Chapter 8

The other woman who loved and was loved by him moved about her world in
these days with a face less radiant than the one people turned to look
at in the street or in its passing through the house in Eaton Square.
Helen Muir's eyes were grave and pondered. She had always known of the
sometime coming of the hour in which would rise the shadow--to him a
cloud of rapture--which must obscure the old clearness of vision which
had existed between them. She had been too well balanced of brain to
allow herself to make a tragedy of it or softly to sentimentalise of
loss. It was mere living nature that it should be so. He would be as
always, a beloved wonder of dearness and beauty when his hour came and
she would look on and watch and be so cleverly silent and delicately
detached from his shy, aloof young moods, his funny, dear involuntary
secrets and reserves. But at any moment--day or night--at any elate
emotional moment _ready_!

She had the rare accomplishment of a perfect knowledge of _how to wait_,
and to wait--if necessary--long. When the first golden down had shown
itself on his cheek and lip she had not noticed it too much and when his
golden soprano voice began to change to a deeper note and annoyed him
with its uncertainties she had spared him awkwardness by making him feel
the transition a casual natural thing, instead of a personal and
characteristic weakness. She had loved every stage of innocence and
ignorance and adorable silliness he had passed through and he had grown
closer to her through the medium of each, because nothing in life was
so clear as her lovely wiseness and fine perceptive entirety of sympathy
and poise.

"I never have to explain really," he said more than once. "You would
understand even if I were an idiot or a criminal. And you'd understand
if I were an archangel."

With a deep awareness she knew that, when she first realised that the
shadow was rising, it would be different. She would have to watch it
with an aloofness more delicate and yet more warmly sensitive than any
other. In the days when she first thought of him as like one who is
listening to a far-off sound, it seemed possible that in the clamour of
louder echoes this one might lose itself and at last die away even from
memory. It was youth's way to listen and youth's way to find it easy to
forget. He heard many reverberations in these days and had much reason
for thought and action. He thought a great deal, he worked
energetically, he came and went, he read and studied, he obeyed orders
and always stood ready for new ones. Her pride in his vigorous
initiative and practical determination was a glowing flame in her heart.
He meant to be no toy soldier.

As she became as practical a