her few
conversations with him, so tamely funny as to be hardly odd, though his
manner of speaking and the way in which his hair was cut struck her as
expressing oddity to an unfortunate degree; but though only dimly aware
of him, and aware mainly in this sense of amusement, she had, since
Althea had informed her of his status, seen him with some
compassionateness. It didn't make him less funny to her that he should
have been in love with Althea for fifteen years, rather it made him more
so. Helen found it difficult to take either the devotion or its object
very seriously. She thought hopeless passions rather ridiculous, her own
included, but Gerald she did consider a possible object of passion; and
how Althea could be an object of passion for anybody, even for funny
little Mr. Kane, surpassed her comprehension, so that the only way to
understand the situation was to decide that Mr. Kane was incapable of
passion altogether. But to-night she received a new impression; looking
at Mr. Kane's face, thin, jaded, and kindly attentive to herself, it
suddenly became apparent to her that whatever his feeling might be it
was serious. He might not know passion, but his heart was aching,
perhaps quite as fiercely as her own. She felt sorry for Mr. Kane, and
her step lingered on her way to the house.

'Isn't it a lovely night,' she said, in order to say something. 'Do you
like sitting in the dark? It's very restful, isn't it?'

Franklin saw the alien Miss Buchanan's eyes bent kindly and observantly
upon him.

'Yes, it's very restful,' he said. 'It smooths you out and straightens
you out when you get crumpled, you know, and impatient.'

'I should not imagine you as ever very impatient,' smiled Helen.
'Perhaps you do sit a great deal in the dark.'

He took her whimsical suggestion with careful humour. 'Why, no, it's not
a habit of mine; and it's not a recipe that it would be a good thing to
overdo, is it?'

'Why not?' she asked.

'There are worse things than impatience, aren't there?' said Franklin.
'Gloominess, for instance. You might get gloomy if you sat out in the
dark a great deal.'

It amused her a little to wonder, as they went in together, whether Mr.
Kane disciplined his emotions and withdrew from restful influences
before they had time to become discouraging ones. She imagined that he
would have a recipe for everything.

CHAPTER XII.

It was after this little nocturnal encounter that Helen found herself