istened to him gravely and with concentration, and, when
she did speak, it was, once or twice, with gaiety, as though he had
amused and surprised her. Yet Althea felt that her thoughts were far
from Franklin, far from everybody in the room. And meanwhile, of
everybody in the room, it was the lean, sallow young man beside her who
seemed at once the least impressed and the most interested. But that was
so like Franklin; no one could outdo him in interest, and no one could
outdo him in placidity. That he could examine Helen with his calm,
careful eye, as though she were an object for mental and moral
appraisement only; that he could see her so acutely, and yet remain so
unmoved by her rarity, at once pleased and displeased Althea. It showed
him as so safe, but it showed him as so narrow. She found herself
thinking almost impatiently that Franklin simply had no sense of charm
at all. Helen interested him, but she did not stir in him the least
wistfulness or wonder, as charm should do. Miss Buckston interested him,
too. And she was very sure that Franklin while liking Helen as a human
creature--so he liked Miss Buckston--disapproved of her as a type. Of
course, he must disapprove of her. Didn't she contradict all the things
he approved of--all the laboriousness, the earnestness, the tolerant
bias towards the views and feelings of the majority? And Althea felt,
with a rather sharp satisfaction, that it would give her some pleasure
to show Franklin that she differed from him; that she had other tastes
than his, other needs--needs which Helen more than satisfied.

She had no opportunity that night for fathoming Helen's impressions of
Franklin, and indeed felt that the task was a delicate one to undertake.
If Helen didn't volunteer them she could hardly ask for them. Loyalty to
Franklin and to the old bond between them, to say nothing of the new,
made it unfit that Helen should know that her impressions of Franklin
were of any weight with her friend. But the next morning Helen did not
come down to breakfast, and there was no reason why, in a stroll round
the garden with Franklin afterwards, she should not be point blank; the
only unfairness here was that in his opinion of Helen it would not be
Helen he judged, but himself.

'How do you like her, my new friend?' she asked.

Franklin was very willing to talk and had already clear impressions. The
clearest was the one he put at once before her in the vernacular he had
never taken