"Please go," she said, more voicing her thoughts than meaning to speak. Then having started, she explained. "I don't want to be nasty; you've always been so kind; but it will be much better if we don't meet again. Hubert had asked me, anyhow ... and then, you see, I couldn't ever feel the same, quite, with you. Oh, I'm so sorry," she said, noticing his look--"but you do understand, don't you?" "Oh yes, I understand," he answered, very deep down, and serious for once without seeming comic; "I've been a fool, a swine. He'd kick me if he knew--and he'd be right. But look here" (he could not keep away from his excuses), "do try to see it wasn't very much. Lots of women----" Then he caught her eye and said; "But you're so different and that's why I feel such a cad. Good-bye." "Good-bye," she said and as he turned miserably away, she held her hand out to him, "and thank you all the same for what you've done. You've been a real good friend to me." He had not looked for this and it was the worst part to bear. "I wish to God," he said passionately, "I'd been more worthy of your friendship. It's been the best thing in my life so far," and he turned hurriedly away, cursing himself for the damned fool he was. He had thrown everything away just for a moment that could never have meant anything. He had seen his real Self in her contemptuous eyes. Helena stood, now, as the front door slammed, with eyes full of an emotion very different from contempt. She felt sorry--till her mind ranged swiftly back over all she had ever said to him, over the meanings he, a man like that, might read in it; and then she felt ashamed. But all the while, unaccountably, she felt more alone than ever. She seemed so utterly thrown back on Hubert, now.... Presently, unable to bear the room's stillness, she went upstairs, mechanical as any housemaid, and busied herself needlessly about Ruth's room. CHAPTER XXVI TACT Hubert at lunch made no reference whatever either to their own drawn battle or to that other, of which the sounds, she feared, might easily have reached him. His one remark, indeed, beyond the usual polite abstractions for Lily's benefit, was "Ruth will be here at four o'clock. I want to see her before tea." "Very well," was her submissive answer. But this life of a housekeeper--how could she endure it after what had been? Hubert's only comments were aroused by letters, which his humorous friends still continued to send, quizzing him about his author-wife or sometimes facetiously alluding to some of the peculiarities of down-trodden Zöe's husband. "This I owe to you," he would say, throwing it across; or, "_You'll_ enjoy this better," if a press-cutting contained nothing more pleasing to his vanity than a reference to himself as the notorious Husband.