Yet between Vivien and Andy Hayes silence about the past could be no more than silence--merely a refraining from words, no real forgetfulness, no true putting aside. For with that past would go their old relationship to one another; its roots had grown from that soil, and it flourished still by the strength of it. At the start their common memories could envisage no picture without Isobel's face finding a place on the canvas; later, Harry was inevitably the central figure of the composition. If Andy had pitied and sought to comfort, if Vivien had given confidence and accepted sympathy, it had always, in some sort or another, been in regard to one of these two figures--in the later days, to both of them. Still they met, as it were, encumbered by these memories, she to him Isobel's pupil, Harry's lover, he to her Harry's follower, even though her own partisan against Isobel. It was hard to get their relations on to an independent footing; to be interested in one another for one another's sake, without that outside reference, which had now become mere matter of memory--and best not remembered; to find in one another and not elsewhere the motive of their intercourse and the source of a new friendship. The old kindliness must be transplanted to a fresh soil if it were to blossom into a life self-sufficient and underived. The line of thought was hers rather than his, at least more explicit and realized for her than for him. When he thought of Harry--or of Isobel and Harry--it was with intent to avoid giving pain by an incautious reference; her mind demanded a direct assertion that the pair of them were done with, and that she and he met on the ground of a new and strictly mutual interest. She had no thought, no dream, of more than friendship. The past was too recent, her heart still too sore. Yet the sore heart instinctively seeks balm; the wounded flower of pride will raise its head in grateful answer to a gleam of sunshine or a drop of rain. Andy's shy surety that she would rejoice in his luck, because aforetime he had grieved for her tribulation, struck home to a heart hungry for comradeship. Thus by her pride, and by her will answering the call of her pride, she was different. She no longer merely suffered, was no longer passive to, kindness or cruelty. He knew the change as soon as she came to him, in that very room which had witnessed the first stolen kiss, and, holding her hand out to him, cried, "Mr. Andy, you've not refused? There's no welcome for you in this house if you've refused. Father and I are quite agreed about it!" Andy pressed her hand--Harry would have kissed it. "You know? I couldn't refuse their kindness. If I had, yours would have made me sorry." "It's good of you to spare time to come and tell us." Andy's answer had the compelling power of unconscious sincerity. "That seemed about the first thing to do," he said, with a simple unembarrassed laugh.