Page:Across the Stream.djvu/231

Rh squall or a winter snow-storm would have served their purpose just as well.

Archie chattered for a little while, comparing the moon to a clipped finger-nail, the dimmed mirror of the lake to a frozen rink in Switzerland, with all the hollowness of superficial talk, when the tongue speaks from habit, which is as lightly rooted as the seed on stony ground. Heart-whole, he had often chattered like that, and Jessie had sunned herself and responded to those silly things; but now she knew, as well as he, that the babble was no more than blown sea-foam. It made her heart ache that he should talk it to her, for, though she made no claim on his love, it was miserable that he could not recognize how true a friend it was who was by his side in this song-haunted darkness. She knew—none better—that he had no love to give her, but her love that was so disciplined to go hungry without crying out, starved for a word from him that should fly the flag of friendship, noblest of all ensigns that are not of royal emblazonment.

They had come to the edge of the lake, and a moorhen steered its water-logged flight across the surface. And then Archie's foolish chatter died, and he was silent as he watched the rayed ripple of water. The wash died away in the reeds, and chuckled on the bank, and at last he spoke.

"Why did Helena treat me like that?" he said. "It wasn't fair on me. Why did she encourage me? She might so easily have shown me that she didn't care. She knew: don't tell me she didn't know! Do answer me. Didn't she know? All the time that we were in town together she knew. And she let me go on. She was waiting to see if she could catch the Bradshaw. If she couldn't, perhaps she would have taken me. Was it so? You ought to know: you're her sister."

His voice had risen from the first reproach of his speech to a fury of indignation.