Athena was there already when the Sailor arrived. And as she sat on a distant sofa, nursing her teacup, with several members of her court around her, the young man was struck yet again, as he always was, by her look of vital power. She had in a very high degree that curious air of distinction which comes of an old race and seems to strike from a distance. The features were neither decisive nor regular, but the modeling of the whole face and the poise of the head no artist could see without desiring to render on canvas. The Sailor had to steel his will. The thought was almost intolerable that at one blow he was about to sever his friendship with her. She was so strong and fine, she was a sacred part of his life, she was the key of those central forces that now seemed bent on his destruction. Presently, amid the slow eddy of an ever changing crowd they came together. Her greeting was of a peculiarly simple friendliness. She seemed grave, with something almost beyond gravity. There was a shadow upon a face that hardly seemed to have known one in all its years of shelter and security. "Is there anywhere we can talk?" he managed to say after a little while. She rose from her sofa with the decision he had always lacked. "Let us try the library," she said. And with the assured skill of an experienced navigator of social waters, she led him there and found it empty. XVII Henry Harper's decision had been taken finally. But as soon as he entered this large and dull room, he felt the chill of its emptiness in an almost symbolical way. It was what his whole life was going to be, and the thought nearly wrung a groan out of him. She was puzzled by a certain oddness in his manner, a feeling which of late had been growing upon her. It was hard to understand. She knew his need of help, his craving for it, yet now the time had come when he had only to ask in order to receive it he seemed at the mercy of a painful indecision which had the power to wound. Here and now a subtle withdrawal of the highest part of himself seemed more than ever apparent. It was even in his face this afternoon, in the wonderful face of Ulysses that had all the oceans of the world in it. What did it portend? Was it that he was afraid? What had he to fear? How could such a person as herself repel him? She had all to give if only he would demand it of her. Of that he must be aware. The haunted eyes of the sailorman too clearly proclaimed his knowledge. "How is 'A Master Mariner'?" she asked, in order to end the silence which had intervened as soon as they entered the room. "It doesn't get on," he said, in a voice that did not seem to be his own. "I'm very sorry." The deep note was sincerity itself. "I don't know why," said the Sailor, "but it's too much for me now." "Of course, it is all immensely difficult. The latter part particularly. Somehow, one always felt it would be."