all the
day to Mr. Bast."

Helen was silent.

"Well?"

"Tell me about it first, and meanwhile perhaps I'll have got my head out
of the slime."

"That's better. Well, where shall I begin? When I arrived at
Waterloo--no, I'll go back before that, because I'm anxious you should
know everything from the first. The 'first' was about ten days ago. It
was the day Mr. Bast came to tea and lost his temper. I was defending
him, and Mr. Wilcox became jealous about me, however slightly. I thought
it was the involuntary thing, which men can't help any more than we can.
You know--at least, I know in my own case--when a man has said to me,
'So-and-so's a pretty girl,' I am seized with a momentary sourness
against So-and-so, and long to tweak her ear. It's a tiresome feeling,
but not an important one, and one easily manages it. But it wasn't only
this in Mr. Wilcox's case, I gather now."

"Then you love him?"

Margaret considered. "It is wonderful knowing that a real man cares for
you," she said. "The mere fact of that grows more tremendous. Remember,
I've known and liked him steadily for nearly three years."

"But loved him?"

Margaret peered into her past. It is pleasant to analyse feelings while
they are still only feelings, and unembodied in the social fabric. With
her arm round Helen, and her eyes shifting over the view, as if this
country or that could reveal the secret of her own heart, she meditated
honestly, and said, "No."

"But you will?"

"Yes," said Margaret, "of that I'm pretty sure. Indeed, I began the
moment he spoke to me."

"And have settled to marry him?"

"I had, but am wanting a long talk about it now. What is it against him,
Helen? You must try and say."

Helen, in her turn, looked outwards. "It is ever since Paul," she said
finally.

"But what has Mr. Wilcox to do with Paul?"

"But he was there, they were all there that morning when I came down
to breakfast, and saw that Paul was frightened--the man who loved me
frightened and all his paraphernalia fallen, so that I knew it was
impossible, because personal relations are the important thing for ever
and ever, and not this outer life of telegrams and anger."

She poured the sentence forth in one breath, but her sister understood
it, because it touched on thoughts that were familiar between them.

"That's foolish. In the first place, I disagree about the outer life.
Well, we've often argued that. The real point is that there is the
widest gu