'Do you think women always fall in love with the adequate man, and _vice versa_?' she asked, and her eyes were gentle as they mused on him. 'Why should you say that it's because you're not adequate that Althea isn't in love with you?' Franklin fixed his eye upon her and it had now a new light, it deepened for other problems than Helen's and his own. 'Not adequate for her--not what she wants--that's my point,' he said. 'But there are other sorts of mistakes to make, of course. If Althea falls in love with a man equipped as I'm not equipped, that does prove that I lack something that would have won her; but it doesn't prove that she's found the right man. We've got beyond natural selection when it comes to life as a whole. He may be the man for her to fall in love with, but is he the man to make her happy? That's just the question for me, Miss Buchanan, and I wish you'd help me with it.' 'Help you?' Helen rather faltered. 'Yes, please try. You must see--I see it plainly enough--that Mr. Digby is going to marry Althea.' He actually didn't add, 'If she'll have him.' Helen wondered how far his perspicacity went; had he seen what Gerald had seen, and what she had not seen at all? 'You think it's Gerald who is in love with her?' she asked. Again Franklin's eye was on her, and she now saw in it his deep perplexity. She couldn't bear to add to it. 'I've guessed nothing,' she said. 'You must enlighten me.' 'I wasn't sure at first,' said Franklin, groping his way. 'He seemed so devoted to Lady Pickering; but for some days it's been obvious, hasn't it, that that wasn't in the least serious?' 'Not in the least.' 'I couldn't have reconciled myself,' said Franklin, 'to the idea of a man, who could take Lady Pickering seriously, marrying Althea. I can't quite reconcile myself to the idea of a man who could, well, be so devoted to Lady Pickering, marrying Althea. He's your friend, I know, Miss Buchanan, as well as your relative, but you know what I feel for Althea, and you'll forgive my saying that if I'm not big enough for her he isn't big enough either; no, upon my soul, he isn't.' Helen's eyes dwelt on him. She knew that, with all the forces of concealment at her command, she wanted to keep from Mr. Kane the blighting irony of her own inner comments; above everything, now, she dreaded lest her irony should touch one of Mr. Kane's ideals. It was so beautiful of him to think himself not big enough for Althea, that she was well content that he should see Gerald in the same category of unfitness. Perhaps Gerald was not big enough for Althea; Gerald's bigness didn't interest Helen; the great point for her was that Mr. Kane should not guess that she considered Althea not big enough for him. 'If Gerald is the lucky man,' she said, after the pause in which she gazed at him; 'if she cares enough for Gerald to marry him, then I think he will make her happy; and that's the chief thing, isn't it?'