He understood Helena now. She wanted, so sensibly, to make herself quite comfortable for this journey through life. If Marquises with millions desired her to go shares with them, naturally she consented. But to do that was not the least the same as taking vows and going into a nunnery. It was the nunnery that she was coming out of. Of course, just for the present Archie understood he would not see her, for she and the Bradshaw were going a yachting tour in the Norwegian fjords. But they would be back again before the end of September. So much and no more had her voice told him, but her eyes said much more intimate things, though naturally she did not express them, and when he asked if he might kiss her (that cousinly kiss which she had wanted at Silorno) her lips agreed with what her eyes said. She had never been so adorably pretty, and she had never been so demurely clever. She had said nothing which a girl who was to become another man's wife in a few days should not say, and yet Archie felt that he understood perfectly all the things she did not say. Most brilliant perhaps of all was her warning, "I shall tell the Bradshaw that I allowed you to kiss me," she cried. "But I'm not frightened: he is such a dear."
Gone, then, were all Archie's troubles and bitternesses on this point. He had love to cling to, and he scarcely felt jealous of the Bradshaw. For, if things had been the other way about, and Helena had been engaged to him, would she have allowed the Bradshaw to kiss her? He knew very well that she would not.
Archie turned over on to his back, and lay with arms and legs spread out to the sun, warming himself as with the memory of that expedition to London. But he had not in the least wished to postpone his return, since the joy of life lay so largely in its contrasts, and after thirty-six hours of that fiery furnace there had come a temporary satiety, and he wanted to lie and
