y, but under her air of unruffled calm, Aunt Julia's
shaft rankled.

She found herself that afternoon, when she and Helen were alone at tea,
sounding her, probing her, for reassuring symptoms of warmth or
affection. 'I so hope that we may keep really in touch with one
another,' she said. 'I couldn't bear not to keep in touch with you,
Helen.'

Helen looked at her with the look, vague, kind, and a little puzzled,
that seemed to plant Aunt Julia's shaft anew. 'Keep in touch,' she
repeated. 'Of course. You'll be coming to England some day, and then
you'll be sure to look me up, won't you?'

'But, until I do come, we will write? You will write to me a great
deal?'

'Oh, my dear, I do so hate writing. I never have anything to say in a
letter. Let us exchange postcards, when our doings require it.'

'Postcards!' Althea could not repress a disconsolate note. 'How can I
tell from postcards what you are thinking and feeling?'

'You may always take it for granted that I'm doing very little of
either,' said Helen, smiling.

Althea was silent for a moment, and then, with a distress apparent in
voice and face, she said: 'I can't bear you to say that.'

Helen still smiled, but she was evidently at a loss. She added some milk
to her tea and took a slice of bread and butter before saying, more
kindly, yet more lightly than before: 'You mustn't judge me by yourself.
I'm not a bit thoughtful, you know, or warm-hearted and intellectual,
like you. I just rub along. I'm sure you'll not find it worth while
keeping in touch with me.'

'It's merely that I care for you very much,' said Althea, in a slightly
quivering voice. 'And I can't bear to think that I am nothing to you.'

There was again a little pause in which, because her eyes had suddenly
filled with tears, Althea looked down and could not see her friend.
Helen's voice, when she spoke, showed her that she was pained and
disconcerted. 'You make me feel like such a clumsy brute when you say
things like that,' she said. 'You are so kind, and I am so selfish and
self-centred. But of course I care for you too.'

'Do you really?' said Althea, who, even if she would, could not have
retained the appearance of lightness and independence. 'You really feel
me as a friend, a true friend?'

'If you really think me worth your while, of course. I don't see how you
can--an ill-tempered, ignorant, uninteresting woman, whom you've run
across in a hotel and been good to.'

'I don't think