Archie chattered for a little while, comparing the moon to a clipped finger-nail, the dimmed mirror of the lake to a frozen rink in Switzerland, with all the hollowness of superficial talk, when the tongue speaks from habit, which is as lightly rooted as the seed on stony ground. Heart-whole, he had often chattered like that, and Jessie had sunned herself and responded to those silly things; but now she knew, as well as he, that the babble was no more than blown sea-foam. It made her heart ache that he should talk it to her, for, though she made no claim on his love, it was miserable that he could not recognize how true a friend it was who was by his side in this song-haunted darkness. She knew--none better--that he had no love to give her, but her love that was so disciplined to go hungry without crying out, starved for a word from him that should fly the flag of friendship, noblest of all ensigns that are not of royal emblazonment. They had come to the edge of the lake, and a moor-hen steered its water-logged flight across the surface. And then Archie's foolish chatter died, and he was silent as he watched the rayed ripple of water. The wash died away in the reeds, and chuckled on the bank, and at last he spoke. "Why did Helena treat me like that?" he said. "It wasn't fair on me. Why did she encourage me? She might so easily have shown me that she didn't care. She knew: don't tell me she didn't know! Do answer me. Didn't she know? All the time that we were in town together she knew. And she let me go on. She was waiting to see if she could catch the Bradshaw. If she couldn't, perhaps she would have taken me. Was it so? You ought to know: you're her sister." His voice had risen from the first reproach of his speech to a fury of indignation. "Did she love me or didn't she?" he cried. "Do tell me if you know." His passion had found combustible material in her: she flamed with it. "Helena doesn't love anybody," she said. "Oh, Archie, poor Helena!" "Poor Helena!" said he. "Why 'poor'? Surely it's far more comfortable to love nobody. Oh, don't remind me of that stupid rot about it being better to have loved and lost. Anyhow, a worse thing is to have loved and not found. That's what has happened to me, and she made me think I had found. She meant to make me think that. Damned well she succeeded, too. And, if you're right about her not loving anybody, do you mean that she doesn't love the Bradshaw?" Archie had closed a grip on her arm: now she shook his hand off, though loving to have it there. "I can't answer you that," she said. "And I oughtn't to have said that Helena loves nobody. I withdraw that entirely." "The saying of it, you mean," said he. "You don't withdraw your belief in it." "I don't know the truth of it. What I said was only my opinion, and I withdraw it. I oughtn't to have said it." "But you keep your opinion?" asked he. "You shouldn't ask me that. I have withdrawn what I said. Please accept that."