In the afternoon I read over all that I had written of the novel, and then tried to resume where I had left off. But I kept thinking: June is at Hindhead now, talking to him, telling him what has happened.... The thought was a disturbing one. At tea-time I gave up the idea of writing any more until I heard from her. And then, in the evening, Helen came. We hadn't met for weeks, and the sight of her, so sudden and unexpected, made me think, for the first time without an effort, of her age. It wasn't that she looked old; it wasn't that she looked even her age; it was rather that there was some curious expression in her eyes that could never have belonged to a younger woman. She looked--it is the only word--tragic. And she began, without preamble of any kind: "I've just been told about Terry. Is it true?" "About Terry and Karelsky?" "Yes." "It is true, I'm sorry to say." I offered her a chair, and she sat down with a sort of sweeping dignity I have often seen on the stage, and which, until I saw _her_ with it, always struck me as overdone. "Geoffrey told me," she went on. "He's wild with delight. It will give him _such_ a chance of making a show of himself." I said nothing. "It's what _he's_ going to do--his own future success that he's been talking to me about. Never a word about Terry's tragedy." "And never a word about his own tragedy, either," I put in. "You may as well be fair." "_Fair_?" The word stung her, I could see. "_Fair_? It doesn't matter about being fair to _him_. _He_ can defend himself. None better. Even stricken as he is, and with the whole world against him, I believe he'd be more than a match for it." "You ought to admire him for that." "Ought I? One gets tired of admiring a man for the same thing. I've admired him for his brains and his power so long that I'd like a change." "And you don't feel sorry for him, lying in that chair all day and positively aching for something to happen?" "I feel sorrier for Terry--giving the best years of his life to a thief and a fraud." "I don't see why you shouldn't feel sorry for both of them." "_You_ do, I suppose?" "Yes." "Equally?" "Roughly so, I daresay." I went on, taking advantage of her silence: "Look here, I'll tell you frankly what I think about Geoffrey. He irritates me by his calmness just as much as he irritates you, but I try to look behind it all, and there I see a stoicism that bears his own misfortune just as bravely as he expects other people to bear theirs." "That's very nicely put." "It's _true_. Do you suppose the man's happy, chained to a chair for the rest of his life? Can't you forgive him his delight at the prospect of once again playing his little piece under the limelight? Maybe it isn't what you or I would crave for, but still, _he_ wants it badly enough, and what right have we to be so confoundedly superior about it? _He's_ a pagan, frank and unashamed, and we're pagans, maybe, with the cloak of hypocrisy thrown over us."