with Miss Thayer, of her unquestioned affection for him, and of the impressions which had been made upon Helen and the Contessa Morelli. He insisted simply yet forcefully upon his own loyalty to Helen, not from a sense of duty, as she firmly believed, but because his devotion had never wavered.

In speaking of his wife Armstrong went into minute detail, even going back to his early attempts to interest her in what had later become his grand pa.s.sion. He described her personal attributes, her love of the present rather than the past, her protective att.i.tude toward her friend even in the face of such distressing circ.u.mstances; her generosity toward him; and finally her unalterable conviction that their separation was imperative.

Cerini listened in breathless silence as Armstrong's story progressed.

He himself had played a part in the drama of which his companion was ignorant, and a sense of his own responsibility came to the old man with subtle force. He recalled his first meeting with Helen at the library, he remembered their later conversations, and in his contemplations he almost forgot, for the moment, the man sitting in front of him in his consideration of the splendid development, which he had witnessed without fully realizing it, in this woman whom he had p.r.o.nounced unfitted by nature to enter into this side of her husband's work, as she had longed to do. Now, as a result of his lack of foresight, she proposed to eliminate herself from what she considered to be her husband's problem. "It has been more far-reaching than even you realize," she had said to him at the reception at Villa G.o.dilombra, and this was what she had meant.

It was several moments after Armstrong ceased speaking before Cerini raised his eyes, and to Jack's surprise he saw that they were filled with tears. He naturally attributed it to the librarian's affection for him and his sympathy for his sorrow.

"I should not have told you this, padre," he said, sadly, pressing the hand which the old man laid tenderly upon his. "The fault is mine, and I should not try to shirk the full responsibility by sharing it with you."

"It is mine to share with you, my son," Cerini replied, firmly. "You have erred, as you state. You have been to blame for not giving out again, as the example of the master-spirits of the past should have taught you, those glorious lessons which impart the joy of living to those who give as well as to those who receive. But my error is even heavier. I have lived all my life in this atmosphere, drinking in the knowledge and the spirit which have come to you only within the past few months; yet I failed to recognize in your wife the natural embodiment of all that the best in humanism teaches. What you and I have endeavored to a.s.similate she has felt and expressed as naturally as she has breathed.

She has shown us humanism in its highest development, purified and strengthened by her own fine nature, even though we have given her no opportunity for expression. Thank G.o.d we have recognized it at last!"

"You really believe that?" cried Armstrong, recalling his own earlier and less-defined conviction.

"Beyond a doubt," Cerini answered. "Let us find her, that we may tell her what a victory she has won."

Armstrong placed a restraining hand upon the old man's arm. "Not yet,"

he said, gently but firmly. "There is much still to be done to prepare her for this knowledge. At present she would not accept it."

"We must convince her."

"First of all I must make my peace with Miss Thayer," Armstrong replied.