“I want you to understand that we are always so glad, both Adrian and myself....  Any time we can help in any way, you know—­”

“Yes, I think you would.  You—­I have watched you both.  You don’t mind, do you?  I think you’re both rather great people—­at least, my idea of greatness.”

Cecil’s eyes shone just a little; then she sat back and drew together her eager, rather childish mouth.  This wouldn’t do!  She had not come here to encourage sentimentalization.  With a determined effort she lifted her mind outside the circle of commiseration which threatened to surround it.  She deliberately reset the conversation to impersonal limits.  She was sure that Mrs. Denby was aware of her intention, adroitly concealed as it was.  This made her uncomfortable, ashamed.  And yet she was irritated with herself.  Why should she particularly care what this woman thought in ways as subtle as this?  Obvious kindness was her intention, not mental charity pursued into tortuous by-paths.  And, besides, her frank, boyish cynicism, its wariness, revolted, even while she felt herself flattered at the prospect of the confidences that seemed to tremble on Mrs. Denby’s lips.  It wouldn’t do to “let herself in for anything”; to “give herself away.”  No!  She adopted a manner of cool, entirely reflective kindliness.  But all along she was not sure that she was thoroughly successful.  There was a lingering impression that Mrs. Denby was penetrating the surface to the unwilling interest beneath.  Cecil suspected that this woman was trained in discriminations and half-lights to which she and her generation had joyfully made themselves blind.  She felt uncomfortably young; a little bit smiled at in the most kindly of hidden ways.  Just as she was leaving, the subversive softness came close to her again, like a wave of too much perfume as you open a church-door; as if some one were trying to embrace her against her will.

“You will understand,” said Mrs. Denby, “that you have done the very nicest thing in the world.  I am horribly lonely.  I have few women friends.  Perhaps it is too much to ask—­but if you could call again sometime.  Yes ...  I would appreciate it so greatly.”

She let go of Cecil’s hand and walked to the door, and stood with one long arm raised against the curtain, her face turned toward the hall.

“There is no use,” she said, “in attempting to hide my husband’s life, for every one knows what it was, but then—­yes, I think you will understand.  I am a childless woman, you see; he was infinitely pathetic.”

Cecil felt that she must run away, instantly.  “I do—­” she said brusquely.  “I understand more than other women.  Perfectly!  Good-by!”