HELEN MORRISON SAT in the big library sort of room where Laurel had first watched her serve tea. She sat by one of the long windows that looked out upon the willow-shaded avenue that wound up to the front door; by the same window, it chanced, out of which she had run to meet Laurel the first time she had come to visit her four years ago. She was dressed very much as she had been then (it was morning and July), in white skirt and waist and low shoes. She sat in front of a desk, writing, in a dilatory fashion. Every little while she glanced back over her shoulder at the clock upon the mantel, then out the window down the willow-shaded drive, then back again to her pen.

Looking at Helen from the clock as she bent over her writing, she seemed not to have changed at all in the last four years, or in the last fourteen years; the same young-girl slenderness (not the slightest thickening of neck and shoulders, hip or ankle), the same young-girl lightness, as she sat poised on the edge of her chair, which was tilted forward on its two delicate front legs. But, when she raised her head, and looked back at the clock, then one saw without a shadow of doubt that she was no longer a girl. It wasn’t only her hair (for in the last four years the few white threads Laurel had discovered had become a definite streak of silver cloud that drifted about the left side of her brow and reached backward to the still dark coil in her neck)—it was something more convincing, something less obvious but deeper-rooted. There was on Helen’s face a look of settled calm (or was it settled hopelessness?) that hadn’t been there four years ago when she had rushed out of the long window down the lawn to meet Stephen and Laurel. There had been laughter and anticipation in her eyes then. Now there were only quiet smiles and submission.

Today, again, Helen was awaiting the arrival of an automobile. She had sent the car down to the station to meet the train due at ten forty. It was now after eleven. It was only five minutes to the station. The train must be late. She finished her letter, then rose, crossed the room, and stood looking out of another long window that opened out upon the terrace. Helen was awaiting the arrival of Laurel’s mother, of Stephen’s wife. She had telephoned last night from New York.

“I’m Mrs. Stephen Dallas,” the strange voice had announced. “I want to talk with you. Will you be home tomorrow morning if I come out?”

Helen had replied, with no surprise in her voice, that she would be glad to come in town and meet her if she preferred.

“No. I’d rather come out.”