stood behind the table, as
though that gave her protection. He gazed at her smiling, panting.

"I'm sorry," he said presently. "It was your fault: you were so
maddening. You don't see what it means to me."

The little gods of Comedy laughed out upon the tragic spectacle of a
man released by oddly joined emotions from his chains of Self and a
wife who wondered in fear whether Kit Kats drank champagne....

"And how did the dinner go off?" she asked soon, in her usual tones.

CHAPTER XIII

SECRETS

Helena came to the conclusion that her mother had been right in one
point: life was difficult. She decided further that it was the Mrs.
Herbertsons who caused the trouble. Things would be all right if no
one ever thought about them!

But she had Consolations beyond this Philosophy.

For one thing, Hubert almost instantly relented, the next day to be
precise, about poor Mr. Alison. She, giving way in turn, had said she
would appease the vicar's wife and golfers by seeing less of him. So
all that stupid fuss was over.

This, however, was not the real Consolation. No, she had a secret.

Helena Brett's secret was not a typically wifely one. It was based,
rather, on her childish games. Every little girl has secrets--to the
scorn of boys--and when, like Helena, she is an only child, she has
them to herself. Of course it is less satisfactory, because although
by its nature even a pretending secret needs but one, the whole fun
lies in telling it to some one else.

Helena told no one about hers. And it was much more thrilling than
those early Devonshire affairs, which largely hinged on the exact
position of a fast-decaying mole.

The secret differed too from those of many wives in this, that it was
all about a woman; a woman she had never met, a woman she could never
meet.

For over a year now, since causeries and lectures on assorted topics
began to fit into a shapeless enough whole--a something that explained
or might explain what Helena called "Things"--she had put stray
thoughts down into a shilling diary. At first they had been merely
sentences that touched her or inspired, things heard and read. Then as
her mind began to feel its way, she wrote these extracts down, and half
ashamed at first, though nobody would ever see them, added her comments
on their theories. How elementary the first had been! She blushed,
re-reading them. "'The best pilots are ashore'" (ran one on page two).
"Then are t