Helen _and_ Severn, he replied. And also even _I_ was involved, because of my quarrel with Helen. _That_ had to come to an end. We were all going to be friends again, and he would show Helen that true affection wasn't narrow and personal, but something that--that--something that.... In fact, to put the whole matter a good deal more plainly than he did, everything that was not perfect was to be summarily abolished, and the reign of universal love to begin forthwith. He was once more the eager missionary; the pendulum of his mood had swung again, and it was the future now that he saw, perfectly obliterating the imperfect past. V But everything that night that I shall never forget belongs to Mizzi more than to him. I went to see her in blank despondency and told her what had happened; I expected her to be at least as anxious as I was that Terry shouldn't meet Helen. But she wasn't; she merely nodded her head and remarked, at the end of it all: "So I had better reserve for you two berths in the _wagon-lit_ to-night, is it not?" "Good heavens, no!" I cried, just in time to keep her away from the telephone. And then I asked her if she really supposed that we _could_ go. She answered: "Well, he's going, isn't he?" "He _says_ he is. But it seem to me we've got to persuade him out of it." "Why?" "_Why_? Well, can't you see all the hundreds of reasons why?" "I can see this," she answered quietly, "that he _will_ go, whatever we do or say. Do you remember how--the night before last--I said I wished some fate would send him back to her? ... Well, this is fate." Her supreme calmness astonished me. I said that whether it was fate or not, his going back could only have the result of turning bad into worse. "Think of it, Mizzi--think of him meeting her for the first time after those awful letters--and _preaching_ to her--that's what it'll amount to--about her duty to her husband! ... She'll feel like killing him." "And if he stays here, he'll feel like killing himself." "Not if you look after him." "_I_ look after him? How can I?" "There are ways." She looked at me with tightened lips for a moment, and then said: "It is what you call an irony--is it not?--that I should have understanding of him but no power--while _she_--this woman in England--has power but no understanding." "But you _have_ power, Mizzi." She shook her head, smiling. "As much as you have--as much as anybody has, maybe, except _her_. You see, I understand him." She added, with no change in the level calmness of her tone: "You will be surprised, no doubt--when I tell you that last night he asked me to marry him." I had to try to seem surprised, and I _was_ surprised, quite genuinely, at her manner of telling me. She went on, almost casually: "I know why he asked me to marry him. It was so that if I said 'yes,' he would feel bound to _me_--and therefore less bound to her. He _wants_ to love me, and he doesn't want to love her." "I know he's very fond of you, Mizzi."