“Quick?” she said. “Mr. Lestrange--ten years? I’m afraid it’s not quick enough. Do you know what happens when a woman is unhappy too long? She gets used to it. The habit of unhappiness sets in, the heart gets eaten up, she gets haggard, and old, and sad; and not all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can make the queen take to her throne again! (That’s my own alteration, and rather a good one.) The truth of the whole matter, Mr. Lestrange, is that you’ve made a domestic hack of a woman who had the spirit of Joan of Arc--” “What on earth are you saying about Joan of Arc?” asked Edith’s voice suddenly. Anastasia started. Horace never turned his head. “I was saying,” said Anastasia, “that she was burned alive at a stake by the English intellect and the French nerves!” “I’ve found the shawl,” said Edith, “but the pink’s turned almost gray in twenty years.” Anastasia laughed shortly. Edith looked quickly at her husband; in a moment she knew that something had taken place--the very room seemed tense with recent passion. A look of anxiety came into her eyes. What had Helen said or done? She tried to stem the silence with the thin stream of talk which is against the current of thought. Anastasia rose and held out her hand. “I’ve got to get home in time to oversee my packing. I leave to-morrow,” she said, “and I’m going to write your boy a line, Mr. Lestrange; don’t you or Edith worry. I’ll make things as easy as I can, and youth’s elastic. It doesn’t break quickly. He won’t do anything violent, you can depend on that; he talks conversational suicide, and that’s pretty safe. Just whistle me a taxi, will you?” They went out into the hall with her. Horace said nothing. Once his eyes met hers. Horace’s eyes were blazing with fairly steady anger, but it was not all anger. Edith looked white and tired. “Am I never going to see you again, Helen?” she murmured. “In twenty years’ time,” said her friend. “Shan’t I make a nice old woman?” Horace shook hands with her, and suddenly Helen of Troy smiled at him--it was a golden, appealing, melting smile. Her eyes took it up and held his in a kind of friendly laughter. Horace smiled back grimly. “I am sure,” he said, “I needn’t wish you success.” “You think I’ve got it?” she asked. “Yes. I think you’ve got it,” said Horace Lestrange. Then Edith kissed her, and standing together in the soft May weather the husband and wife watched her drive off into the night. Helen of Troy did not look back at them. She knew that they stood there together and loneliness was at her heart like a knife. What were all the shadows that surrounded her--the easy captives, the shallow victims of her radiant beauty--to that quiet union of strength? Countless, countless, they thronged the courts of memory, and unreal as the false dawn heralding the long gray hours they passed away. “Oh, my God!” said Helen of Troy. “My men fight for me, but they leave me, and they never give me rest!”