“On the whole,” she said, “perhaps it would be as well.  Yes, it is my advice.  It is quite likely that he will be revolted.  It may be curative.”

Alicia turned away her head to hide the faint frown that nevertheless crept into her voice.  “I don’t think so,” she said.  “How you do juggle with things!  I don’t know why I talk to you about this—­this matter.  I am sure I ought not.”

“I was going to say,” pursued Hilda, indifferent to her scruple, “that I shouldn’t be at all surprised if his illness leaves him quite emotionally sane.  The poison has worked itself out of his blood—­perhaps the passion and the poison were the same.  In such a case it’s all so physical.  It must be.”

“I wonder!” Alicia said.  She said it mechanically, as the easiest comment.

“When I knew you first your speculation would have been more active, my dear.  You would have looked into the possibility and disputed it.  What has become of your modernity?”

It was the tenderest malice, but it obtained no concessive sign.  Alicia seemed to weigh it.  “I think I like theories better than illustrations,” she said in defence.

“One can look at theories as one looks at the sky, but an illustration wants a careful point of view.  For this one perhaps you are a little near.”

“Perhaps,” Alicia assented, “I am a little near.”  She glanced quickly down as she spoke, but when she raised her eyes they were dry and clear.

“I can see it better,” Hilda went on, with immense audacity, “much better.”

“Isn’t it safer to feel?”

“Jamais de la vie! The nerves lie always.”

They were on the edge of the vortex of the old dispute.  Alicia leaned back among the cushions and regarded the other with an undecided eye.

“You are not sure,” said Hilda, “that you won’t ask me, at this point, to look at the pictures in that old copy of the Persian classic—­I forget its lovely name—­or inquire what sort of house we had last night.  Well, don’t be afraid of hurting my feelings.  Only, you know, between us, as between more doubtful people, the door must be either open or shut.  I fancy you take cold easily; perhaps you had better shut the door.”

“Not for worlds,” Alicia said, with promptitude.  Then she added rather cleverly, “That would be my spoiling my one view of life.”

Hilda smiled.  “Isn’t there any life where you live?” She glanced round her, at the tapestried elegance of the room, with sudden indifference.  “After all,” she said, “I don’t know what I am doing here, in your affairs.  As the world swings no one could be more remote from them or you.  I belong to its winds and its highways—­how have you brought me here, a tramp-actress, to your drawing-room?”

Alicia laid a detaining hand upon Miss Howe’s skirt.  “Don’t go away,” she said.  Hilda sat at the other end of the sofa; there was hardly a foot between them.  She went on with a curious excitement.