"Poor Queen; poor all of us. I'm good, Helen," she repeated, whisking out of the room. "Such a chatterbox!" the goddess said. "But, John, am I really so much altered? Is it true that--just at first, you know, of course--you didn't know me?" She bent on me the breathless look I had seen before. In her eagerness, it was as if the halo of joy that surrounded her were quivering. "I know you now; you are my Helen!" Again I would have caught her in my arms; but she moved uneasily. "Wait--I--you haven't told me," she stammered; "I--I want to talk to you, John." She put out a hand as if to fend me off, then let it fall. A sudden heart sickness came upon me. It was not her words, not the movement that chilled me, but the paling of the wonderful light of her face, the look that crept over it, as if I had startled a nymph to flight. I was angry with my clumsy self that I should have caused that look, and yet--from my own Helen, not this lovely, poising creature that hardly seemed to touch the earth--I should have had a different greeting! I gazed at her from where I stood, then I turned to the window. The rattle of street cars came up from below. A child was sitting on the bench where I had sat and feasted my eyes upon the flutter of Helen's curtains. My numb brain vaguely speculated whether that child could see me. The sun had gone, the square was wintry. After a long minute Helen followed me. "John," she said, "I am so glad to see you; but I--I want to tell you. Everything here is so new, I--I don't--" It must all be true; I remember her exact words. They came slowly, hesitated, stopped. "Are you--what do you mean, Helen?" "Let me tell you; let me think. Don't--please don't be angry." Through the fog that enveloped me I felt her distress and smarted from the wrong I did so beautiful a creature. "I--I didn't expect you so soon," the music sighed pleadingly. "I--we mustn't hurry about--what we used to talk of. New York is so different!--Oh, but it isn't that! How shall I make you understand?" "I understand enough," I said dully; "or rather--Great Heavens!--I understand nothing; nothing but that--you are taking back your promise, aren't you? Or Helen's promise; whose was it?" I could not feel as if I were speaking to my sweetheart. The figure before me wore her pearl-set Kappa key--the badge of her college fraternity; it wore, too, a trim, dark blue dress--Helen's favourite colour and mine--but there resemblance seemed to stop. Confused as I still was by the glory I gazed on, I began painfully comparing the Nelly I remembered and the Helen I had found. My Helen was not quite so tall, but at twenty girls grow. She did not sway with the yielding grace of a young white birch; but she was slim and straight, and girlish angles round easily to curves. Though I felt a subtle and wondrous change, I could not trace or track the miracle.